kidoggy

CHAPTER THREE


THE RIFLE HUNT




it is now early october . my sister-in-law( whom I wil call "seester" for sake of story ) has drawn coveted elk tag of which there are only ten for entire unit. my brother and I Are to be her guides on the hunt and with a little luck also her pack mules.




we had told her of our archery hunts and lucky and she was game to go after him.as it is not a very easy place to get into we decided to bring a horse for her to ride while we walked beside her.e once again left camp well before daylight and headed up the ridge. on this day we did not crest the sumit before light as we had a fat nag (the horse not seester ) slowing us down. as it got light ,I noticed something moveing in the draw to my left a couple hundred yards away. so ,I stopped ur lil convoy grabbed my binocs and checked it out. it was a spike bull. a lil 5x5 and a couple of cow elk.they were looking at us but ,I believe , because of the horse had no fear and did not seem terribly concerned as they just continued feeding around.

my brother asked his wife , "do you want to shoot the 5x5/"

she answered , "yes, but I would rasther go shoot lucky!"




YEP, SHE'S A KEEPER!





so we continued on. as we got to the top we decided to leave the horse so we could slip quitely into luckies domainwe glassed the bowl and chris bugled and true to form lucky immediatly replied , screaming back a bugle. on this day he was on the opposite side of the bowl which was heavy timber and brush so we could not pick him out with our binocs. so we decided to circle around above him and follow a lil finger ridge which we though would bring us right to him. when we thought we were getting close there was an opening in the brush so we set up. chris decided to try a couple cow calls to start since we figured lucky probably had a harem by now.llucky bugled . after a moment chris did a couple more cow calls . nothing . we waited . chris bugled and lucky replied . we waited anchris bugled again . again lucky replied but he was gatting farther away.

I began glassing the opposite hillside and there he was with a harem of 15-20 cows he was heading out of the area with no wish to lose his cows to another bull. this was the first real good look I had gotten at his antlers and was finally able to count points. he was a very nice(not monster)7x7.

as he was running up the hill, it was just to far and to brushy for a shot. so we let him go.we decided to let them crest the hill and then follow them over the top in hopes we could get lucky to turn on us.

as we got close to hill top lucky bugled and he was fairly close so we sllipped over the top setup with chris twenty or so yards behind us . viibility was not great but it could be worst and we really just had no other option. not the ideal situation but we figured it is what it is,

again lucky bugled and chris bugled and cut him off. as always this infuriated lucky and he did not like us in his home. we heard crashing in the brush, he was coming. I whispered to seester to get ready he was gonna show himself. chris cow called , lucky answered with a bugle and again chris bugled and cut him off. suddenly I saw movement about 50 yards away and it was lucky , he had his head down looking under a branch right at me. trouble was ,while I could see him and could have shot him had tag been mine ,seester could not. we waited.next came a series of chris and lucky bugling back and forth it probably only went on for 15-20 minutes but it seemed like hours. the whole time lucky and I were looking right at each other but seester could not see him. we could not move for fear of spooking him so we waited , hoping lucky would make a mistake.

He did not. I believe he fially winded us because he suddenly turned and crashed through the brush and would no longer bugle. we waited for maybe an hour and never again heard his screaming bugle. we got to a high point where we could glass the area he disapeared into, but after several hours of this,saw no sign of him. eventually we retreved the horse and headed back to camp.




we hunted all the next day with no more sign of elk. and that was seesters , rifle hunt.




driving home that night, chris asked his wife, "do you wish you had killed the5x5?"




she replied, "NO! THAT WAS THE MOST EXITING HUNT I HAVE EVER BEEN ON!"





yep! she's a keeper!













EPILOGUE



that winter we got early snow and it was a harsh winter , causing ,a major elk die off due to winterkill.so in march chris and I donned our snowshoes and head up into luckies domain. this time we came in fro the opposite direction, from the river below. we followed the draw up a couple of miles , to a point where it split. I went left , chris went right. a few hundred yards after we seperated , I came around a tree, and there was lucky in his final bed. he did not survive the brutal winter.luckies luck had finally run out.





25 years later , I wish I could say,I let him be but being the young man that I was , I wacked his antlers and mounted them on a horns-on-panel.he resides in my home to this very day.never do I gaze upon them that I am not reminded of that hunting season and spending time with family , doing what we love to do.