last night Jack unexpectedly dropped by and I made a pot of coffee and we started to talk about the elk hunts we shared over the years, its been at least 8 years now since I was able to go to Colorado, to elk hunt due to both my accident, where I permanently and seriously damaged my ankle and lower back, and the fact my older sons sucking my finances dry with me supporting him, and his family.
but we sat and reminisced, a bit and Jack brought up the first time he saw me hunt with my SAKO 375 H&H carbine.
while this is NOT my 375 H&H sako carbine, in the picture posted above, My SAKO CARBINE is almost an exact clone except, that my stocks about 5 shades darker, so its about as dark as walnut gets.
I found this picture posted on the internet, it could be a clone of the sako carbine Ive used for decades, if the stock color was about 6 shades darker walnut ,
mines about the color of a semi sweet dark chocolate
Id found that carbine offered for sale in an add in the shotgun news and the picture just grabbed my attention like a playboy fold out! the picture above is a virtual clone with the exception that my stock wood is MUCH darker walnut almost as dark as a semi sweet chocolate bar , rather than the lighter brown depicted above, but I have a very similar 4x scope.
I found that the Hornady 270 grain bullets over 77 grains of WW760 powder and a federal 215 primer is the combo that produced the most consistent accuracy.
the first time we went out to hunt Elk Jack was kidding me about leaving my 340 wby back at Franks house and bringing the 375 H&H carbine along, but he well knew from several previous years that the area we hunt is mostly steep well timbered slopes, that we still hunt thru , blow downs and aspen on the south and west facing slopes and mostly thick conifer on the north and east facing slopes and the ranges tend to be rather short, with few places you can see more than 100 yards at best!
up close most of that canyon looks like this on a 30-45 degree slope
THIS IS A PICTURE OF THE AREA I HUNT FREQUENTLY FOR ELK
LOWER CANYON
upper canyon
well we had left the parked truck well before first light, and walked into the grizzly and deep creak hunt area, for about a couple miles and found a ledge that offered a good view of the canyons other adjacent slope and some areas below the ledge we were on which was about 100-300 yards higher than the creek that wanders thru the canyon at that point,we had reached this location at just past first light, the areas rather steep on both slopes and while the far slope is pushing the effective range limitations of the carbine its certainly not completely out of range as most of it was at or under 400-500 yards from our present location.
we had been sitting there for about 45-minutes to an hour resting and catching our breath while discussing and laughing about the absurdity of paying well over a $1000 in license, equipment, food and travel expenses to sit on a hard, cold rock, in a freezing cold wind gusted area, miles from any road after transporting a 50 pound back pack into a nearly non assessable canyon while looking for any elk stupid enough to wander by our location in daylight.
after admitting to yourself that you must have lost your mind, and chuckling about it a bit we were debating the value of moving further into the canyon or the merits of staying where we were as it seemed to be both semi comfortable and providing what was rather effectively a way of blocking any game from moving up or down the canyon without being easily, visually detected from our current location, and the fact that at that altitude moving around was only accomplished with considerable effort , we noticed movement on the far slope.
Jack had a Browning A-bolt in caliber 375 H&H
and had found the same hand loads as I was using quite accurate also, but he had mounted a 27" harris bi-pod to his rifle, which is identical to the one I use on my 340 WBY rifle I carry on most hunts
so we had previously agreed that any game he spotted on the far slope he would get to take the first shot as his combo had in theory more accurate potential at the further ranges and any game spotted between the creek and our current location on the nearer slope would allow myself to take the first shot.
at about that time (maybe 7am,)Jack spotted several mule deer for which he had a license on the far slope, and while he watched them feed and move across that area he debated if the deer were worth shooting because we well knew the result would be the rest of the day spent in dressing out, packing out and basically busting both our butts in transporting 60-90 lbs of meat each if he decided to drop a deer this far from camp.
keep in mind we were basically concentrating on finding a semi good elk and mule deer were a lower priority , so unless the deer was rather exceptional or it was after we had filled our elk tags , mule deer were not the first choice as dropping one would take the rest of the day or more away from any chance at collecting any elk and shooting one was bound to cause a commotion making any chance at bagging an elk far less likely.
After deciding to let the mule deer he saw pass unmolested, (mostly due to past experience and the knowledge of packing out deer in previous years from this location) we settled back to watch for what we hoped would be a decent elk, hours passed, the temps dropped and it started to snow, but as a plus the wind had reduced to slight occasional gusts rather than the earlier constant freezing wind. by about 2pm we had seen a few dozen mule deer and a couple cow elk and one spike bull pass but nothing worth shooting with the resulting mandatory packing out job to follow.
at this point Jack was thinking of moving a 1/4 mile further up the canyon where we knew from past trips still hunting thru this canyon,the terrain got far steeper and less timbered.
as jack stood he noticed a really nice mule deer buck on the far slope with about a 28"-30 inch wide 4 point per side rack slowly walking thru the sparse brush at a range of about 400 yards.
