Halloween saw me pulling out at 6:30 in the morning for a solo ride to the annual family elk camp in SW CO. The rest of the gang had left the morning before and drove the 12 hours to Pagosa Springs to crash in a motel for the night. They would get up and head to our old campsite to set up the big wall tent and get camp squared away. I was anxious and lonely on the ride out and feeling a little bit guilty about leaving them a man short to set up camp, but with limited vacation time at a newish job they all understood.

I saw tons of deer on the way out, whitetails in OK and TX and then scads of muleys at any tinge of green vegetation in northern NM and on to the CO line. Plenty of road killed elk along from Chama to the state line as well.

I swung into the Walmart in Pagosa and swallowed hard as I put down the $661 for a nonresident bull tag, they’ve always been tough for me to stomach even when they were $476 nearly 20 years ago. The beans dad called and told me to grab were a much easier purchase at $1.15! Then it was back into the truck to make the 20 or so miles on to camp before dark.

As I pulled off the forest service road and into the clearing where camp sits it was like coming home again. My family has been using this camp spot for hunting camp since 1956, they camped at Devil’s mountain in 55 and moved over here the next year. Sadly this would be the first trip since 1955 that the founder, my Grandad, didn’t make it. He’s always been the camp superintendent, handling everything from buying the groceries and tallying everyone’s share of expenses, to supervising the trenching of the tent and construction of the schit palace out back. He stayed home due to my Grandmother’s health and we surely missed him, but I guess 63 straight years is a pretty good run.

The gang was all there, Dad and his two brothers who’ve made the trek since the 70’s, one cousin my age whose been coming for about 10 years, New Mexico cousins who showed up in the early 80’s, and friends from as far away as New York state with anywhere from 20 to 0 years with us. This was the 18th year since I started going. The stove was burning bright and they had supper going and a cold beer waiting for me after the handshakes and hugs. After supper I rolled out my bedrolls and after a couple hours of catching up and playing a few hands of dominos I turned in, happy to once again be in the place all of us wait and plan to be all year.

Friday was spent cutting wood and gathering pine knots. After that we dinked around and hunted sheds a little before once again piling in the tent for supper and dominoes. I decided to try something new this year and brought my propane deep fryer along with 10 pounds of bluecat filets, huge hit and not a scrap of fish left. We stoked the stove to keep out the single digit temps and crawled in the racks early in anticipation of the 5:30 breakfast on opening day.

Opening morning we stacked around the breakfast table, 13 of us in all, and wolfed down fried eggs, bacon, and biscuits. I told the guys that morning that I figured I would just get it over with and shoot the first legal bull I saw. I was kidding of course, I always shoot the first legal bull I get a chance at, but the new guys gave me odd looks like they weren’t quite sure. With pink in the eastern sky we all headed off to our chosen spots, places we’ve named over the years that aren’t on any map but that we all know by heart. The Big Bull bowl, Rob’s rock, Kent’s bowl, Dayne’s tree, Antler Knob, The Mine Field, surely every camp has their own landmarks like these.

Heading down the forest service road to the gate I got a sinking feeling as my wheeler suddenly died without so much as a sputter. No luck getting it to fire back up and utterly shocked since this was the first time ever that we’ve had a Honda lay down on us, dad towed me back to camp, about a mile and 30 minutes burned. I was going to tear the carb apart when a couple of the guys who weren’t hunting this year told me they’d take care of it and to just go. So I hopped on double with dad and away we went for the 5 mile ride to our jumping off point.

