Thank God for at least two things: (1) folks who like to sleep in and (2) folks who hunt with the addage that " the best course between two points is a straight line." When it comes to hunting in my area they are both priceless. When my group started arriving in the main camp on Thursday before the Saturday opener the arrival conversations went something like this, " Looks like there' s not quite as many hunters camped out along the road as last year!" " Yeah, I know it. I was concerned early on that there might not be enough hunters, but they' ve been showing up in droves since Wednesday. I think we have enough now to make things work! Good, we don' t want to have any shortage!" No, we were not hitting the sauce, we were dead serious!
If you have ever seen movies with the British tiger hunts in India where the " beaters" fan out in a long line and thrash the ground with sticks to drive the tigers to the waiting hunters on the far side, then you will recognize the parallel in my story. In our case, the " beaters" are the scads of hunters camped out along side the road at one side of a large basin that the elk love. Of course, these hunters are not our employees or friends and they certainly don' t intend to go out of their way to help us --- that is where the two " thank God" items above come into play!
We camp a mile and a half away from this crowd, just to get some peace, quiet, and privacy plus there is water for the horses. Come opening morning, we get up at 1:00a.m. and eat a super breakfast and are out of the camp by 2:30a.m. and take off leading our pack horse behind the pickup -- we wind our way up through all the camps and they are all dark -- sleeping away. We avoid the basin and start the " long way" around to the far side of the basin (where our spike camp is located) with out disturbing the herds of elk that are in full rut in the basin or the hunters sound asleep on the ridge.
Then we head off the road and into the timber. It' s a full moon and you can see color in the middle of the night. The lights of the small towns twinkle below with their residents also sound asleep. The only souls we meet on our lonely trek in are three hunters from Georgia -- I had met them a week earlier, they talked a good game -- and now I can see they walk the walk as well as talk the talk -- these are some good ole southern boys and hard core hunters -- we shake our heads and we laugh at each other, wish each other good luck and go our seperate ways.
We make good time and reach the spike camp by 430am, dump off some of our stuff, tie up the horse and head out! Soon I have everyone (5 of us) posted on their stand on the ridge. Looking across the basin, our " beaters" are now awake and active and their camp lanterns in the far distance are all lit and resemble a distant army. Meanwhile, the elk herds in the basin below are putting on a show: bugling, chuckling, roaring, screaming, mewing, raking trees, breaking ground cover -- just like in the videos for archery season or blackpowder! We are simply stoked at the prospect of taking on rutting elk in the high power rifle season! We take off our packs and settle into our " sniper nests" (stands) on our ridge. I break off and eat some elk jerky we made from an elk taken not far from where I am now -- it' s all gone full circle.
The sky turns red in the east and the temperature drops. My oldest boy and I are doing a " tag team" i.e. I am hunting right along side him with the goal being for him to get a bull this year. Twinkle, Twinkle --- here they come --- we can see the headlamps of the " beaters" taking the short cut from their camps straight into the bowl -- right at the elk herds below. " All hell is going to break loose in about 45 minutes and those boys are going to just ruin this nice concert we have been enjoying!" The " beaters" didn' t disappoint us and neither did the elk, although they did not " hit" our positions as squarely as they did last year -- we were short 2 or 3 hunters this year plus I was " buddied up" with my son so our picket line was not all that long -- we' ll remedy that next year! The more we hunt this area, the more we learn and the more we " make it ours."
Here is a few photos:
Battle Stations!
Nice Raghorn 6x6!
Happy Young Man -- proud Dad!
Notice the shoulder shot, he hit him just like ole dad preaches -- never mind shot placement -- this is hunting not benchrest -- put a heavy for caliber bullet right there in the middle of that big kill zone, you can be off some and still win -- take out his front axle, scramble the boiler room a little, and you' ll own him right there!
Never Go Undergunned, Always Check The Sight In, Perform At Showtime,
EKM
Indian Tiger (Elk) Hunt
indicates that there aren' t that many elk in the basin, we divide our " forces" for a portfolio effect and hunt two or three different areas. One in particular only has a small herd, but is a shorter, easier walk and amazingly don' t get hunted much even though there are hunters every where; of course it does involve walking more than a mile so that may explain a lot -- we have taken 3 bulls out of that area in ' 01 and ' 02. We just fit the strategies to the circumstances; again the key is to know the area!
