ELKampMaster

Reruns! On TV it is what happens when the writers run out of content or want a vacation.

I've been checking this site daily. It seems like there are lots of hunters --- I assume lots of experience. But very little discussion of BigGameHunting trips -- a photo here and there, with the rest left to imagination or the discussion saunters off towards "lets talk guns". Surely if we all took the time (and bother) to share the experiences of our trips, we would all be a little richer, and the wait to next year's season more tolerable.

For those of you who have seen some of this stuff, just "hit the channel button on the remote" for those of you who haven't --- here you go.
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Home Sweet Home - 16x52 Wall Tent



Kitchen



OPENING MORNING ELK HUNT 2003

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!

Field Dressing (Cow) - Before



Field Dressing (Cow) - After "Alaskan Method"



On The Trail - Elk Country - Timber and Deadfall



On The Trail - Elk Country - Dusty Trails



On The Trail - Elk Country - Beaver Pond (Down Below)



On The Trail - Elk Country - Aspens



On The Trail - Elk Country - Sagebrush



Packing - Jack The Horse – With Panniers



Packing - Nice View - Easy Going Country



Butchering - The "First Cut" Guy


Butchering - "The Gang" Cutting


End Product - Meat Dividing


All Packed Up -- Going Home



The End, And They Lived Happily Ever After!

Good Luck and Good Hunting,
EKM

Got Elk Hunting?

Wolf killer

I have seen most of the pictures & read your post last fall about the camp & hunt. I never get tired of reading about it. Thanks for posting the pictures & story again.
I always like reading your posts. I wish I could post some pictures myself, my scanner is broken.[] Have a good off season, hunting season will be here soon.

ELKampMaster

Thanks. Remember, you can always "scan them in" at a friends house (or at work) and then email them to yourself as an attachment, open the email at home, download the attachment and save it on your hard drive and you are ready to play and we are ready to watch!

Man, we need some CONTENT on this site!

Good Luck and Good Scanning,
EKM

Colorado Bob

ELKampMaster------Great Photos. Looks like we hunt pretty much in the same manner or method. I've hunted the same ridge for the past 20 years. I find the elk in the same crossing year after year. My wall tent is only 12x14 with 5' side walls. I need to get another one as a cook tent & gathering room. Looks like you have more hunters than mine also. I usually have 2 or 3 in my camp.

I hear you on content. It's pretty slim. Went to the local range to shoot this afternoon but the Local Lion's club was having spring clean-up. Spent 2 hours helping in the clean-up. Not a bad way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.

It's surprising how many people don't make photo albums of their hunts. Just put all those photos in an old shoe box. I take the time & put them in an album with dates & captions. Got 3 now, one on my sheep hunt, one for the mtn goat hunt & the last is on the South African hunt. This year---an elk hunt. CB

whitetails & muskies

Not too sure if my photos will come through....hope so?

Anyway, I was down in the Montrose, CO area this past muzzle loader season. Had a few going early in the hunt, some that I couldn't see, but had em close and saw a few little rag horns, spikes and cows/calfs. Monday just before dark I saw a "decent" looking bull, but it was a quick glimpse here and there, and never got a good view of him. Tuesday morning I was out "releiving myself" at about 4:30 and heard several bugles below camp (where I finished off the night before). I headed down to a long narrow draw where I last saw him. I got set up well before light and he had a few bugles going. I did a cow call or two just at light and he was right on it :-) :-) I let one bugle go, he was right on it...we went back and forth for a while, but I would always wait for him to start up, then I would come back and pi$$ him right off! Just like that he shut up. Over the next half hour or so, I would let an occasional cow call go, and twice, below me, I could hear a branch break (not a twig, a good size branch). Finally at about 7:45, I said the heck with it and let out one long bugle go with no chuckle following. I didn't even have a chance to set the bugle down next to me and I could see the tips of his antlers come trotting up from below me. That suckker holed up for a long time as quiet as a mouse. He stopped at about 85 yards but didn't pose a perfectly clear shot. One short cow peep and he took one step and my .50 caliber barked and he side stepped twice, and tipped over in his tracks. Oh baby....was that an awesome one hour of my life!! He was nothing huge, but a nice 5x5 non the less, taken without a guide and with open sights/muzzle loader made it kind of cool though.

