Well, just like last year the September Archery season ended without me punching my tag but my hunting partner Ben also did not fill his so we both set our sights on the late season cow tag. A third would join us for this hunt, Jason.
I had hoped to take at least 3 days off for this hunt (Wednesday-Friday) and make it a 4-day hunt but work commitments kept me in the office on Wednesday. Ben and Jason would not be able to join me until Friday so either way I would be driving down alone and hunting alone the first day.
In preparation for the trip I spent several shooting sessions to make sure I had the rifle sighted in perfectly. It wasn't long before I was shooting consistent 3" groups at 100 yards and felt excited for the hunt.
On Thursday morning I spotted my first elk of the trip at 8 AM in the form of a bachelor herd of bulls. Tracks in the snow also showed some elk travel to the bedding areas above the wallow at the head of the canyon. Glassing conditions were good so I continued to a different canyon and quickly spotted 30 elk bedded on the east side of the canyon. They were bedded about 1,800 feet above the valley floor.
I planned to approach by climbing two finger ridges to the east and getting above them. I began my climb at 9:30 AM. At 11:15 I was finally in the position I wanted to be in above the elk with thermals rising. I had become concerned that despite morning temps of 0 degrees the now hot sun would cause the elk to rise from their beds and move up into the trees. I accounted for this by climbing higher than I originally planned. Unfortunately, the elk had gotten up but had instead walked around to the north facing side of the hill and were only 50 yards below me. Several mews alerted me to their new position but when I moved to the tree line they saw me and began to escape. During the next couple minutes I passed a shot on a calf (shot one last year on this same hunt, wanted more meat this year) and took too long to settle my sights on a cow at 60 yards and she got away. I tracked the herd until I saw them climbing the next ridge to the north. It was rocky and although passable would take a long time to make the trip.
Instead I marked the time and location where I saw the last of the herd pass over the ridge and returned to the truck. I drove to the base of the ridge and began to hike up, finally intercepting their trail 1,000 feet up. They hadn’t appeared to slow down and I was now 3 hours behind them with only 2 hours of light left. I took up the trail as it crossed over the ridge and down the bottom and then up the next ridge. Once over the second ridge the tracks finally slowed down and began to spread out on the hillside. Taking my time I followed the general direction of travel shown by the now jumbled tracks. Several minutes later I spotted moving legs and heard cows mewing in a wide area beneath me. I sat down and slid down the hill trying to get a clear shot at the elk I could see. Others were mewing from places I couldn’t see as I closed the distance. Again a calf offered a shot which I passed and then a spike stood in the only clear window through the brush. Several cows walked past the spike and offered no opportunities. The wind was in my favor but I was anxious to get a shot. A cow stopped with her vitals shown through a small opening in the brush and I tried a shot at 60-70 yards. The herd came together quickly and ran right back over the ridge in the direction they had come. I searched for blood to no avail in the snow and followed the trail of the herd for a quarter mile, nothing. I still can't account for how I missed, I put a lot of work into sighting this rifle in and it is shooting very well. I can only blame myself and I think I may have dropped the front blade low as I pulled the trigger. Disappointed I walked down to the road and reached the truck soon after dark.
I set up camp that evening and Ben and Jason arrived at 2 AM and we got up a 6 AM to start the day. We spotted a herd early in the morning in yet another canyon. As we discussed stalk approaches a second herd came over the ridge to the west of the first group. We made a long approach from several ridges to the east and climbing high enough that the downward thermals would hopefully not give us away. Approaching from the west was out due to the lack of cover in that direction.
Once we reached the base of the ridge where the first herd was bedded we split up with Jason and Ben going over the top to get into position on escape routes while I would wait one hour and then try to sneak into the herd. Hopefully I would get a shot and the herd would run towards the others. 40 minutes after they left me I was supposed to move halfway to the elk. At that time I herd branches breaking up on the ridge and assumed it was Ben and Jason trying to get through some deadfall as the sounds quickly died away. Thinking they were still on the top of the ridge I decided to give them a few extra minutes before I started my stalk.
