So, let's see, hmm....oh yes, so there we were, 25 September, the muzzle loader bull elk hunt about to open the following morning. So dad and I went up Tuesday night to get snuggled into the cabin and prepare for the next morning's hunt. We hunt about seven minutes up the road from where my dad's cabin is by the way. That's including Green Gate time and emptying the trash and not locking the cabin door out of sheer excitement. You'll recall from our earlier conversations that I'd gone up with Brandon and helped him fill his tag the second day of his hunt with a rifle. He got a bruiser of an elk with about a 48" spread and all sorts of points and what-not. It's a nice six-by (means it has six points on either side). But he was a complete monster by the time we got him off the mountain. You'll recall I griped about having to pull the two rear quarters off the mountain myself. Yeah, 117 lb of animal on just two back legs. That's of course AFTER you cut the bottom half of the leg off and just carry down the drumstick (skinned mind you). So, anyhow, I was pretty stoked to get up there and equal Brandon's efforts. Well we did, and then some.
So dad and I got up bright and early around 0430, (that's "4:30" for you civilian types) had a nutricious breakfast of something-er-other and headed for the mountain. We piled into Big Green and headed up to the Deep Creek to have a look around. So, the road was pretty good on the way in, and we drove all the way to the gate as I recall. I honestly can't remember ever elk we saw that day, or the next, or the next. But we saw at least two excellent bulls every day. A few of which I took some pot shots way across a canyon. See, a muzzle loader has a maximum effective range (for this guy anyhow) of about (apparently) 135 yards. Now, I shoot one of the new in-line muzzle loaders. In fact it's a Thompson Center Omega "Dream Season". How apt. Anyhow, it's a far cry from my .54 caliber patch and ball side lock I've been toting around since I was 13. Anyhow, the newer in-lines claim all sorts of fantastic and whimsical accuracy claims and most of them are true. However, whatyou can't get away from, is the fact that the bullet drops like a stone the moment it comes out the barrel. For example, at 50 yards, you may be dead on, but at 100 yards, you may be 8 inches low. At 150 yards you may be 15 inches low. So, throwing a Hail Mary bullet 400 yards across a canyon does nothing more than foul your barrel, create a big white puff of smoke, and get your heart racing. Which, is why I did that around 4 more times before I actually took about an 80 yards shot. Oh, it's important to note at this point, that it rained.....CONSTANTLY....the first three days of the hunt. We were sopping wet and I even got concerned that the bottom of my gun was filling up with water and the bullet wouldnt even fire were I to get a fair and honest shot.
So, sometime during that week we saw a big-(g)as(s) bull right smack across Highway 40 as we were leaving one evening a little more disheveled and none-too-disenfanchised with the whole experience. I took a pot shot at him at outside a hundred yards too by the way. Anyhow, we logged around 14 kilometers which, as it turns out is around seven or eight miles a day on the GPS, which dad and I had a pretty lengthy discussion about. See, I content that those miles are, "as the crow flies" and do not take into account the various ups (and steep ups at that) and downs (steeper downs) that we encountered. I figured real honest to goodness metrics if you figured in the rise and run would mean we were putting on in excesss of 15 miles a day. I say that, because we hiked from 6:30 am, 'till around 8:00 pm with nary an hour sit down in between to have some boiled eggs, kippered snacks, apples and even a sammich on rare occaision. Incidentally, busting out the kippered snacks is a last resort, elk seemingly LOVE the scent of them. I mean, who DOESNT love fish pickled in lemon and cracked pepper??? (smirk)
So, about Friday night, well....Friday night to be exact, we took our tenderfeet (literally) home to soak in a nice hot shower (dudes dont bath. Washing your face in butt-water is just disgusting). Anyhow, Josh had a big game against Bingham on Saturday and I had my ten and eleven year olds to teach on Sunday. I also reasoned, that if I continued to keep the Sabath holy, that He would bless me with a monster elk at exactly fifty yards broadside, with the wind blowing toward me. Or...something like that. Truth be told, I'm getting soft and three days of fifteen miles each were taking their toll.
