Elky Welky
Well-known member
This year marked the 31st year of my family's annual Elk Camp. My dad started it in the early 90s, and we've been hunting the same spot, the same week of the season, for all these years. I was 7 years old the first time I went, and even when I lived far away, I still would make the 12 hour drive back to hunt (or most likely drag), if only for a day or two. The stories and memories run deep. We've seen all the issues: at first it was the wolves, and now it has been "discovered" and overwhelmed by 2-legged predators in the last 5-6 years. Grizzlies will be next. On this year's hunt someone else saw me, my 64-year old dad, and others in my party a mile ahead of him. We were stalking a bachelor herd from multiple directions. The other hunter nonetheless decided to charge up an adjacent ridge, pass us all, and shoot a small bull from the group and scare the rest out of the unit. It is public land and elk are scarce on public land now, and the values of hunters seem to have changed wherein many don't respect each other's hunts anymore. I could be angry, sad, or...
I could be excited as hell for my cousin, who put in the work to get a dandy 6*6 bull in a different area the next day. I was 13 years old when my cousin was born during the week of elk camp, and I recall celebrating his birth by the fire. The men passed around a bottle of whiskey to celebrate it. He turned 22 this year. Last year, he guided a buddy of his into a bull, and his buddy whined the whole way out. My cousin got tired of the whining and just packed that bull's head out a few miles without help. If anyone deserved to get a big one this year, it was him. I could not be happier for him or more proud.
And I got to spend quality time in the mountains with my dad, my uncle, cousin, and @MLaird, avoiding the political noise and nonsense, hiking my butt off, breathing the smell of sage brush, snow, willow, and pine. We ate ribeyes and porterhouse steaks cooked over a fire, drank brews, and retold the tales of past hunts: of the time my old man shot an elk using his just-downed moose as a rest; another hunt we call "John's fiasco," and of course, the Ones That Got Away. I don't know what the future holds, but I know where I will be next year for that one week in November.
I could be excited as hell for my cousin, who put in the work to get a dandy 6*6 bull in a different area the next day. I was 13 years old when my cousin was born during the week of elk camp, and I recall celebrating his birth by the fire. The men passed around a bottle of whiskey to celebrate it. He turned 22 this year. Last year, he guided a buddy of his into a bull, and his buddy whined the whole way out. My cousin got tired of the whining and just packed that bull's head out a few miles without help. If anyone deserved to get a big one this year, it was him. I could not be happier for him or more proud.
And I got to spend quality time in the mountains with my dad, my uncle, cousin, and @MLaird, avoiding the political noise and nonsense, hiking my butt off, breathing the smell of sage brush, snow, willow, and pine. We ate ribeyes and porterhouse steaks cooked over a fire, drank brews, and retold the tales of past hunts: of the time my old man shot an elk using his just-downed moose as a rest; another hunt we call "John's fiasco," and of course, the Ones That Got Away. I don't know what the future holds, but I know where I will be next year for that one week in November.
