Alsatian

I have hunted a lot of things: pheasants, ducks, squirrels, whitetail deer, pronghorn antelope, and elk. I love my big game hunting the most, particularly elk hunting. My partners and I engage in do-it-yourself elk hunting on high public land in SW Colorado (unit 75 to be specific) during the first elk rifle season.

We pack-up and drive up to our camping spot on Friday morning early. It is a long drive up a winding dirt road that has pretty views of the surrounding mountains and a scary view off the edge of the road as we get further into the mountains. The last 4 miles is pretty rough 4WD road. We drop down into 4WD Low to drive that last 4 miles.

We set up a 12' x 14' canvas wall tent and an old wood stove. Our camp leader cuts up blocks of seasoned snags, and the rest of us split those rounds of wood to good burning pieces and some very small pieces of kindling. We camp at 11,500 feet altitude. It generally gets down to 20 degrees -- sometimes 15 degrees -- overnight. We have cots with sleeping pads on them. We sleep in sleeping bags on top of the sleeping pads. It is cozy to be in that tent -- either sitting up in folding cloth chairs or in the sleeping bags going to sleep -- while the wood crackles and snaps in that wood stove, the gentle odor of wood smoke permeates the tent. The camp leader has a big wind-up clock that is set for about 4:15 or 4:30 AM. When it goes off in the morning it is louder than hell. No one sleeps through that bell, though we may remain in our sleeping bags a couple of more minutes. We dress, eat a bagel, and hit the trail. We are generally in our spots by 6 AM, and shooting light may be about 6:30 AM.

So much for the context and background of my hunt. I'll tell the story of my hunt last year, as it is near in memory and may have been my most satisfying hunt for a variety of reasons. I came down with a bad chest cold on opening day. Waking up Sunday morning I felt like dog crap. I had been sleeping fitfully, with a wheezing, gurgling sound in my upper lung area where the crud in my lungs was pooled. I told our leader I couldn't hunt that morning and thought I would have to get down off the mountain and leave. He said wait until he returned from the morning's hunt.

It turned out that I got to feeling better. I got up and chopped some wood. Our leader had killed an elk. He asked me to go back to his elk and help him cut it up (I'm pretty good with a knife -- cutting up elk). We had to walk in about 4 miles. This went pretty well. I didn't get exhausted or stove in.

The next morning -- at the direction of our leader -- I went out hunting while he and our other partner went in to pack out his elk. I assume I was relieved of pack-out duties because I still had that chest cold. I walked out on the trail about 5 AM. It was pretty bright out because of a bright moon. It was pleasant walking alone, in the dark, in the mountains like that. I felt pretty good. Not 100% healthy, but up to what I was doing at that moment at any rate. I got into my place at the same time legal shooting light occurred.

I had gone to a place on the edge of a wooded area, below an open grassy bowl surrounded by an arc of high ridgeline. As the morning advanced, I spotted a hunter high on the edge of that arc above me and another hunter high on the edge of the opposite edge of the arc, probably 1/2 mile from the first hunter. Nothing was happening, but it was pretty watching the sunlight come up. It was also nice feeling that sun burn down on me, warming up my seemingly frozen feet. My expectation was, for various reasons, that our camp would pull up stakes and leave this day, if I didn't get an elk.

Normally I would get up and return to camp at 9:30 AM at the latest. This day I stayed in place, on the hunch that when those hunters pulled out they might push an elk to me. At 10 AM, having seen nothing, I leaned my rifle against a tree, stood, and began packing my gear. I saw a couple of elk come at a half-trot out of a draw that angled up into that open grassy bowl. I sat down, fetched my rifle, flipped open my scope covers, and got the lead cow in my sights. She was quartering towards me. She may have initially been 200 yards out. I just let her keep coming towards me. As she got close, she sort of turned her head and looked straight at me.

I decided at that point that I ought to start shooting. I shot three times at her before she passed out of my view behind a tree close to me. I had seen no indication that I had hit her. At the same time, I felt pretty sure I had hit her. She was pretty close.

I looked for her along the path she had been following for 45 minutes and found nothing. There was snow on the ground, and I had tried to find her tracks to no avail. Then I went further to one side and found her dead. She must have taken a hard, right angle turn away from me just where she disappeared out of my view. She was hit hard and had bled a lot. There were two big bullet holes in her forward chest area (I would guess the path of the bullets was aligned to pass out behind her right shoulder), about 3 inches apart. I field dressed her and then skinned her and cut her into pieces. I put the pieces in game bags and dragged them into the shade of a tree. I put up some flagging tape to help find the game. Then I headed back.

My partners met me about 1/2 way back to camp. They had completed their pack out and wondered where I was. They may have thought I had had an accident or was in need of help. The next day we packed the elk out in packs. It was about a 2 mile pack out on a good trail that rose about 500 feet over that distance -- pretty good circumstances considering what CAN happen. One of the partners actually carried an elk ham and a shoulder and half the backstraps. We figure he must have had a 100 LBS pack! I carried a pack with a ham (guess about 55 LBS). Our leader had a shoulder and the other half of the backstraps (guess about 55 LBS).

For me this was a highly rewarding hunt because I had thought I was done in Sunday morning. I felt good for hitting my trotting elk well and cutting my elk up promptly. It was just very satisfying. The elk meat has been excellent. This is my first cow elk (I've taken 2 modest bulls before), and I think it is easily the best elk meat I have eaten. A great hunt. I'm looking forwards to going back this October again.