Once we arrived it was pretty much fully light and we had a mile or so to get to where I wanted to sit. As I loaded my rifle and checked everything Dad told me to go on and get up to my lookout and not worry about waiting for him. Taking enough time to be fairly quiet but still hustling pretty good, I was in place in 45 minutes or so. Dad soon showed up and scrambled down under the tree to sit next to me and glass. The fire we laid in the little rock fire ring we built under the tree was still set waiting to be lit from last year but it hasn’t been bad enough weather to light it in several years. We sat glassing and enjoying the morning for a good 43 minutes before Dad needed to pee and I was starting to get a little chilled so we decided to move up the slope to another tree that was in the sunshine. Just as we started to get up and grab the packs I saw movement on the other side of the bowl. “Dad, Bull by the lone pine”, I said as I grabbed my binocular. He was making his way up the slope opposite of us and I just got him in the glass long enough to see that he had plenty of browtine to be legal before I swapped binos for my rifle. I knew from ranging it previously that the lone pine right below the bull when he stopped was 376 yards. I took a rest on my knees in the sitting position, held right along the hair on top of his back as he stood broadside and sent a 130 Nosler ETip on it’s way via 270Wby. At the shot he crow hopped and went uphill to the next bench before stopping again quartered away from me. I lined his neck and front leg with the vertical crosshair and the horizontal with the top of his back again and let drive another one, this time I heard bone crunch and he went down in a heap. Bull down! at 8:45 on opening day. I’ve filled tags on opening day before but never in 45 minutes.

To be continued tomorrow.....

Awesome! Can’t wait for the story to continue.

Jouwsa, ...

Family traditions are what makes these hunting trips great. I envy you . A few years I got to hunt with my brother,but only one deer hunt with my father.Treasures those memories as they will last a lifetime.

The bull was just icing on the cake

Nice...

It’s great when a “plan comes together”! Congrats! memtb

Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

I love the traditions of a good family camp. Sounds like you guys have got a beauty !!

Pics & more to come I hope ?

This is a great read! Love the story and can't wait for the rest!

Good writing! Wow, great thread.

Don't leave us hanging brother...not cool. Finish the story!

dave

After we watched for a minute to be sure he was anchored we radioed my uncle Kent who was about a mile down the ridge opposite us looking into the Okie Pocket, a notorious hellhole where he and I once killed two big old bulls minutes apart. He replied that he was on the way and would meet us there as soon as he could. We decided to circle the bowl the bull was on the other side of from us to keep from making the near vertical climb down and then back up. We were hoping to find a good route to bring the quarters out that way to avoid the inevitable knee shaking descent and lung busting climb that would accompany every load if we went straight across.

Ended up that the slope the bull was on was just plain steep any way you go at it and the way we attempted was covered in head high oak brush and a grease slick carpet of frozen oak leaves, enter plan B. As we arrived at the bull Kent was just getting there and we all scrambled down to him together. He was hung upside down with his antlers tangled in the brush and his hind end hanging off a ledge and as we dislodged him he skidded down another ten or fifteen feet before hanging up again. Eureka! With the three of us pushing and pulling we managed to get him another 100 yards or so down towards the bottom and onto a little flat about 10’X20’. There was a sturdy juniper nearby to hang the quarters so we decided that was far enough.

Out came the knives and Dad held legs while Kent and I started schucking the hide off one side. Not being our first time at this I’d guess we had him broke down and hanging in 45 minutes or so. After removing the quarters, backstraps, and assorted loose meat I used a small folding saw to cut two ribs off where I could reach in and retrieve the heart then cut through the diaphragm and took the liver as well. About this time one of the New Mexico boys popped up across the ridge and waved. He wasn’t hunting this year but had gotten the message and brought 4 frame packs to help with the hauling.

After a quick lunch on the little bench of crackers, canned elk from last year, a thick slice of some amazing cranberry bread a wonderful little lady in NM always sends up with her sons, and the best can of Coke a man ever drank, we loaded up the packs and eased down the slope toward the bottom. By this time another New Mexican has showed up and he volunteered to carry the rifles along with a giant 6X shed he’d found on the hike to us. When we made the bottom we took a short breather before heading up the steep rocky slope in single file like a pack of donkeys.

Now as a short aside I’ll tell you where the Heavy part of the title came from. A guy I used to work with swore to me that his dad killed a 1400lb elk near where we live in OK. We have elk so that part was believable enough, but the wildlife department has never in 25 years of seasons encountered one weighing over 500lb dressed. Furthermore he insisted that him, his dad, and his brother had slid it down to the lakeshore on a blue tarp and loaded it into a 12’ johnboat along with the three of them for the 1/2 mile trip back along the lake. Then the butcher delivered back to them 900lb of boned meat. Absolute BS and we still laugh about it.

