Hunt of a Lifetime!
10-03-2008, 07:21 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 18
Hunt of a Lifetime!
Sunday evening, Sept. 21st we arrived in camp, it was unseasonably warm, the moon was full, the camp cook had just been,” let go”, neither one of the guides that were supposed to be there showed up……the rut was basically over. The elk were bugling the first week of September but, were now as quite as church mice. The outfitter / guide was in town buying some supplies and trying to find a cook. So we unloaded our gear, made ourselves at home for what was to be a seven day archery hunt.
That night I got up to tee tee at about 3:30 a.m. and couldn’t sleep so, I just sat outside and listened to the elk bugle the rest of the night till about 9:30 that same morning. Of course by the time we decided to go after one of the bugling bulls….they shut up.
Well, Mr. Quintana made it to camp Monday afternoon with some supplies. The good news was, that he had hired a cook and found a guide to help out……he tried to let us know in as painless a way as possible that the hunting had been horrible.
On Tuesday a.m. the 23rd Mr. Quintana and I left camp and started the long walk down sawmill road to the backside meadow of Wikenson Mt. We checked an abandoned wallow, and an old homestead cabin. We left the cabin undisturbed and a little unsettled that someone had poured so much of their life into this ole place and now it is simply falling in on itself. Progress…..hmm is it really that much nicer to pull a 5th wheel RV back into some of those places, than to fix up the old cabin? Ok, I won’t go there…..
We were sharing philosophical ideas about life, and in the course of the conversation we started discussing how, that sometimes when you want something so bad, it becomes even more elusive. With every failed attempt you add more pressure to yourself to redeem and be successful. In my case I had blown, whiffed, choked, and generally managed to mess up several golden opportunities over the last 8 years in a row, trying to fill an over the counter archery elk tag in Colorado.
Man, when you go back home and re-live those hunts (the good and the bad) over, and over, waiting for the next year to make new memories and hopefully erase some old ones.
I have been really blessed to have been on some awesome wilderness hunts in places like..
Elk park, Molis lake, Whitehead Gulch, Lost Lake, Benito Canyon, to name a few.
I would have returned just for the horse back riding in those areas, the hunting was a bonus.
But, those are brutal hunts, me and my buddies Tommy and Bill are not spring chickens and they had taken there toll on us. By the grace of God we met and hooked up with Mr. Bill Quintana and went from 10,000 to 12,000 feet hunts on horse back to 7,000 to 8,000 foot hunts on ATV’s and on foot.
Tommy my buddy, who is really more like a brother, killed a nice 6x5 the previous years, after paying his dues, which included nearly 10 years of unfilled tags, a blown disc in his back. Dreaming and pursuing that dream, on Sept 22nd the crowning jewel and culmination, of lots of hard work, blood, sweat and tears……what a celebration of the moment when we found his bull. Tommy always said “ When its my turn to kill an elk, I will kill one.” And indeed he did.
So, here we are, back once again, trying to join the precious few who put a tag on a Colorado rocky mountain elk.
Stunned and surprised by the bugle above us, reality sunk in and we moved as quickly as my burning lungs would allow. If you have never experience the adrenaline rush of a bugling bull, which is enough to take your breath away….try sticking your head under water for about 2 minutes and then run up hill………it is tough.
We set up and Bill gave a little call on his bugle…..the bull responded and came in to 47 yards away….we think he caught a little movement and was gone as quickly as he had come in.
Sunday evening, Sept. 21st we arrived in camp, it was unseasonably warm, the moon was full, the camp cook had just been,” let go”, neither one of the guides that were supposed to be there showed up……the rut was basically over. The elk were bugling the first week of September but, were now as quite as church mice. The outfitter / guide was in town buying some supplies and trying to find a cook.
So we unloaded our gear, made ourselves at home for what was to be a seven day archery hunt.
That night I got up to tee tee at about 3:30 a.m. and couldn’t sleep so, I just sat outside and listened to the elk bugle the rest of the night till about 9:30 that same morning. Of course by the time we decided to go after one of the bugling bulls….they shut up.
Well, Mr. Quintana made it to camp Monday afternoon with some supplies. The good news was, that he had hired a cook and found a guide to help out……he tried to let us know in as painless a way as possible that the hunting had been horrible.
On Tuesday a.m. the 23rd Mr. Quintana and I left camp and started the long walk down sawmill road to the backside meadow of Wikenson Mt. We checked an abandoned wallow, and an old homestead cabin. We left the cabin undisturbed and a little unsettled that someone had poured so much of their life into this ole place and now it is simply falling in on itself. Progress…..hmm is it really that much nicer to pull a 5th wheel RV back into some of those places, than to fix up the old cabin? Ok, I won’t go there…..
We were sharing philosophical ideas about life, and in the course of the conversation we started discussing how, that sometimes when you want something so bad, it becomes even more elusive. With every failed attempt you add more pressure to yourself to redeem and be successful. In my case I had blown, whiffed, choked, and generally managed to mess up several golden opportunities over the last 8 years in a row, trying to fill an over the counter archery elk tag in Colorado.
Man, when you go back home and re-live those hunts (the good and the bad) over, and over, waiting for the next year to make new memories and hopefully erase some old ones.
I have been really blessed to have been on some awesome wilderness hunts in places like..
Elk park, Molis lake, Whitehead Gulch, Lost Lake, Benito Canyon, to name a few.
I would have returned just for the horse back riding in those areas, the hunting was a bonus.
But, those are brutal hunts, me and my buddies Tommy and Bill are not spring chickens and they had taken there toll on us. By the grace of God we met and hooked up with Mr. Bill Quintana and went from 10,000 to 12,000 feet hunts on horse back to 7,000 to 8,000 foot hunts on ATV’s and on foot.
Tommy my buddy, who is really more like a brother, killed a nice 6x5 the previous years, after paying his dues, which included nearly 10 years of unfilled tags, a blown disc in his back. Dreaming and pursuing that dream, on Sept 22nd the crowning jewel and culmination, of lots of hard work, blood, sweat and tears……what a celebration of the moment when we found his bull. Tommy always said “ When its my turn to kill an elk, I will kill one.” And indeed he did.
So, here we are, back once again, trying to join the precious few who put a tag on a Colorado rocky mountain elk.
Stunned and surprised by the bugle above us, reality sunk in and we moved as quickly as my burning lungs would allow. If you have never experience the adrenaline rush of a bugling bull, which is enough to take your breath away….try sticking your head under water for about 2 minutes and then run up hill………it is tough.
We set up and Bill gave a little call on his bugle…..the bull responded and came in to 47 yards away….we think he caught a little movement and was gone as quickly as he had come in.