this chart pretty much matches the trajectory specs of jacks, Browning A-bolt in caliber 375 H&H with its 24" barrel length my carbine drops a few inches more as the velocity's about a 150fps slower, we both site our rifles in to hit 3.5: high at 100 yards as that allows a point and shoot without caring about trajectory compensation out to at least 320 yards on elk, jack placed the lead or vertical cross hair in the scope behind the deers eye near his ear,and the horizontal cross hair so there appeared to be about 12" of daylight between the deers shoulder and his back line, and squeezed off the shot< I expected the deer to drop instantly but it spun and started to run back the way it had come from, Jack worked the bolt and was getting ready to take a second shot when the deer tumbled and slid down the far embankment. the bullet had zipped thru the lower heart, but not expanded a great deal due to low resistance and reduced velocity at the 400 plus yard impact range, we spent the rest of the day dressing and packing out the deer and joking about who would have the first heart attack or stroke , or break a leg, at the altitude,we were at, as we could hardly breath due to exertion, while carrying a 90 lb pack full of zip lock bags filled with snow cooled venison, in sub 30F temps on lightly snow covered rocks
but we sat and reminisced, a bit and Jack brought up the first time he saw me hunt with my SAKO 375 H&H carbine.
while this is NOT my 375 H&H sako carbine, in the picture posted above, My SAKO CARBINE is almost an exact clone except, that my stocks about 5 shades darker, so its about as dark as walnut gets.
I found this picture posted on the internet, it could be a clone of the sako carbine Ive used for decades, if the stock color was about 6 shades darker walnut ,
mines about the color of a semi sweet dark chocolate
Id found that carbine offered for sale in an add in the shotgun news and the picture just grabbed my attention like a playboy fold out! the picture above is a virtual clone with the exception that my stock wood is MUCH darker walnut almost as dark as a semi sweet chocolate bar , rather than the lighter brown depicted above, but I have a very similar 4x scope.
I found that the Hornady 270 grain bullets over 77 grains of WW760 powder and a federal 215 primer is the combo that produced the most consistent accuracy.
the first time we went out to hunt Elk Jack was kidding me about leaving my 340 wby back at Franks house and bringing the 375 H&H carbine along, but he well knew from several previous years that the area we hunt is mostly steep well timbered slopes, that we still hunt thru , blow downs and aspen on the south and west facing slopes and mostly thick conifer on the north and east facing slopes and the ranges tend to be rather short, with few places you can see more than 100 yards at best!
up close most of that canyon looks like this on a 30-45 degree slope
THIS IS A PICTURE OF THE AREA I HUNT FREQUENTLY FOR ELK
LOWER CANYON
upper canyon
well we had left the parked truck well before first light, and walked into the grizzly and deep creak hunt area, for about a couple miles and found a ledge that offered a good view of the canyons other adjacent slope and some areas below the ledge we were on which was about 100-300 yards higher than the creek that wanders thru the canyon at that point,we had reached this location at just past first light, the areas rather steep on both slopes and while the far slope is pushing the effective range limitations of the carbine its certainly not completely out of range as most of it was at or under 400-500 yards from our present location.
we had been sitting there for about 45-minutes to an hour resting and catching our breath while discussing and laughing about the absurdity of paying well over a $1000 in license, equipment, food and travel expenses to sit on a hard, cold rock, in a freezing cold wind gusted area, miles from any road after transporting a 50 pound back pack into a nearly non assessable canyon while looking for any elk stupid enough to wander by our location in daylight.
after admitting to yourself that you must have lost your mind, and chuckling about it a bit we were debating the value of moving further into the canyon or the merits of staying where we were as it seemed to be both semi comfortable and providing what was rather effectively a way of blocking any game from moving up or down the canyon without being easily, visually detected from our current location, and the fact that at that altitude moving around was only accomplished with considerable effort , we noticed movement on the far slope.
Jack had a Browning A-bolt in caliber 375 H&H
and had found the same hand loads as I was using quite accurate also, but he had mounted a 27" harris bi-pod to his rifle, which is identical to the one I use on my 340 WBY rifle I carry on most hunts
so we had previously agreed that any game he spotted on the far slope he would get to take the first shot as his combo had in theory more accurate potential at the further ranges and any game spotted between the creek and our current location on the nearer slope would allow myself to take the first shot.
at about that time (maybe 7am,)Jack spotted several mule deer for which he had a license on the far slope, and while he watched them feed and move across that area he debated if the deer were worth shooting because we well knew the result would be the rest of the day spent in dressing out, packing out and basically busting both our butts in transporting 60-90 lbs of meat each if he decided to drop a deer this far from camp.
keep in mind we were basically concentrating on finding a semi good elk and mule deer were a lower priority , so unless the deer was rather exceptional or it was after we had filled our elk tags , mule deer were not the first choice as dropping one would take the rest of the day or more away from any chance at collecting any elk and shooting one was bound to cause a commotion making any chance at bagging an elk far less likely.
After deciding to let the mule deer he saw pass unmolested, (mostly due to past experience and the knowledge of packing out deer in previous years from this location) we settled back to watch for what we hoped would be a decent elk, hours passed, the temps dropped and it started to snow, but as a plus the wind had reduced to slight occasional gusts rather than the earlier constant freezing wind. by about 2pm we had seen a few dozen mule deer and a couple cow elk and one spike bull pass but nothing worth shooting with the resulting mandatory packing out job to follow.
at this point Jack was thinking of moving a 1/4 mile further up the canyon where we knew from past trips still hunting thru this canyon,the terrain got far steeper and less timbered.
as jack stood he noticed a really nice mule deer buck on the far slope with about a 28"-30 inch wide 4 point per side rack slowly walking thru the sparse brush at a range of about 400 yards.
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