bronko22000

Season started this past Monday and at 12:15 I was able to put my cow tag to use. The day started out brutal. Wet snow then changed to freezing rain and 30-40 mph winds. Did a lot of hiking checking out the food plots but didn't see anything not even a fresh track. I assumed the weather had them hunkered down somewhere. About 8:30 it stared to clear up and by 9:30 it was turning out to be a nice day.
Angling down the side of a mountain from a food plot heading toward my truck we were about 200 yards from the road and I froze in my tracks and my buddy stopped right behind me. Elk I whispered, right in front of us. About 80 yards away, a cow and what I think was her calf from last year were staring us down. I knelt down and settled the crosshairs of my Tikka T3 30-06 just left of low center of her brisket. At the shot she sort of rocked back a bit then turned and took a couple steps as I was cycling the bolt.She started running and I hit her with the second shot through the lungs but she still kept going. My third shot went in just behind the right shoulder and destroyed the left shoulder.
During the skinning process I found the Barnes TSX that broke the shoulder outside the body cavity just under the hide. If fell out as I was skinning her. My first shot was perfect and ripped right through the center of the heart splitting it right in two as if it was hit with an axe. The second shot also did a number on her lungs and was a complete pass through.
I'm happy I got her within 100 yards AND uphill of the road. It made dragging her to the truck a lot easier with just the 2 of us. And at the road there was a high bank that I could back right up to and drag her onto the truck without any lifting. At the check station she weighed in at just under 350 lbs.