Jack was over today and we got to discussing my being injured and past hunts etc, heres one hunt I did not post earlier.
we had driven the two trucks we had, on the trip,, this was about in 1987 or so,a older bronco and a dodge pick up, up from Florida 5 days earlier in a non- stop 46 hour drive to where we had camped the previous year. to a camp site in the white river national forest area north of gypsum Colorado.
that first night we had arrived late and the four of us had simply slept in the trucks after making room on the seats to lay down inside our sleeping bags, let me assure you if your not dead tired you should think that option thru, and find a much more comfortable option, sleeping in a sleeping bag in the limited area of the front seat of a broncos just not all that pleasant. but as i said we were DEAD tired and it was only minutes until dark when we arrived. the next day we all felt like we had bad hang overs due to the cold and a touch of altitude sickness, so we all took a few aspirin, and aleve and forced ourselves to drink warm gator aid and hot coffee or tea, as that extra fluid seems to help the altitude and headaches. the first day we felt like crap so we found opening day had been , more of a time too survey the area than really hunt hard, we really should have gotten into the hunting area a few days earlier but two of the guys had limited vacation time available.
over the next couple of days we hunted hard and located several herds of elk in the surrounding canyons, but had as yet none of us had found a really shoot-able elk.
and thru experience I knew the last thing you want to do is shoot a marginal elk down in some miserably steep canyon miles from camp and have to make repeated runs into town for dry ice to keep meat from spoiling on what you later admit was a barely legal elk, especially after you learn whats involved in hauling several hundred pounds of meat up out of some canyon that seems to have been designed eons ago strictly as a means to give you a heart attack while humping an 80 lb pack back to the coolers in the truck on several successive trips required to retrieve the meat.
well on the fifth nite, I was mostly exhausted and so I walked about 700 yards out of camp to sit on a old log in a area just below thee ridge line where I could sit with my back up in some young conifer trees that had begun to grow where the loggers had cut down the larger trees a few years previously, the upper edge of a huge clear cut area where I was seated was facing north west, so the sun would be setting so it made seeing everything a bit difficult in some areas due to glare.
the fairly open area was part saddle or low area between two shallow canyons that opened up as they got deeper and further down hill, but at this point it varied between a 5%-15% grade before falling off as the canyon ran further away and got deeper, and steeper, this meant that it was a fairly easy route for the elk to take up out of either canyon or to take if they wanted to swap canyons rather than negotiate the steeper canyon walls further down the canyons.
we had located the area on a topo map a few years prior and noticed a seldom used, dead end logging road gave vehicle access up to a forest service gate that blocked further use but the area we parked and camped at was only about 600 yards from the roads end.
a good deal of the area looked like this
we seldom had visitors because the area appeared to be well cut over and had hardly any cover, feed or water to attract elk if you just glanced over the maps or came partly up the road scouting, but we had taken the time and effort to look a bit longer and harder and found, the area had several small but very steep side canyons that severely limited loggers access and these smaller side canyons seemed to be where several small groups of elk found refuge from most hunting pressure once the hunting season got into full swing.the area was several dozen square miles of fairly open and well logged over upper ridges but steep and un- touched miserably steep side canyons, most of these had small seeps or creek-lets, that provided drinking water and grass for the elk.
I was far too tired that day to walk further and so I sat and enjoyed the greenery and cool breeze that swirled up the canyons and over the ridge lines we were camped on in a grove of mixed aspen and conifer where the gate and road access ended.
I had brought my ghillie suit up with me, from a bunch of netting and a military surplus camo rain poncho, with a good deal of burlap color dyed fiber, as it allowed me to sit out on the stump yet even out fairly exposed it provided some useful visual cover, making me very hard to see from any distance especially as I was seated against and under the branches of a young conifer and among several long dead trees,
if you don,t know what a ghillie suit looks like heres two pictures
yes technically your required to wear blaze orange, yes not doing that was technically illegal, (I detest that law and comply when Im walking around but on that night I choose to ignore it) as we were the only group we had seen in the area and it was getting late in the day, so I figured Id wear it, because I could place a tab of alcohol heat tablet in a tin can between my feet and with the ghillie suit poncho draped over it the heat it provided made sitting in the cold much less unpleasant as the suit acted a bit like a mini tent controlling heat loss.