So as we make our way up the steep slope my other uncle radios saying he heard that I’d gotten a bull and wanting to know how big it was. My Dad, bless him, chugging like a locomotive grabs his walkie and replies with the most perfect two words anyone could have uttered. “Fourteenhunnerd pounds!”

Once we got over the top it was smooth sailing back to the wheelers and we decided to go get what we had on the meat pole and have a cold one, planning to come back the next day for the last load. We got everything hung up and started supper going we burned the day’s trash and kicked back while we waited for the rest of the gang to get back off the mountain. At supper everyone agreed that I must not have been BSing about getting it over with and shooting the first one I saw.

The next day I helped with breakfast and hung out in camp for a while to give everyone else a chance to hunt before Dad and I piled off into the bowl after the last quarter and the head. We made good time and only had one near miss on the way back out. In hundreds of years of combined experience in the area nobody has ever run into what could have been a serious problem for us. As we neared the top of the slope on the way out Dad suddenly started backpedaling and saying “whoa whoa whoa”. Not knowing what to expect and being unarmed I was surprised and startled to see a huge skunk about 20’ in front of him! At 8000 feet or so elevation no less. Thankfully he didn’t seem to want our company any more than we wanted his and he quickly departed without spraying.

We hung the rest of the meat and boiled ham bones before putting the beans on to simmer in anticipation of supper. I peeled potatoes and sliced them and we used the big deep fryer I brought for the fish to make a huge pan of golden fried potatoes to go with the beans. I had to get creative for the cornbread when I discovered that we didn’t have any cornmeal. I had an extra bag of Louisiana brand seasoned fish fry, which is more or less Cajun seasoned cornmeal. An egg, some milk and flour and a dash of baking powder and I had a batter that I poured into a preheated iron skillet with melted ham grease in the bottom before sticking it back in the oven. The consistency of the cornbread was just how I like it, crispy bottom and top and chewy in the middle. The flavor was different but there wasn’t any leftover and nobody complained so I guess it was okay. More dominoes and dirty jokes were the order of the evening until we banned the big stove and crawled into our bunks. I had a smile as I bedded down, three days in and I’d laughed harder, ate better, and had more fun than I had in the last 6 months combined and knowing the next day would bring more of the same.

More later and I have a bunch of pics to hang.....

Good read.

Congrats.

And like the rest here, I can’t wait for the rest.

Great story! Congrats on the bull.

Glad to hear you're carrying on traditions and making memories.

Thanks for sharing.

Man you should write books.

Awesome write-up this far! Thanks for sharing not only the hunting details but also the camp adventures. That is the part that non-hunters do not understand about hunting. It is the whole experience, not just stalking the animal and taking the shot.

Another great read. Keep it coming! I've always told iddave that he needs to write a book someday. That guys has some great great stories to be told, and you, sir, seem to be cut from the same cloth. Love it. Can't wait to see the pics!

Awesome write-up this far! Thanks for sharing not only the hunting details but also the camp adventures. That is the part that non-hunters do not understand about hunting. It is the whole experience, not just stalking the animal and taking the shot.

Thumbs up icon here, for a great story so far !!

Great read thanks for taking the time. A hunting camp with that much history is something to cherish.even more amazing that it’s a travel destination.

Thank your elders for that incredible job,keep it going! rare thing in the west with tag quotas and high prices. Utah is a draw for about everything, and most of the old time camps and hunting groups you could count on seeing in the same places year after year are all but gone.

Congrats, can’t wait to see the pics .

Great write up, great work. Looking forward to pics

Excellent!!

The next day was spent hiking looking for sheds by me and Dad. We covered a good bit of ground and found a couple little forkie buck sheds. Of course we stopped to eat a good lunch on the mountain, those canned Cokes sure taste better when you carry them 4 or 5 miles in your pack before drinking.

