well Im back from my 10 day elk hunting excursion

I only wish i had taken some pictures to show off to you all here at hunting net

first by the title of this post you should know i was not successful but our group as a hole did very well
out of 11 of us there were 5 bulls and 1 cow taken(4 5x5s and 1 spike)

i however passed on several opprotunities to take an animal as i wanted a large bull 6x6 or better

I did however fill a few limits of grouse and caught a beutiful 21 1/2 inch brown trout(wich a picture would have been nice) it ate well

i also had a run in with a very large cinimun fase black bear in which i didnot shoot cause i thought it was a grizzly(size and color) however as it was leaving i made the identity as a blacky but could never get into range with a clear shot again

for anybody that can guess a weight for me he was around four foot high in the shoulder and bigger around than santa claus

Sorry to hear about the tag soup, that bites, but at least you didn' t settle for less than what you truly wanted. Happy to hear about grouse limits and trout,way to go!!! As for the blackie, I' d guess around 650+ range. I' m probably off somewhat as I haven' t been around them much in a number of years.

Keep your chin up, a LOT of great hunts still end up as " tag soup" , trust me, I' m a true chef of tag soup.

Cheer up JJ,
You jus' took the first baby step to becomin' a trophy hunter. The first rule for killin' big bulls is not to kill small ones. The second rule is to be prepared to go home empty-handed. The third rule is to look at any hunt, successful or not, as better than watchin' football or sappy Hallmark movies with the wife.

Drop me a line on that recipe. We only had one cow out of six tags. Had a great time and met some great people. I guess I' ll have to change my handle now