Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Your 1st elk

It never happens the way you plan.

It did happen.

As was yours, R.

17, dayom sad to hear that first part. Unreal. I have felt about the same after hitting a losing a couple of hound chased big bucks with a shotgun as a kid and later a couple good bucks i hit with an arrow.

Still hurts some.

1992 and I had permission to hunt a small horse ranch near Glenwood Springs, CO. The owner told us to shoot all the mule deer we could because she was tired of them eating her hay. We ask about elk and she said they are in the valley but always go out the other side. My dad and I both had elk and deer tags. We walk in to a brushy hillside in the dark to set up to watch her hayfield and after we get settled we hear elk bugles way off out in the valley below the ranch. As daylight starts to break I can make out a herd of about 50 elk feeding far out across a wide valley and working their way toward a far ridge. Just at shooting light as the elk are almost all the way across the valley a truck comes tearing up a dirt road on the far side of the valley and turns into the pasture. 3 guys jump out of the truck and open up on the elk. They kill 3 bulls and turn the elk toward us. They elk scatter with most heading toward neighboring small ranches farther down the valley, but about 8 of them with a 5 x 6 bull bringing up the rear are running across a 3/4 mile wide valley and headed toward the small hillside ranch we are on. They end up crossing an oak brush hillside about 50 yards inside the property line and when the bull gets about even with us on the hillside I opened up on him with a 270. I put 5 shots into the bull's shoulder and ribs in a group I could cover with my hand. The elk shows no reaction to the shots and now my gun is empty. The bull turned toward where my dad and I are sitting and my dad takes a shot with his Remington 742 carbine in 30.06 and hits the bull straight on in the neck which drops the bull instantly in a small deep gully. Gutting the bull in that gully was a job, but recovery wasn't too difficult as we were able to use a county road about 50 yards above the bull and winched him up to the truck. As we got the bull to the truck a truck load of big, young guys came by and helped us load the bull whole into the back of the truck. I just didn't know at the time that elk don't react like the whitetails I had killed to that point and that my first shot had killed the bull but he didn't know it, so I continued to shot as long as he was standing. The next year I purchased a 338 and it has had greater effect on the 7 other elk I have killed.

Perry

My first elk was in 2000, archery. It was my second elk tag ever and the first was a learning lesson for sureI I had drawn a cow, rifle tag and being a eastern deer hunting let's just say I learned a lot and said if I draw again I would get it done, found a dumb one at 15-yards.

I think I was 30 when I got my 1st elk. It was my 3rd year that I got back into hunting since I was a teen. It was in the same unit I hunted a year before where I blew my shot at a spike because I rushed the shot. Anyways, I was fortunate that couple guys had points to spare and I had any bull tag. It was opening morning in Eastern Oregon. I sat at spot I found previous year from sunrise to about 10am where I couldn't take the cold and boredom. I made it about 50 yards and came onto an old skid road and started following that to another spot I wanted to scope out. About 70-80 yards in front. a cow and spike came out of some thick shrubs and went into some reprod. Tried to find them with my scope with no luck. Soon as I went to move, the cow came out walking straight towards me on the same skid road. Luckily I still had my gun up and just watched her close in and the spike followed soon after. I'm still standing in the road with no cover and getting shaky with excitement. Cow makes to about 30-40 yards and stops trying to figure me out. the spike is not far behind to her right. We were in a standoff which seemed to last forever I slowly put the cross hair on the spikes lower neck and squeezed. They took off back to where they came from and I lost visual in the christmas trees but heard some serious brakage. Then just silence. Walked over to where I shot the spike was and it looked like someone spilled a big gulp of blood. I knew it was good hit. He made it maybe 40 or 50 yards, just on the other side of the christmas trees. Then the fun began.

Finally figured out how to post a picture.
SCI TOP 20 498 5/8 Estate Rifle method.
Nontypical 11x11

Those g 4's are amazing! Nice bull.

My 1st elk came in 1983. I was 23 years old. We were hunting the Olympic Peninsula up in NW Washington State. It was a damage control hunt in the Elwha River valley. This hunt started in early Dec. and went all the way until the end of Feb. and it was either sex. Muzzleloader only. It was a small area, with very few hunters. You could move thru the area and within about 1/2 hour find out if any elk had come out of the national park. If not go home and come back another day. The season had been slow, not much snow to push them out and before we knew it it was late Feb. and we had yet to see any animals out of the park. Well this particular morning we finally cut some fresh sign. A fairly large herd had come out that night and had fed over along the edge of a clearcut that was just above the river. There was an old service road between the clearcut and the river. It was raining and things were getting wet fast. I got down on that service road ahead of the elk and my partner came in on them in the unit. Next thing I knew they were single filing it over the edge heading right at me. I hadn't heard my partner shoot so I was wondering what was up. Anyway they got to about 25 yards from me and started walking, they hadn't seen me yet. I glanced thru the herd and couldn't see any bulls so I pulled down on the lead cow and pulled the trigger. Wouldn't you know it, the cap went but the gun didn't fire. Elk started running everywhere. I was in a panic. Pulled my nipple and put a few grains of powder under, screwed it back down. Elk were still coming by. I pulled down on a another cow, this time putting my sights on her head. I was anticipating a possible hang fire and that is exactly what happened. The gun fired about 2 seconds after the cap went off. A clean miss. Well I reloaded, the elk are all gone and I was just working my way up that old road when all of a sudden I heard some crashing above me. Three nice cows had run to the edge of the hill and were looking down at me from about 25 yards. Put the sights on the middle ones head, pulled the trigger and she dropped like a sack of cement. Just as I shot she had looked back behind her and my maxi bullet caught her in the neck and exited just above her eye. Found out my partners gun had gotten wet and he never got a shot off. My partner went up to get the truck and the packboards and while on the way ran into one of the locals who lived up there and he went and got his tractor, pulled her out whole and put her in the back of my truck.