Id been sitting for about 45 minutes without moving and it was getting quite cold and the shadows rather long, the sun was almost down on the far ridge when I noticed a couple nice mule deer trotting up the shallow canyon floor the first few were does , big does, but the last deer was a heavy 4 point buck, that was not directly following them but following a parallel course that would eventually bring him directly to the area I was sitting in.
the problem I now faced was my rifle was leaning against the tree next to me and by the time id spotted the deer they were within 150 yards of me and would surely see movement....I knew I would have a hard time reaching my rifle while remaining unseen, but I was wearing a shoulder holster with my 44 mag revolver and if the deer got in really close I felt I had an excellent opportunity to try it out
the deer did get much closer in fact the does came within 35 yards of me and passed me giving no notice what so ever but once past me the wind must have carried my scent or odor to them as they snorted and acted startled, when that happen the buck was about 45 yards out he instantly changed course and started to run but it was obvious he had not seen me as he was running almost toward my location, in his confusion, still seated I brought the revolver up with my arms steady on my knees and shot smoothly double action,with the big revolver ,twice then followed with a third better aimed shot as he whirled and changed direction having spotted me as the revolver and my arms came up,even thou I remained sitting, I could not believe I missed, the buck, as he gave no instant indication he was hit, as he ran.
the hard cast slugs had always done a fine job on deer, but at about 70 yards , while I was busy cursing my bad shooting, he pitched nose first into a small tree and kicked a few times, Id hit him low in the lungs with one shot and high above the heart and below the spine with a second shot, the third shot must have missed. the angle of the shots meant the two double action shots at close range had connected and the third more deliberate shot must have missed.
It was soon dark but since the trucks were close by I went back and got two coleman lanterns and two rather unbelieving and reluctant friends and we dragged the 4 point buck back to camp in short drags of no more than 30-40 feet each as we were all out of breath, and very tired,he was not huge he had about a 23" spread and 4 points per side, but he was a decent buck,
I remember we were so tired I turned to jack and frank and said.......we paid how much to have this much fun?.. none of us could keep from laughing at that point , we had to stop to catch our breath and exchange friendly insults ..I hung him up with a mall block & tackle and field dressed the deer about 70- yards from where we parked the trucks and the next morning we cut him up in zip-loc bags and stuck him in a 180 quart cooler
BTW I used a bullet like this.280 grain NEI cast bullet sized .430 over 22 grains of H110 powder.. it punched in and out exiting and doing a good deal of internal damage in transit
we had driven the two trucks we had, on the trip,, this was about in 1987 or so,a older bronco and a dodge pick up, up from Florida 5 days earlier in a non- stop 46 hour drive to where we had camped the previous year. to a camp site in the white river national forest area north of gypsum Colorado.
that first night we had arrived late and the four of us had simply slept in the trucks after making room on the seats to lay down inside our sleeping bags, let me assure you if your not dead tired you should think that option thru, and find a much more comfortable option, sleeping in a sleeping bag in the limited area of the front seat of a broncos just not all that pleasant. but as i said we were DEAD tired and it was only minutes until dark when we arrived. the next day we all felt like we had bad hang overs due to the cold and a touch of altitude sickness, so we all took a few aspirin, and aleve and forced ourselves to drink warm gator aid and hot coffee or tea, as that extra fluid seems to help the altitude and headaches. the first day we felt like crap so we found opening day had been , more of a time too survey the area than really hunt hard, we really should have gotten into the hunting area a few days earlier but two of the guys had limited vacation time available.
over the next couple of days we hunted hard and located several herds of elk in the surrounding canyons, but had as yet none of us had found a really shoot-able elk.
and thru experience I knew the last thing you want to do is shoot a marginal elk down in some miserably steep canyon miles from camp and have to make repeated runs into town for dry ice to keep meat from spoiling on what you later admit was a barely legal elk, especially after you learn whats involved in hauling several hundred pounds of meat up out of some canyon that seems to have been designed eons ago strictly as a means to give you a heart attack while humping an 80 lb pack back to the coolers in the truck on several successive trips required to retrieve the meat.
well on the fifth nite, I was mostly exhausted and so I walked about 700 yards out of camp to sit on a old log in a area just below thee ridge line where I could sit with my back up in some young conifer trees that had begun to grow where the loggers had cut down the larger trees a few years previously, the upper edge of a huge clear cut area where I was seated was facing north west, so the sun would be setting so it made seeing everything a bit difficult in some areas due to glare.
the fairly open area was part saddle or low area between two shallow canyons that opened up as they got deeper and further down hill, but at this point it varied between a 5%-15% grade before falling off as the canyon ran further away and got deeper, and steeper, this meant that it was a fairly easy route for the elk to take up out of either canyon or to take if they wanted to swap canyons rather than negotiate the steeper canyon walls further down the canyons.