Anyway, if the photos come through, here is what he looked like when I walked up to him and the other photo is him hanging on the pole before we skinned him out. Oh yeah, I was close enough to a trail that we could get our 4wd down to pick him up....THAT was a treat :-)

Well, I tried to upload the photos and no-can-do.. File too large is what I get. I'll see if I can compress them somehow?? They are about 150-170K each.


PS...Providing my Fed Ex package makes it to Montana by tomorrow evening, and I get my liscense, I'm heading to The Bob Marshall Wilderness for a late season hunt this year. Should be interesting and hope for snow, BUT no too much! This opportunity came out of the blue and I hope there are no snags...

As long as I typed all of this, and now find out I couldn't post the pictures, I thought I may as well still post it.

ELKampMaster

Whitetails and Muskies,

You may have to save your photos in a "poorer quality" format (ironic isn't it) so it isn't too intensive on this end. I know in Photoshop when you go to save it more or less asks "how much quality" in the "save as" box.

You may be able to revisit your photos and create a "detuned" version of each for HuntingNet.com use. Once you get "the drill" down it is easy.

You of course are free to leave your post here; however, if you go to the effort of writting and illustrating it, then it deserves its own thread, but your call there.

Good Luck and Good Hunting,
EKM

Elkcrazy8

Thanks for sharing your experience. Our elkcamp is not as extravegant as yours. We have a big cache that we have packed in on our backs. It is a grueling hike into camp, 5 miles. We build a lean-too along a creek bank. There is usually three of us. We have enough food left over from last year to run us about a month. We have air mattresses, with battery pump. Sleeping bags, cook stoves, solar showers, pots, pans, food. utensils, basically everything a guy could need and then some. We never charge a guy to hunt with us or have never taken any money from anyone. The only thing that we ask, is that they pack in a camp donation. It will be there for them when they return, but it is there for everyone to use. Further up the canyon, we have another camp. With just as much as the first. If we get into the elk or into trouble, the camp is there. This is the camp that the guys that hunt rifle like to use. I usually am done in the first week of elk season, and enjoy taking fellow archers in for a bow kill. I have helped pack out 11 bulls in the past 2 years. Only two were done by horse. The rest was on our backs. I don't get along well with horses and had a very nice argument with one last year. That had to be one of the most club footed horses I had ever seen. There is nothing like bugling bulls in the rut. I have had as many as 6 come into cow calling. That time they were chasing each other around through the aspens, fighting and tearing up the hillside. Even if meat doesn't go down. I am never dissatisfied

ELKampMaster

Whitetails & Muskies,

While wondering around over in the Bowhunting section, I saw a post that indicated that www.photobucket.com allows free storage of photos of up to 250kb. So, I am guessing here, but perhaps you could post a "full size" photo at Photobucket and link it into HuntingNet.com with no strain on their system and therefore no "red lights". I know Hale87's elk photos were from www.Photobucket.com and they were big and very clear (both take memory).

BTW, no more HUNTING stories over there than here; and similarly lots of talk about equipment instead of hunting.

Good Luck and Good Hunting,
EKM

Hale87

Whitetails & Muskies, go to technical questions down at the bottom of the forums page. Look for the post about being P*ssed about posting. Strut turned me onto Photobucket. It automatically will resize your photo if necessary. Then if you look at my post Colorado fall 2003, you can look at the tip EKM gave me. Good luck, it's easy once you figure it out, but ain't that the norm for this computer stuff.

Red Hawk

Thanks for sharing the story and hunt. I liked the way you put the pictures in the order that you did. Almost seemed like I was there with you, right on