I got asked about some ELK hunts by BOB, heres a story he enjoyed
back about 1971-72 I had one of my first ELK hunts in COLORADO
Id been invited to tag along with a bunch of old geezers, (IN THEIR 50-60s)remember back in 1972 IM 24 years old, we drove strait from Florida to eagle Colorado, bought licenses at the local hardware store and dead tired from driving for about 42 hours and sleeping in the back seat during 4-5 hour shifts we found our self's setting up a 6 person tent on a flat area about 50 x 40 feet on the side of a dirt road about 20 miles south of eagle, several miles up a logging road from a lake, the area were were to hunt had a huge semi open sloped area of aspen and rolling hills broken up with timber cut draws and steep bench s and narrow canyons
we woke up listing to it rain on the tent, how it can rain at those temps I don,t know, it looked like someone was pouring snow cone ice slush on the tent and truck, it was just about 31F, we go dressed and joked about how crazy it was to drive 42 hours too freeze to death out of state!
it was dark, and we could see our breath (SOMETHING NEW FOR SOME OF THE FLORIDA GUYS)
we donned out gear and started walking up the logging road, that supposedly led to good ELK hunting areas,But we quickly found it was a long out of use dirt trail AND someone had deliberately dropped several large trees across the road to deny vehicle access.
after walking about a mile the oldest guy was physically beat and said he would sit on a stump, and watch for suicidal ELK walking down the road and wait for our return, because at about 8000 ft he could hardly breath.
we decided he had a point and told him we would only go about another 1/4 mile up the road, and drop off a man, the next guy a 1/4 mile further etc., mostly because most of us were totally beat from the trip and had gotten very little sleep, (one old guy snored so loudly we threatened to shoot him unless he slept in the truck, and even then IM sure he had scared several bears in the area half to death, that night.
as dawn broke the slow drizzle slowed and stopped, I found my self checking my slide or pump action Remington 30/06 loaded with 220 grain round nose bullets
and making sure the chamber was loaded, the barrel clear of mud and the safety was on, I reached in my pack and took out a small tarp and placed it on the stump I was sitting on and started to wonder if the older guys had conned me into sticking near the road while they snuck into the deeper woods, about noon a hunter not from our group wandered up the road, never seeing me as I was sitting on a stump about 60 yards off the road and had several small conifers growing next to me, I took that as a promising sign (not being spotted, sitting on a stump in my camo)
by about 5pm I was certain ID been conned as no one had returned, but we HAD agreed to stick to our areas until dark, then walk back to camp, Id heard distant gunfire all day but nothing near bye and nothing seemed local, it was getting cold and dark slowly when I hear something cracking brush, thinking it was one of the guys sneaking back up the road I watched carefully as I was 60 yards off the road edge........minutes passed...then I heard a shot ring out fairly close by and saw 5-6 cow ELK run up the draw , across the road and up past my location about 100 yards further west on the slope.
I waited expecting to hear yelling, or more gunshots, silence was all I heard for several minutes then in a flurry of broken twigs a small four point ELK broke cover and started running, past at about 200 yards, a shot rang out and the ELK stumbled but regained his footing and continued, making it a full 500-600 yards before falling. I started walking towards the downed ELK, I expected to see the shooter shortly but it was several minutes until I saw SCOTT, one of our guys all out of breath come into view, he waved and I stopped, waited and he asked me GASPING FOR AIR if ID seen his ELK, I assured him I had and it was just over the ridge, as soon as he caught hi breath we continued.
as we crested the ridge we saw movement, I recognized the movement as mule deer, a good 300 yards down slope and crossed a small narrow canyon, I had a deer tag, and one was legal, but we had an ELK down and it was getting dark, so I let that pass grudgingly, and we went down and found the ELK, it was HUGE compared to the white tailed deer I was used to but it was just an average ELK, it took most of the night by Coleman lantern to dress and pack out that ELK.
that was my first day ELK hunting!
the next morning half frozen POP-TARTS and LOTS of burnt COFFEE with some coco and creamora was breakfast, I walked about 1 mile further that day and sat on a stump.cold, wet, and wondering if ID make it the full 9 days were were planing on hunting, I kept looking around, at about 7:45am the sun was just starting to get decent light into the trees when I spotted a nice legal 4 point ELK with two cows walking thru the aspens, I studied him for about 5 minutes then remembered what all the old guys had said! ANY LEGAL ELK IS A TROPHY ON PUBLIC HUNTING AREAS, IF YOU GET THE CHANCE DROP HIM"
I sat, with my back against a stump, and used the rifle sling around my forearm and elbow to steady the rifle, my elbows inside my knees and placed the cross hairs on his heart/lung area, snapped off the safety and slowly squeezed off a shot!, CRACK!
the ELK WHEELED AND RAN!, I pumped the action slid the cross hairs up on his shoulder and started to squeeze off a second shot, but he plowed nose first into the dirt before I could shoot! I had my first ELK, I was NOT impressed with the rifle, thinking it should drop ELK like IT did DEER, later I learned that its rare for ELK to drop at the shot! and while, I learned later that a larger caliber tends to get a more pronounced reaction, on bullet impact if its placed correctly but it doesn,t always tend to kill all that much better than a 30/06 with those 220 grain soft nose slugs., all the old guys swore by!