we had located the area on a topo map a few years prior and noticed a seldom used, dead end logging road gave vehicle access up to a forest service gate that blocked further use but the area we parked and camped at was only about 600 yards from the roads end.
a good deal of the area looked like this
we seldom had visitors because the area appeared to be well cut over and had hardly any cover, feed or water to attract elk if you just glanced over the maps or came partly up the road scouting, but we had taken the time and effort to look a bit longer and harder and found, the area had several small but very steep side canyons that severely limited loggers access and these smaller side canyons seemed to be where several small groups of elk found refuge from most hunting pressure once the hunting season got into full swing.the area was several dozen square miles of fairly open and well logged over upper ridges but steep and un- touched miserably steep side canyons, most of these had small seeps or creek-lets, that provided drinking water and grass for the elk.
I was far too tired that day to walk further and so I sat and enjoyed the greenery and cool breeze that swirled up the canyons and over the ridge lines we were camped on in a grove of mixed aspen and conifer where the gate and road access ended.
I had brought my ghillie suit up with me, from a bunch of netting and a military surplus camo rain poncho, with a good deal of burlap color dyed fiber, as it allowed me to sit out on the stump yet even out fairly exposed it provided some useful visual cover, making me very hard to see from any distance especially as I was seated against and under the branches of a young conifer and among several long dead trees,
if you don,t know what a ghillie suit looks like heres two pictures
yes technically your required to wear blaze orange, yes not doing that was technically illegal, (I detest that law and comply when Im walking around but on that night I choose to ignore it) as we were the only group we had seen in the area and it was getting late in the day, so I figured Id wear it, because I could place a tab of alcohol heat tablet in a tin can between my feet and with the ghillie suit poncho draped over it the heat it provided made sitting in the cold much less unpleasant as the suit acted a bit like a mini tent controlling heat loss.
Id been sitting for about 45 minutes without moving and it was getting quite cold and the shadows rather long, the sun was almost down on the far ridge when I noticed a couple nice mule deer trotting up the shallow canyon floor the first few were does , big does, but the last deer was a heavy 4 point buck, that was not directly following them but following a parallel course that would eventually bring him directly to the area I was sitting in.
the problem I now faced was my rifle was leaning against the tree next to me and by the time id spotted the deer they were within 150 yards of me and would surely see movement....I knew I would have a hard time reaching my rifle while remaining unseen, but I was wearing a shoulder holster with my 44 mag revolver and if the deer got in really close I felt I had an excellent opportunity to try it out
the deer did get much closer in fact the does came within 35 yards of me and passed me giving no notice what so ever but once past me the wind must have carried my scent or odor to them as they snorted and acted startled, when that happen the buck was about 45 yards out he instantly changed course and started to run but it was obvious he had not seen me as he was running almost toward my location, in his confusion, still seated I brought the revolver up with my arms steady on my knees and shot smoothly double action,with the big revolver ,twice then followed with a third better aimed shot as he whirled and changed direction having spotted me as the revolver and my arms came up,even thou I remained sitting, I could not believe I missed, the buck, as he gave no instant indication he was hit, as he ran.
the hard cast slugs had always done a fine job on deer, but at about 70 yards , while I was busy cursing my bad shooting, he pitched nose first into a small tree and kicked a few times, Id hit him low in the lungs with one shot and high above the heart and below the spine with a second shot, the third shot must have missed. the angle of the shots meant the two double action shots at close range had connected and the third more deliberate shot must have missed.
It was soon dark but since the trucks were close by I went back and got two coleman lanterns and two rather unbelieving and reluctant friends and we dragged the 4 point buck back to camp in short drags of no more than 30-40 feet each as we were all out of breath, and very tired,he was not huge he had about a 23" spread and 4 points per side, but he was a decent buck,
I remember we were so tired I turned to jack and frank and said.......we paid how much to have this much fun?.. none of us could keep from laughing at that point , we had to stop to catch our breath and exchange friendly insults ..I hung him up with a mall block & tackle and field dressed the deer about 70- yards from where we parked the trucks and the next morning we cut him up in zip-loc bags and stuck him in a 180 quart cooler
BTW I used a bullet like this.280 grain NEI cast bullet sized .430 over 22 grains of H110 powder.. it punched in and out exiting and doing a good deal of internal damage in transit