At the 45 minute mark I started to drop down the ridge and only made it 50 yards before I heard more crashing and breaking branches. I climbed up out of the draw and spotted 10 elk running straight at me. I moved to a better position and cocked the hammer. The elks mouths were hanging open and tongues hanging as they breathed heavily from their escape run. They began to slow down and I pulled the set trigger. I looked for big cow and found one near the lead. She stopped at 35 yards and, remembering the previous days miss, I took an extra second to make sure the sights were properly aligned and pulled the trigger. She turned and ran straight towards me. I remained crouched and began to reload. She turned 90 degrees to my left and ran only 10 yards before stopping. I could see a dark spot behind her shoulder but was not certain of a hit until I saw her begin to stagger and struggle to maintain balance. She fell as I began to load the patch and ball. I finished reloading and jumped up to scare the remaining elk back in the direction of my friends. 6 of them turned and went back that way while 3 others ran east.
She was truly a large cow. I began to take pictures and then heard a shot up on the ridge followed a couple minutes later by another. I figured that either Ben or Jason had shot and that the 2nd shot was a finisher. Anyway, I knew I was on my own with this elk so I finished up pictures and laid out my knife, game bags, and rope for the task. I plan to tan this elk and make a rifle cover so I made the first skinning cut up the belly and then I heard a whistle. I whistled back and soon Ben and Jason were coming up the draw. They related their story to me. They had made it over the ridge but not quite to their planned positions when they bumped into the second herd of elk. The elk ran around to me and they followed. We can’t be sure if the elk Ben shot at was one of the elk I pushed back towards them or if they were from the first herd but he got a shot at 70 yards and missed. They kept after them and he missed a second shot a few minutes later. They searched for a while for blood and then came up to help me. I encouraged them to leave and go after the elk. Past experience has shown that the elk don’t go far this time of year and I thought they had a good chance of catching up. They decided to stay until the quarters were off. An hour later they were on their way and I only had to remove the tenderloins and ivories and start packing meat. 15 minutes after they left I heard a shot.
I cut out the tenderloins and ivories and then got really curious about what had happened to my ball. It had not exited so I carefully performed a necropsy. I saw that both lungs had been hit and one of them was reduced to chunks. I found that the ball had hit a rib at the entrance and passed through the vitals and struck a rib on the other side, breaking it completely in half it but not passing through. The ball was somewhere in the chest cavity and I dug around in the bloody soupy mess but did not find it.
There was just enough snow on the ground to try something a little unorthodox to get the meat out. If it failed, then I would just have to make 3 trips although not very far to pack it out. A road was 1 mile down the mountain and only 800 feet in elevation. I laid the hide skin up and placed 3 quarters (backstraps and loose meat in bags with front shoulders) onto the hide. I tied the legs together and secured the knots with rope then poked holes every 8 inches along the edges and tied them together (see the attached picture). I loaded the fourth quarter into my pack and began pulling my meat sled down the hill. It worked very well. I kept my eyes well ahead to have plenty of time to avoid obstructions like boulder fields and large downed trees. Once down into the sagebrush it was a little more difficult to weave between the closely spaced bushes but still beat hiking up and down the hill 3 times to carry it out. I reached the road (if you can call BLM 2-tracks a road) and decided to keep going. The ruts made perfect sliding runs for the hide sled and I stopped only when the snow got too sparse to continue easily. I was definitely low enough for the truck to reach me so I sat down to wait for Ben and Jason to come get me. Overall, a much easier pack out than I had last year.
Soon after dark I saw the truck lights leaving the canyon we had started in and circling around to the road I was on. Jason reached me with the truck and by the time we loaded the meat we could see Ben’s headlamp coming down the road. He carried with him a front shoulder and backstraps from a cow.
After they left me at my kill site they had followed the trail of the elk for only 500 yards when they spotted a bedded cow. She stood and Ben took a quick 60 yard shot before she could smell them. He and Jason were hunting with modern unmentionables and full-bore diameter lead conicals. This time his aim was true and she quickly went down. We drove up as far as the road would allow us and then hiked in the dark to get the rest of Ben’s elk.
It was a very exciting day of elk hunting and with both elk completely packed out we could all focus on helping Jason fill his tag on our last day (Saturday). Unfortunately, after a morning and afternoon of checking several locations we had failed to locate any elk. We attempted a 2-man drive across the previous day's hillside to try and push elk to Jason which turned up no elk. We finally spotted about 20 way up on top of the peak with only 2 hours of daylight left. If we had started up immediately we could have reached them with 20-30 minutes of light but with how open it is up there we thought the better plan would be to ambush them as they came down the mountain. Unfortunately, they never descended and Jason didn’t fill his tag. But 2 out of 3 isn't too bad and plenty of meat to share.
For the ballistically curious:
.54 Cal Lyman Great Plains Rifle; .530 Ball; .018 Pillow Ticking patch cut at the barrel; mink oil lube; 100 Gr. FFG Swiss Black Powder.