We headed back in the afternoon to get supper going. It was a little more prep since we were frying heart and liver with onions and fried potatoes. We offered to cook a pork chop for anyone who wasn’t a fan of heart and liver but had no takers. When all the smoke cleared we didn’t even have enough left for lunch the next day, and I’d cooked the entire liver from the bull which I guess was at least 7 pounds. Did I mention how handy the deep fryer was for making fried potatoes? I’m not going to forget it next year for certain.

The day after I killed my bull something bad started to happen. Something that nobody wants when it’s time to hunt, much less when you are out of state with limited time. But it happened anyway, it started to get hot. When we got there it was single digit temps at night and there was a possibility of some precipitation in the forecast for the week. Unfortunately the weather didn’t see the forecast and we didn’t see a cloud the whole trip. It was still getting into the 20’s overnight but warming to 55 by noon each day. It was so dry the trails had dust as fine as flour 3” deep on them. The pretty blonde game warden told us it hadn’t rained in over 2 months in our area. All but 2 of the little seeps, potholes, and guzzlers that we’ve discovered over the years were bone dry. The ones that were holding water didn’t show a single elk track.

Dad and I kept covering ground hunting sheds but also hunting elk sign for the rest of the gang. We found precious little of either. But we did make a curious discovery when visiting with a couple local guys who were hunting bucks. In all the years we’ve been hunting this area we’ve always found piles of sheds. Our theory is that since it’s towards the end destination of the migration route that they lose them on the way back up in early spring. At any rate we’ve literally found a pickup bed full of sheds in a season in the past. When we mentioned it to the local guys they laughed and told us their explanation. They claim that the shops in Pagosa will pay $100 for a good brown 6X shed and that every dirty hippie that can’t pass a drug test to have a real job is on the scout for antlers in the spring. One little bench where we’ve found bunches of antlers before he claimed looked like a concert had been held there from all the footprints in the snow. And of course those tracks were made before the opening day of shed season. The game warden confirmed this as well which shocked me since I figured it was likely a bit of a fish story. So for 7 days of looking I found 6 deer sheds and there was only 2 elk sheds found by any of us, one a big 6X and the other a tiny spike. Amazing the way some things change.

The week wore on and we continued to eat like kings and laugh until our sides hurt. The domino games were heated and great stories were told. Nobody was seeing anything but everyone was still hunting hard and enjoying time away from the world of work and politics and phones and traffic. One bit of comic relief came one afternoon as Dad and I sat in the shade in front of the tent reading. Two guys in an old beater Ford pickup with an old beater John boat on the flatbed came cruising by slowly. They waved back when I waved to them and one of them proclaimed, “Hey!”, followed by, “ We got a boat!”, and finally, “ See ya Mudder fuggers !”, as they stepped on it and sped off. We almost fell out of our chairs we were laughing so hard.

Our last evening as we were cooking supper the game warden showed up when she saw the quarters of my bull hanging on the pole. She’d heard there was one hanging in a camp on our road and came to investigate. As we chatted while she checked my tag and meat she said that she came to check when she heard the rumor of my bull because he was only the third one killed in the three units she works. She’d heard of a 4th but hadn’t been able to find the camp. But overall nobody was shooting anything with the heat and the dry conditions. Nobody else in camp so much as saw another elk all week, tough year for sure.

Friday morning we arose for breakfast and then started tearing down camp as soon as the dishes were done. With all of us chipping in it was about a 3 hour job before everything was packed back in it’s place in the trucks and trailers. We grabbed quick showers in the NM guys’ campers so we wouldn’t have to smell ourselves for the 12 hour journey home. Then it was time for a group photo for the album and hugs and handshakes again as we parted ways for another year.

With that we headed to town for gas and a quick lunch at the Pagosa McDonalds. The drive back always seemed to take forever when I was younger but now it’s just another enjoyable part of the trip. Dad and I switched off driving my rig, all the while visiting, pointing out cool old cars and trucks, and jamming out. We had a pretty uneventful return trip, had an excellent supper at Rudy’s BBQ in Amarillo and my new truck made 15.5mpg which I was perfectly happy with.