and if you think you might need a strong touch OF MASOCHISTIC TENDENCY'S , a TRUE love of the mountains,disdain for cold wet conditions,and really, LIKE HUNTING LONG HOURS WITHOUT RESULTS, and like LONG HOURS WITH OUT MUCH SLEEP, BAD FOOD,AND HEAVY PACK TRIPS UP STEEP SLOPES, in your basic personality to be an ELK HUNTER your correct!...BUT IT SURE BEATS THE HELL OUT OF WATCHING TV
back about 1971-72 I had one of my first ELK hunts in COLORADO
Id been invited to tag along with a bunch of old geezers, (IN THEIR 50-60s)remember back in 1972 IM 24 years old, we drove strait from Florida to eagle Colorado, bought licenses at the local hardware store and dead tired from driving for about 42 hours and sleeping in the back seat during 4-5 hour shifts we found our self's setting up a 6 person tent on a flat area about 50 x 40 feet on the side of a dirt road about 20 miles south of eagle, several miles up a logging road from a lake, the area were were to hunt had a huge semi open sloped area of aspen and rolling hills broken up with timber cut draws and steep bench s and narrow canyons
we woke up listing to it rain on the tent, how it can rain at those temps I don,t know, it looked like someone was pouring snow cone ice slush on the tent and truck, it was just about 31F, we go dressed and joked about how crazy it was to drive 42 hours too freeze to death out of state!
it was dark, and we could see our breath (SOMETHING NEW FOR SOME OF THE FLORIDA GUYS)
we donned out gear and started walking up the logging road, that supposedly led to good ELK hunting areas,But we quickly found it was a long out of use dirt trail AND someone had deliberately dropped several large trees across the road to deny vehicle access.
after walking about a mile the oldest guy was physically beat and said he would sit on a stump, and watch for suicidal ELK walking down the road and wait for our return, because at about 8000 ft he could hardly breath.
we decided he had a point and told him we would only go about another 1/4 mile up the road, and drop off a man, the next guy a 1/4 mile further etc., mostly because most of us were totally beat from the trip and had gotten very little sleep, (one old guy snored so loudly we threatened to shoot him unless he slept in the truck, and even then IM sure he had scared several bears in the area half to death, that night.
as dawn broke the slow drizzle slowed and stopped, I found my self checking my slide or pump action Remington 30/06 loaded with 220 grain round nose bullets
and making sure the chamber was loaded, the barrel clear of mud and the safety was on, I reached in my pack and took out a small tarp and placed it on the stump I was sitting on and started to wonder if the older guys had conned me into sticking near the road while they snuck into the deeper woods, about noon a hunter not from our group wandered up the road, never seeing me as I was sitting on a stump about 60 yards off the road and had several small conifers growing next to me, I took that as a promising sign (not being spotted, sitting on a stump in my camo)
by about 5pm I was certain ID been conned as no one had returned, but we HAD agreed to stick to our areas until dark, then walk back to camp, Id heard distant gunfire all day but nothing near bye and nothing seemed local, it was getting cold and dark slowly when I hear something cracking brush, thinking it was one of the guys sneaking back up the road I watched carefully as I was 60 yards off the road edge........minutes passed...then I heard a shot ring out fairly close by and saw 5-6 cow ELK run up the draw , across the road and up past my location about 100 yards further west on the slope.
I waited expecting to hear yelling, or more gunshots, silence was all I heard for several minutes then in a flurry of broken twigs a small four point ELK broke cover and started running, past at about 200 yards, a shot rang out and the ELK stumbled but regained his footing and continued, making it a full 500-600 yards before falling. I started walking towards the downed ELK, I expected to see the shooter shortly but it was several minutes until I saw SCOTT, one of our guys all out of breath come into view, he waved and I stopped, waited and he asked me GASPING FOR AIR if ID seen his ELK, I assured him I had and it was just over the ridge, as soon as he caught hi breath we continued.
as we crested the ridge we saw movement, I recognized the movement as mule deer, a good 300 yards down slope and crossed a small narrow canyon, I had a deer tag, and one was legal, but we had an ELK down and it was getting dark, so I let that pass grudgingly, and we went down and found the ELK, it was HUGE compared to the white tailed deer I was used to but it was just an average ELK, it took most of the night by Coleman lantern to dress and pack out that ELK.
that was my first day ELK hunting!
the next morning half frozen POP-TARTS and LOTS of burnt COFFEE with some coco and creamora was breakfast, I walked about 1 mile further that day and sat on a stump.cold, wet, and wondering if ID make it the full 9 days were were planing on hunting, I kept looking around, at about 7:45am the sun was just starting to get decent light into the trees when I spotted a nice legal 4 point ELK with two cows walking thru the aspens, I studied him for about 5 minutes then remembered what all the old guys had said! ANY LEGAL ELK IS A TROPHY ON PUBLIC HUNTING AREAS, IF YOU GET THE CHANCE DROP HIM"
I sat, with my back against a stump, and used the rifle sling around my forearm and elbow to steady the rifle, my elbows inside my knees and placed the cross hairs on his heart/lung area, snapped off the safety and slowly squeezed off a shot!, CRACK!
the ELK WHEELED AND RAN!, I pumped the action slid the cross hairs up on his shoulder and started to squeeze off a second shot, but he plowed nose first into the dirt before I could shoot! I had my first ELK, I was NOT impressed with the rifle, thinking it should drop ELK like IT did DEER, later I learned that its rare for ELK to drop at the shot! and while, I learned later that a larger caliber tends to get a more pronounced reaction, on bullet impact if its placed correctly but it doesn,t always tend to kill all that much better than a 30/06 with those 220 grain soft nose slugs., all the old guys swore by!
and if you think you might need a strong touch OF MASOCHISTIC TENDENCY'S , a TRUE love of the mountains,disdain for cold wet conditions,and really, LIKE HUNTING LONG HOURS WITHOUT RESULTS, and like LONG HOURS WITH OUT MUCH SLEEP, BAD FOOD,AND HEAVY PACK TRIPS UP STEEP SLOPES, in your basic personality to be an ELK HUNTER your correct!...BUT IT SURE BEATS THE HELL OUT OF WATCHING TV
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