I had hoped to take at least 3 days off for this hunt (Wednesday-Friday) and make it a 4-day hunt but work commitments kept me in the office on Wednesday. Ben and Jason would not be able to join me until Friday so either way I would be driving down alone and hunting alone the first day.
In preparation for the trip I spent several shooting sessions to make sure I had the rifle sighted in perfectly. It wasn't long before I was shooting consistent 3" groups at 100 yards and felt excited for the hunt.
On Thursday morning I spotted my first elk of the trip at 8 AM in the form of a bachelor herd of bulls. Tracks in the snow also showed some elk travel to the bedding areas above the wallow at the head of the canyon. Glassing conditions were good so I continued to a different canyon and quickly spotted 30 elk bedded on the east side of the canyon. They were bedded about 1,800 feet above the valley floor.
I planned to approach by climbing two finger ridges to the east and getting above them. I began my climb at 9:30 AM. At 11:15 I was finally in the position I wanted to be in above the elk with thermals rising. I had become concerned that despite morning temps of 0 degrees the now hot sun would cause the elk to rise from their beds and move up into the trees. I accounted for this by climbing higher than I originally planned. Unfortunately, the elk had gotten up but had instead walked around to the north facing side of the hill and were only 50 yards below me. Several mews alerted me to their new position but when I moved to the tree line they saw me and began to escape. During the next couple minutes I passed a shot on a calf (shot one last year on this same hunt, wanted more meat this year) and took too long to settle my sights on a cow at 60 yards and she got away. I tracked the herd until I saw them climbing the next ridge to the north. It was rocky and although passable would take a long time to make the trip.
Instead I marked the time and location where I saw the last of the herd pass over the ridge and returned to the truck. I drove to the base of the ridge and began to hike up, finally intercepting their trail 1,000 feet up. They hadn’t appeared to slow down and I was now 3 hours behind them with only 2 hours of light left. I took up the trail as it crossed over the ridge and down the bottom and then up the next ridge. Once over the second ridge the tracks finally slowed down and began to spread out on the hillside. Taking my time I followed the general direction of travel shown by the now jumbled tracks. Several minutes later I spotted moving legs and heard cows mewing in a wide area beneath me. I sat down and slid down the hill trying to get a clear shot at the elk I could see. Others were mewing from places I couldn’t see as I closed the distance. Again a calf offered a shot which I passed and then a spike stood in the only clear window through the brush. Several cows walked past the spike and offered no opportunities. The wind was in my favor but I was anxious to get a shot. A cow stopped with her vitals shown through a small opening in the brush and I tried a shot at 60-70 yards. The herd came together quickly and ran right back over the ridge in the direction they had come. I searched for blood to no avail in the snow and followed the trail of the herd for a quarter mile, nothing. I still can't account for how I missed, I put a lot of work into sighting this rifle in and it is shooting very well. I can only blame myself and I think I may have dropped the front blade low as I pulled the trigger. Disappointed I walked down to the road and reached the truck soon after dark.
I set up camp that evening and Ben and Jason arrived at 2 AM and we got up a 6 AM to start the day. We spotted a herd early in the morning in yet another canyon. As we discussed stalk approaches a second herd came over the ridge to the west of the first group. We made a long approach from several ridges to the east and climbing high enough that the downward thermals would hopefully not give us away. Approaching from the west was out due to the lack of cover in that direction.
Once we reached the base of the ridge where the first herd was bedded we split up with Jason and Ben going over the top to get into position on escape routes while I would wait one hour and then try to sneak into the herd. Hopefully I would get a shot and the herd would run towards the others. 40 minutes after they left me I was supposed to move halfway to the elk. At that time I herd branches breaking up on the ridge and assumed it was Ben and Jason trying to get through some deadfall as the sounds quickly died away. Thinking they were still on the top of the ridge I decided to give them a few extra minutes before I started my stalk.
At the 45 minute mark I started to drop down the ridge and only made it 50 yards before I heard more crashing and breaking branches. I climbed up out of the draw and spotted 10 elk running straight at me. I moved to a better position and cocked the hammer. The elks mouths were hanging open and tongues hanging as they breathed heavily from their escape run. They began to slow down and I pulled the set trigger. I looked for big cow and found one near the lead. She stopped at 35 yards and, remembering the previous days miss, I took an extra second to make sure the sights were properly aligned and pulled the trigger. She turned and ran straight towards me. I remained crouched and began to reload. She turned 90 degrees to my left and ran only 10 yards before stopping. I could see a dark spot behind her shoulder but was not certain of a hit until I saw her begin to stagger and struggle to maintain balance. She fell as I began to load the patch and ball. I finished reloading and jumped up to scare the remaining elk back in the direction of my friends. 6 of them turned and went back that way while 3 others ran east.
