AZ opening day elk down

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09-27-2020, 07:09 PM

donw

Fork Horn

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Join Date: Jan 2007

Location: Arizona

Posts: 202

AZ opening day elk down

Thought I'd share some photos of my elk hunt and my new toy. I shot this cow on opening evening. We hadn't heard any bugling during the morning hunt, and I was getting worried because the whole reason this hunt has a high success rate is because hunters can locate the elk by listening for the bulls bugling. It was really dry and hot (81 F high), and most of the water holes were mere puddles. But there was this one hole that had quite a bit of water, so I suggested to my hunting buddy that we drive the side x side close by the water hole and bring our chairs and sit there 'til dark. About 6:30, a lone cow walked out of the forest on the opposite side of the water hole from us. I waited until she walked near two trees that I had ranged at 135 yards and stood broadside, then let the lead fly. It turned out to be more like 145 yards, but I had a very steady gun rest sitting in that chair. She went down immediately and stayed down. Then the work started. Luckily, we were able to drive my new Honda Pioneer 1000 (bought just 2 weeks ago) right up to her, in spite of some rock obstacles. It still took us 'til 9:30 to finish skinning, gutting, and cutting meat into bags (need more practice!). The next morning, we got up at 4:30 to get all the meat packed into ice boxes with the little bit of ice we had and head out before it got too warm. This is the shortest elk hunt we've ever had, and I kind of missed the rest of our camping experience.
CVA Optima Pro
108 grains of Blackhorn 209
300 grain Nosler Partition

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