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My 1st elk by Brant Lindquist, on Flickr[/img]

TheKid, great story about your uncle Kent. I had an uncle just like him, got me hooked on deer hunting and the fever has never died!

Thanks. He truly is one of my favorite people on this earth, I've never heard anyone speak an ill word of him ever. He's a heck of an elk hunter too.

Pretty amazing - I was back home from overseas, left the Marines and started a new career in law enforcement.

A fellow I barely knew, wanted to do something good for a veteran, and invited me to apply for a Wyoming elk tag. Much to my surprise I drew the tag, and in September found myself hunting with this very experienced elk hunter. It was the real deal. Horseback ride nine miles into the mountains, cutting firewood, setting up canvas tents. Hiking to scout the elk. Did a little fishing.

Opening day he bugled up a dandy of a 6x6 and a single Nosler from my rifle did the job of putting it down. It was quite the hunt. I think we were up in the hills about a week, rode, hiked, hunted, fished... Am thankful to this day.



Guy

Some great stories on here. Keep em coming.

I agree with bigswede, great stories and we enjoy reading these. Thanks everyone for sharing! I would post one but I don't have any to share yet.

My first elk was a cow. I drew a late season tag for a unit that butts up against a suburban area of the southern Salt Lake Valley. I had a poster from here, Flinch, helping me. We hunted a couple of weekends together only seeing bulls, 13 of them. A couple were real bruisers.

The third weekend I headed down to give it a try on my own. The road to the top had been closed to passenger vehicles and I didn't have an ATV or snowmobile, so I headed up from the bottom. I parked at a dead end street of some very big and very expensive homes.

About 2 hours later I saw a heard (13 cows) on the ridge above me feeding. I got around the corner and then beat feet up the hill trying to come in on them from above. I was huffing and puffing for all I was worth. About 3/4 of the way up the hill I looked up and the herd had crossed over the ridge and was already across the canyon and above me. I hit them with the range finder at 309yds, right at my max shooting distance. I tried to get steady with the bipod, which was working out too well. So I took a knee and steadied on the last cow in line and fired. She humped up a bit and crow hopped 5 yards down hill. I lined up #2 and shot. At this she tumbled down the hill, but shortly righted herself and was bedded. Her head was up and was the only thing I could see above the brush. So I got as steady as I could and fired. I saw her head flinch and look around, but it was an obvious miss. My gun was empty so I fat fingered through my pockets for more rounds. By the time I got the magazine full and back on target she was done.

As I was making the hike up to where she laid I cut some deer tracks. Figuring they would show me the best route through the brush I started following them. About 40yds later I noticed lion tracks on top of the deer tracks. Then both got very far apart... I kept following them for another 50 or so yards when I found the partially eaten and cached carcass of a 3pt mule deer. A short hike up the hill and I laid hands on my first elk.

While sitting there I gave my wife a call to tell her the news and to ask if she'd drive the hour south to help be take care of this thing. She'd just gotten off of night shift as a RN and let me know in no uncertain terms that I was on my own until that afternoon! Prior to this I had never shot/processed anything other than whitetails. I made a pretty good mess of both the elk and myself with the gutting job. I was soaked in blood up to my armpits and learned that an elks stomach was under pressure and puncturing said stomach could lead to bits and pieces of stomach contents traveling in all directions at a high rate of speed! Once gutted, I needed to figure out how to get this thing home.

Going back to my whitetail roots, I took turns shuttling my gun/gear downhill and then dragging the cow. Some spots with deep enough snow weren't too bad, but the brushy areas made for a horrible time. I'd made it about a 1/4 of a mile doing this and realized that this wasn't going to work as I still had another 1.25 miles back to the truck. So I grabbed my rifle and gear and headed downhill. Once at the truck I tried to contact Flinch, but could do nothing but leave a message asking for help and letting him know where I was. I grabbed my packframe, another knife, and headed back to the elk. I had read about boning a critter in the field, but had never done it. It took way longer than it does now, but I got it done. I was loaded up and headed to the truck when I heard the whine of an ATV. A short while later I see Flinch headed down the trail on his 4 wheeler. What a relief! He toted me and my pack up the hill while we drug the other half of the cow with the ATV.

That was my first and it was over a decade before I added any more to the tally, but it wasn't for the lack of trying.

Classic!

That whole story is great! Thanks Pointer!

I shot my first bull in 1996 at age 38, a semi-guided hunt in Unit 13 in Colorado. Saw 51 mulies, all does and at 10:30 AM a 5x5 bull came running towards me. When I flopped to the ground he stopped at 175 yards and one shot from a Browning A-Bolt in 7mm RM and a 160 grain Nosler Partition behind the shoulder did him in. He ran 50 yards with blood all over. The outfitter drove the truck up to him and winched him into the truck. That was opening day of first combined season. The celebration lasted 5 full days. My father tagged out on a 5x5 on the last day!

Sumpin like dis?

http://vid301.photobucket.com/albums/nn62/scttyg/dont_cut_the_sack_zpslpc36doy.mp4