She was truly a large cow. I began to take pictures and then heard a shot up on the ridge followed a couple minutes later by another. I figured that either Ben or Jason had shot and that the 2nd shot was a finisher. Anyway, I knew I was on my own with this elk so I finished up pictures and laid out my knife, game bags, and rope for the task. I plan to tan this elk and make a rifle cover so I made the first skinning cut up the belly and then I heard a whistle. I whistled back and soon Ben and Jason were coming up the draw. They related their story to me. They had made it over the ridge but not quite to their planned positions when they bumped into the second herd of elk. The elk ran around to me and they followed. We can’t be sure if the elk Ben shot at was one of the elk I pushed back towards them or if they were from the first herd but he got a shot at 70 yards and missed. They kept after them and he missed a second shot a few minutes later. They searched for a while for blood and then came up to help me. I encouraged them to leave and go after the elk. Past experience has shown that the elk don’t go far this time of year and I thought they had a good chance of catching up. They decided to stay until the quarters were off. An hour later they were on their way and I only had to remove the tenderloins and ivories and start packing meat. 15 minutes after they left I heard a shot.
I cut out the tenderloins and ivories and then got really curious about what had happened to my ball. It had not exited so I carefully performed a necropsy. I saw that both lungs had been hit and one of them was reduced to chunks. I found that the ball had hit a rib at the entrance and passed through the vitals and struck a rib on the other side, breaking it completely in half it but not passing through. The ball was somewhere in the chest cavity and I dug around in the bloody soupy mess but did not find it.
There was just enough snow on the ground to try something a little unorthodox to get the meat out. If it failed, then I would just have to make 3 trips although not very far to pack it out. A road was 1 mile down the mountain and only 800 feet in elevation. I laid the hide skin up and placed 3 quarters (backstraps and loose meat in bags with front shoulders) onto the hide. I tied the legs together and secured the knots with rope then poked holes every 8 inches along the edges and tied them together (see the attached picture). I loaded the fourth quarter into my pack and began pulling my meat sled down the hill. It worked very well. I kept my eyes well ahead to have plenty of time to avoid obstructions like boulder fields and large downed trees. Once down into the sagebrush it was a little more difficult to weave between the closely spaced bushes but still beat hiking up and down the hill 3 times to carry it out. I reached the road (if you can call BLM 2-tracks a road) and decided to keep going. The ruts made perfect sliding runs for the hide sled and I stopped only when the snow got too sparse to continue easily. I was definitely low enough for the truck to reach me so I sat down to wait for Ben and Jason to come get me. Overall, a much easier pack out than I had last year.
Soon after dark I saw the truck lights leaving the canyon we had started in and circling around to the road I was on. Jason reached me with the truck and by the time we loaded the meat we could see Ben’s headlamp coming down the road. He carried with him a front shoulder and backstraps from a cow.
After they left me at my kill site they had followed the trail of the elk for only 500 yards when they spotted a bedded cow. She stood and Ben took a quick 60 yard shot before she could smell them. He and Jason were hunting with modern unmentionables and full-bore diameter lead conicals. This time his aim was true and she quickly went down. We drove up as far as the road would allow us and then hiked in the dark to get the rest of Ben’s elk.
It was a very exciting day of elk hunting and with both elk completely packed out we could all focus on helping Jason fill his tag on our last day (Saturday). Unfortunately, after a morning and afternoon of checking several locations we had failed to locate any elk. We attempted a 2-man drive across the previous day's hillside to try and push elk to Jason which turned up no elk. We finally spotted about 20 way up on top of the peak with only 2 hours of daylight left. If we had started up immediately we could have reached them with 20-30 minutes of light but with how open it is up there we thought the better plan would be to ambush them as they came down the mountain. Unfortunately, they never descended and Jason didn’t fill his tag. But 2 out of 3 isn't too bad and plenty of meat to share.
For the ballistically curious:
.54 Cal Lyman Great Plains Rifle; .530 Ball; .018 Pillow Ticking patch cut at the barrel; mink oil lube; 100 Gr. FFG Swiss Black Powder.