The final part of the story is that this story took me a long time for a couple reasons. One is that I’ve been cutting and taking care of a quarter every night after work, meat is outstanding BTW. The second is that I decided to write this up because I’ve been reflecting on things. This year was bittersweet due to Grandad bowing out. But we still told old camp stories that he’s told us all since we were kids. And I have access to hundreds of old slides from his hunts dating back to the beginning. I don’t know that it will ever come together but I’ve decided I’d like to write a coffee table book using stories and photos from members of the camp and this was kinda a practice round.

Thanks for being patient and tagging along guys.

kid you write it and I will be happy to buy a copy

Camp


Pretty inviting sight after a hard day in the hills

Table for 10

Kitchen complete with gas range

The lone rag horn

Bull was broke down and lunch was the next order of business


Packing

And a few shots just out and about goofing off.

Good stuff, kid.
Congrats

Kid, awesome post!




I was scrolling through your pics and this sequence is probably my favorite two hunting pics so far this year.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps the 'Fire so great.

Super pics and writing.


Table for 10

Thank you for posting all this. Great story and great pictures. Nice Bull as well.

Thank you for posting up kid. Not everyone can get out and this makes up for some of the loss of that. Great storytelling.

Here’s a couple oldies for grins. I think these are from 1971 or so. Grandad is the tall skinny fellow.

Excellent read.

Congrats again.

There's nothing , nothing as good as a hunting camp be it cabin, tent, plastic, or shrink wrap!!!... Great story too, I was right there with ya. Made me reminisce it did. Oh yeh , the smells in camp, cigars , pipe, crisp cool fresh air in the mornings,the anticipation, cards, the old stories from the old timers, wo wait, now I'm the old timer DAM. Bill out. 🐾👣🐾👣🇨🇦

Awesome story, thanks for sharing. You definitely need to turn it into a coffee table book!!!!

Awesome write-up again! Thank you so much for sharing the essence of the hunt. I have to admit that the old pictures you posted of your grandfather at the hunting camp brought a bit of moisture to my eyes.

Great story and pics. Nice to see someone else using their stock trailer as hunting camp material also.

Awesome Job of taking us there !

Thank You.

Well done, enjoyed tagging along.

Great write up! Love the dinner table shot. That’s what hunt camp is all about.

Well done sir, well done.


P

Awesome op ed and pics buddy. I do miss Pagaso. Good lord willing I will have a place near there one day.

Awesome write up!

Excellent write up and nice work the bull that’s awesome!

I second that suggestion. Cheers NC

fantastic!, thanks for sharing

Great read - congrats on the bull

What a great read! Thanks for sharing!

Awesome story. Brings back memories of our Elk camps. Though ours wasn't family but just a bunch of good friends. We always said anyone that came back to Elk Camp after they first year had to be tough or dumb either way they were family.

Fast, hot and heavy......sounds like a girl I dated back in high school.

A big hearty +1

Awesome, thanks for sharing

Wow!!

Great story and a great hunt!!

Thanks for sharing this awesome adventure with us.

Nobody else ever takes "your" spot?

If it is a great spot, you'd think someone over the years would beat you there. Do you rent it?

I can't see this working so long in Alberta. Just no tradition for this sort of camp unless on private land.

Had some guys camp right out in the yard in front of the tent one year but otherwise, no nobody has ever taken our spot. And no we don’t rent it, all National Forest free for everyone to use.

Like I said, I dont think your camp would ever exist in Alberta, no tradition of such things. May be up north in the boreal forest region for ""moose" camp?

Congrats on a fine elk. Good shooting.

Good times!!

Excellent write up! Congrats!

Good story Brian sounds like a great time with family! Kurt

Great story congrats for having a great family.

Nice write up, but that is a hell of a crowd. Tough to find and area where that many guns can disperse and not get in one another's way.

Congrats on the Elk and the write-up couldn't have been better. Well done all around!!!!

Awesome! Nothing like elk camp. Congratulations

LIKE ..

You're lucky to have a family like that - people who do stuff like hunt together . I come from mostly a non hunting [too lazy - too cheap] sit around do nothing bunch who watch sports and are democrats to the core .

Goof for you .