2021 Southeast Idaho Elk

[Lilhowie83]

T

That is a perfect shot! Great job!

He really did a great job. I have been really impressed the last two years on the maturity he has shown behind the rifle. Last year on the deer he shot, he sat looking through the scope for almost 5 minutes, waiting for the perfect clear shot before he would pull the trigger. When I was his age and even a little older, I was so impatient and immature that I would almost just pull up, see hair and squeeze the trigger. My older boy is a little more like me, we are working on him though.

 

[Sask hunter]

Congrats on a couple great hunts

 

[Lilhowie83]

Congrats on a couple great hunts

Thanks. It has been a fun and rewarding fall.

 

[Montana4Life]

Awesome!!! Loved the pics and story. Congrats to all of you. The pic of the bull on the horse is a dandy!

 

[Lilhowie83]

Awesome!!! Loved the pics and story. Congrats to all of you. The pic of the bull on the horse is a dandy!

Thank you. It has been a great fall so far.

 

[cahunter805]

That is AWESOME!! The smile on your sons face is priceless. Congrats little man on the bull. Congrats to everyone else involved on the hunt also.

 

[nwihunter]

Great write up. Congrats to all of you.

 

[Wallydeuce]

It doesn't get any better than that! Well done. Congratulations to both of you!

 

[Lilhowie83]

I knew that my younger son was beat so I wanted to make the packout as easy for him as possible. After we all the meat cooled and hanging in the tree, I skinned the head and had him lift it. He thought he would be able to carry it out so I loaded all the loose meat in my pack and my oldest boy carried the skull and antlers down through the thick, steep stuff and the younger tag holder carried it the last 5 miles out once we hit the good trail.

On the way home that night I tried calling several people I knew with horses to help on the packout the next day, but since it was the opening week of the general rifle elk season in most of the state, Everyone had their horses tied up on their own hunts. I knew that my son was to exhausted to go back up and even just tag along for the packout so I opted to leave him home. My original plan was to just take me and my oldest son and each take two trips but I was able to find a friend that wanted to go help and my oldest son wanted to go back up and help, he also found one of his friends from his football team that wanted to help. That gave us 4 bodies and 4 quarters left on the mountain. Perfect. I went and picked everybody up and we set out. We got to the trailhead and had a really nice hike in. The two 14 year old boys had to show us old men what it was like to be young again. They took off and got to the point where we had to start bushwacking about 30 minutes faster than me and my friend. We finally caught up with them and started making the climb. We had about 1.25 miles to go but we had to gain 950 feet of elevation in that distance. My friend only made it up that climb about 1/4 mile before we realized he wasn't going to make it very quickly. I told him to wait there and me and the boys would go up and get the 4 quarters and bring one down to him. We loaded a hind quarter on my son, a rear quarter on his friend and I loaded a front and hind quarter on my pack and we made hike back down to where we left my friend. That 1 mile hike down with two elk quarters on my back was absolutely miserable! As soon as we reached my friend I couldn't get my pack off fast enough and get a the front quarter loaded on him. At that point the hind quarter by itself felt light on my back. We got everyone situated and made sure their packs were set and we took off on the nice 5.5 mile trail back to the car.
The boys


My friend after I got him loaded up.

It has been a great fall so far and we have plenty of meat in the freezer. Now it's time to see if we can find my oldest son and oldest daughter a cow elk.

 

[2rocky]

I can tell you are molding some really great hunters to carry on the family tradition. You have a lot to be proud of this season.

Howie you are the kind of hunter I like running into in the woods. Hope I get to someday...

 

[Lilhowie83]

I can tell you are molding some really great hunters to carry on the family tradition. You have a lot to be proud of this season.

Howie you are the kind of hunter I like running into in the woods. Hope I get to someday...

@2rocky Thanks. It has sure been fun the last couple of years watching them grow and mature as hunters, shooters, outdoorsmen and all around people. I think hunting has really been something that has strengthened our relationships as a family.

From the kids and hunting thread, it looks like your doing pretty good with those girls of yours too. It would be fun to run into you in the woods someday too. I try to be a friend to all I meet when I'm out hunting. It amazes me how many people that I try to strike up a conversation with while out in the woods just give you a cold shoulder.

 

[Lilhowie83]

My cousin finished up our Euro mounts and we went and picked those up last night. He did a great job on them.


His smile says it all.

 

[duckhunt]

Great hunt so far. Looking forward to the rest of the season.

 

[Parker35]

Loving all of these hunt recaps on HT. This is another great one!

 

[Lilhowie83]

I have really slacked off about finishing the updates on the rest of our elk season.
I knew my oldest son would have limited time because he got asked to practice and dress with the varsity football team, who was defending a state championship.

We had a Friday morning that was free the last weekend of October. So we went out early and made a quick hike to our glassing spot. Right as it got to be legal shooting light we saw some cows feeding down in the sagebrush. We could tell they were feeding uphill to go bed down in the timber, so we made a quick hike to the west to intercept them on the ridge where they should come up. The elk read the script that morning and came right up the draw just under 200 yards and my son made a good clean lung shot that ended his elk hunt on the first morning he was able to go out hunting for himself.



We quickly got the elk cleaned up, quartered and packed back to the truck with plenty of time for him to make it back to football practice that afternoon. We now had 3 elk in the freezer at this point and still had my daughter's tag to try and fill.

My oldest daughter isn't much into hunting, she does really want to shoot a moose though, so I put her in for moose every year and buy her OTC deer and elk tags just to get her out a little bit and get some experience. With three elk in the freezer already, we didn't get out and hunt to much. We mostly just went out on some drives and ate some treats and spent some quality daddy daughter time together. All in all it was a great elk season with plenty of meat for our family for the year. Now its onto planning and preparing for next year.

 

[dgc1963]

Congratz on the hunt and great story I enjoyed reading it very much thanks for taking us along

 

[Irrelevant]

Not sure how I missed this the first go around. Great work getting those boys into elk and dandy bull for yourself.

 

[JLDemo]

Awesome hunt and congrats to all.

 

[Lilhowie83]

Congratz on the hunt and great story I enjoyed reading it very much thanks for taking us along

Thank you. It has been a fun year for us.

 

[Lilhowie83]

Not sure how I missed this the first go around. Great work getting those boys into elk and dandy bull for yourself.

Thanks. You were probably out hunting when it first rolled around. It has definitely been a fun fall for our family.