So, Sunday night (not AS holy as Sun(DAY)) we left right after church and got up there around 3:30 in the afternoon. I placed myself high on a hillside nestled up under some aspens an watched a convergence of trails. Dad was bird-doggin' for me and went further up the mountain to push down to me. Well, sitting for me is just painful. I think I have adult A.D.D. Anyhow, so about an hour later, I heard an elk crashing through about 200 yards below me, so I got up to intercept him on the trail crossing. Well, he heard me, probably because I let out a cow mew, and he stopped dead in his tracks before he daylighted. So, I walked back up to my spot and sat down, a little sad, a little dejected, with a little, semblance of a tear at just the corner of my right eye. So, anyhow, I had no sooner sat down, and looked to my left and saw a huge bull behind a set of aspens. He was nervous and looking around for me. He couldnt smell me. I figured he was about fifty yards. The previous days I had glimpses at bulls at around eighty yards, and on at least two occaissions could only see their neck and head, and couldnt get a shot for the vitals. So, fearing he was about to bolt, I picked a spot on his neck, rested against a tree, and made a whole lot of white smoke and a loud noise. Well, it's important at this point to set the record straight. See, the week before the hunt someone told me the bullets that I was sighted in with were sucky. Barnes bullets were what I was using. They're solid copper and fly really well. Additionally, I was using 150 grains of powder, and after careful review discoved my gun is only rated for 130 grains of powder. So I did two dumb things, 1) I switched to from a 245 grain solid copper bullet, to a 348 grain bullet. The Barnes bullet is jacketed with a sabot, or plastic wad, and the other bullet...hey, I saw that, you yawned!!! Annnnnnnnnnnyways...I shot, and missed at his neck. I simply could not BELIEVE I missed. It's in-con-cievable!!! So...I apparently missed. Because the only shot I had was at his neck, and there would have been a great abundance of blood at the site were 348 grains of lead jacketed in copper come to a screaching halt in something's neck.
So, to make a long story longer (deep breath)....Monday was about the same, until that night. Monday night....was....AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWESOME! I got down into the aspens and stalked into two bulls fighting over a bunch of cows. Then there was another huge bull up on the ridgeline bugling like Hell and a general sense of malaise down in that general vicinity. So, with about fourteen minutes of daylight left, I hauled arse over three ridges and put the stalk on them. I'm quite a stalker off the record. ;) So, anyhows...I got into these animals and let out a mew. The bull started walking toward me but then turned to the side and back down to resume talking trash with the two other bulls. I saw a glimpse of him through the thicket and new I couldnt get a clear shot. I'd already run off the bull on the ridgeline, and the second bull that was fighting with the one below me started walking across the expanse between the aspens. I'd say he was about 200 yards out and I just didnt feel I could reach him all things considered. So, I waitd for an opening in the trees below me. One came, and I had a chance at the bull. I let one of the Barnes bullets fly (I'd switched back after my "Major" miss). Smoke filled the night sky. He and a few cows started across the hill side, and I fiddle-fumbled around for my quick load. I couldnt get my cap off, and I couldnt get the bullet out of the plastic sleeve and he continued to walk majestically broadside (in slow motion) and by the time I got another shot off he was well out there. I presume I missed him, because he didnt so much as give two chits I'd even fired and just collected up his cows and walked off. I tell you what, that was the most incredible experience, and I would have ended my hunt right there quite content to know I'd experienced something very very few can ever imagine. So, also of import, is to note that the entire time we hunted, dad's communication devices always failed. One day he could hear me on the walkey talky, but couldnt reply. One day he had his phone, but mine was out of batteries, and one day they actually worked. This night for example. He asked me about every four minutes if I was close to the truck yet. I attribute that to his paternal worry for me. I have a headlamp, but I guess he was worried I couldnt figure out one ridgeline and a beeline for the truck with a halogen lamp. But, as a father, I understand the worry.
So, Tuesday morning, with two more days to hunt, we took a drive over to the South side of the lake and drove around seeing if we could spot any and the stalk on them. To no avail. So we headed back over to Deep Creek and picked up right where we left off. During this particular hunt, we'd seen animals, particularly big bulls for the first 30 minutes in the morning, and the last 45 minutes of daylight in the evening. Everything in between seemed to be futile pursuit of sign and the hope of walking into them bedded down in either the thick pines or in a stand of aspen. OK, let me stop right there, the colors out there, the scenery where just...incredible. There is no way I can put into words the beauty of what the mountains are to me. During the first week, when the cloud layer would move in, it was like a sea of clouds with just the very peaks jutting out of the swirling thick clouds. We made it to the very reaches of each of the peaks on multiple times. Up one canyon there is a stand of red maple with leaves so vibrant so brilliant that it looked almost celestial. I'm serious. With each stiff wind, thousands of golden aspen leaves let go and fluttered down to the ground and littered the already molding and wet leaves from weeks of accumulation. You can see that each little leaf was holding on to the very last moment and finally relented to the coming change in season. Please, someone tell me, what season can bring more appreciation to the cycles of life as does September and the Autumnal change? With each storm that rolls through the temperature shifts lower and lower and the continual reminder of a coming blanket of white is less than weeks away consumes the mind. I found that I hurried my step subconciously, hoping to outpace the inevitable nature of dormancy in the mountains.
So, that night, a cayon across from us, a bunch of bulls commenced bugling. Great screams of bugling. At least three we could hear. So dad and I met up, with around 20minutes of daylight left. I asked him if we should pursue them, to which he replied we couldnt possibly get over to them in time. To which, I reminded him, that i haven't been hitting the heavy bag for an hour on Tuesday mornings, or completing the three hundred on Wednesday mornings, or running 5.5 miles on Fridays and conducting weight training for three other days a week for nothing now. It was time to deliver. So I ran down the mountain, crossed the stream, started up the ridgeline and got into the action. As I caught my breath as I walked in I could hear two distinct pockets of ranting bugling. One on my left, and one on my right. Then I could hear a third bull, right in front of me as I moved closer and closer, trying to calm my heartbeat so they wouldnt hear my Tell Tale Heart. If you haven't read up on your Poe, get some. Anyhow, with seemingly every single step magnified in my ears, snapping twigs as I crept, wincing as I did, I moved step by step closer. The light was fading exponentially toward the negative, and I just wanted to see what bulls we had been listening to. I got down deep into the draw and as I stood there contemplating my next move, a spike bull ran up on my right flank and came to almost a cartoon skidding halt. Him lookin' at me, and me a lookin' at him. I pulled the gun up, cocked the hammer back, and very seriously considered dumping him. Then I realized I'd have to go back to work and explain to everyone how I'd waited ten years to draw a tag, wasn't able to put in for five more years, and it would be another ten or more before I'd draw this tag again, and why I felt it was a good idea to dump an idiot spike with two days left. So we came to an understanding, and he took off right in front of me and toward the bugling insanity above us.
Well, I took about another two hundred yards of trail, sneaking, and hearing the elk on my left stop bugling. So I began looking up toward my right. Then, I saw him. A big bull, right smack in front of me feeding on the trail. He wasn't bugling and seemed oblivious to the chest thumping going on all around us. So I stalked up another twenty yards and he looked right at me. I froze, and he went back to feeding. I pulled up my binoculars, because it was getting so dark I couldnt see which part was head, and which part was a....not. When I figured out which way he was pointing, I ranged him mentally at about eighty yards. Leaned against the tree, and made a bunch of white smoke like we've talked about. Well, he stood there! So, I pounded another charge down the barrel, fiddled with a cap, pulled up and saw him about fifteen feet laterally to the right, I pulled up again, fired, and made a bunch more black powder (Pyrodex actually) stink in the draw. He moved about another five feet, looked around, and so I pounded a third charge in. As I was frantically putting a cap on, he sorta stumbled drunk-like, and started to lay down. So I ran up and closed the gap by about fifty yards, and started to prepare to shoot him again. As I pulled up, he kicked and groaned and grumbled and tried to stand up, to no avail. So I walked up even closer, and thought about putting one in his neck, but realized my second shot had already done so. He expired right there before me, and I called dad on the radio. Dad was above me in the tree line (I think you underestimate his sneeegy-ness) and I walked him in on the radio to where we were. The elk and I of course.
So, laying there on the ground I assumed was a smaller than I'd wanted bull. It was almost dark as dad got up to me, and we decided to field dress him, and cape him out for the taxidermist. Caping by the way, is no easy chore, and it took us in excess of an hour to just take the skin off his upper and get the head off. Between here and there we field dressed him, which, on an elk you have to pretty much climb up inside of them to do. So, we took the two rear legs off and let him cool out for the night (quite literally) and agreed to come back and get him in the morning with the cart. We got back that night to the cabin at around eleven pm and fell asleep (after an initial washing of arms, face, legs and throwing clothes away). By the way, I ripped my pants that morning which, I'd also done on Brandon's hunt after getting his bull, so I think we're starting a trend. If I rip a pair of pants, you'd better get ready to pack elk.
So, the next day we got up, hit the trail head with the two wheeled cart, and cut our way down from the kill sight to the main trail. With a head, cape, four boned-out quarters, me wearing a backpack full of 40 lbs of backstrap, it was...uh....no easy task, to say the least. I'd say an elk laying there on the ground is as big as a standard size horse, so I'd put him around 1200-1400 lbs on the hoof. Once boned out, with the head and the quarters, I'd say we had about 300 lbs of animal on the cart. In fact, when I dropped the quarters at Meyers Meats that night, the scaled the meat out at 170 lb. That's with no bones, and no skin, no head, just...meat.
Anyhow, I gotta go get some stuff done. Cleaning out the freezer and realizing just the two quarters of meat from Brandon's have filledup my whole deep freeze. Let alone another 160 lb of meat coming. So, anyhow, people are hovering around me and talking too loud to focus anyhow, so I'll close now.
If you ever get the chance you have to hunt these incredible animals. If not for meat, for pictures, and if not for pictures, just for the experience of hearing the haunting sounds of September. As the clouds roll in and you stand at 9000 feet, looking down on the world, which was created for just me and you, you can't help but know there's a grand design in it all.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the rant, I gotta go now. All the best to you and your's of course.
J
