Cow hunt gone wrong

[Clawsar]

Hey guys, here’s a story from last weekend:
A buddy and I went out last Friday morning with a cow tag and general tag in each of our pockets. A few weeks ago we saw a couple large groups of cows and we were hoping to fill our freezers, and my first elk was an exciting prospect. We started hiking in at 6:30, made a long 10.5 mile loop seeing only fresh scat, but no animals. The wind and rain were crazy and we assumed the animals were all hunkered down and we just couldn’t find them. We made it back to the truck around 2:30, wet, tired, and a little cold, but decided to try another spot for the last few hours of daylight.
We remembered the ridge we wanted to walk being a 5 mile loop, but parked at the wrong gate. About 3 miles in we got to the ridge with the sun dropping low. As we paralleled the ridge down to where it dumped into a prairie we saw tons of fresh sign, but again no animals. As we got to the prairie at 5:30 we finally spotted a small group of elk! As we closed the gap from 350 yards, to 300, and finally down to 225, we spotted a bull within the group. All said and done, I got my first elk, a little bull, and my friend shot a cow. 12 hours later we dragged them out to the truck and started driving home. It was a 22 hour day, 30 miles of hiking, and a cumulative 360 lbs of healthy packaged elk meat. Not the cow I was expecting but I’ll take it!

 

[Khunter]

awesome! congrats.

what do you mean by “dragged”?

 

[Addicting]

awesome! congrats.

what do you mean by “dragged”?

I saw that too. I hope it means quartered in a sled. Either way congrats on a successful hunt.

 

[Clawsar]

Yeah, dragged is part of my ‘lessons learned’. My only two harvests before were deer and being self taught, I only learned the gutless method. My buddy went back to the truck to get a sled and try to get better cell phone reception where he called his father in law who was willing to come help and bring a game cart with his buddy. I had my quarters ready to go and loaded in the sled when he got back with it, but then he wanted to gut the cow (not knowing how to do that either). We worked through it but won’t be doing that again. When his father in law got there we loaded the cow in the cart and would leap frog the cart and sled 100 yards at a time the whole way out.

Some of my lessons learned:
1) always carry something out on your back if you need to go to the trailhead for anything
2) Havalon knives are great, but I wish I had a couple more blades (5-6 total)
3) sleds or wheeled carts can be helpful in certain terrain (but carts like the honey badger wheel are expensive!)

 

[duckhunt]

Great hunt

 

[belly-deep]

Congrats on your hunt.

 

[MTGomer]

Game carts, from my experience, are torture if you are on anything Other than a solid, mud free gated logging road or something similar.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

but then he wanted to gut the cow (not knowing how to do that either)

This made me chuckle, I got into hunting in my 20s and like you just kinda figured it out, I gutted my first deer and after that experience said no thank you. I now only gut animals if it's coming out whole, which is rarely, and typically only when I'm with my father-n-law because that's the way he likes to do it.

Gutted a mule deer 2 weekends ago and as I standing there up to my elbows in blood was thinking why am I doing this...

 

[MThuntr]

Some of my lessons learned:
1) always carry something out on your back if you need to go to the trailhead for anything
2) Havalon knives are great, but I wish I had a couple more blades (5-6 total)
3) sleds or wheeled carts can be helpful in certain terrain (but carts like the honey badger wheel are expensive!)

You'll get better at quartering animals...practice on every kill...then you'll only use 1 or 2 blades.

 

[kylemcintyre67]

Nice job

 

[wytex]

Game carts can work in a variety of places, mud not so much though.
Have seen a whole bull elk carted off of Kennaday Peak, though the downfall, a Cabelas game cart.

Nice job and good bull!

 

[FishN4Eyes]

Congrats on the the elk!

Sounds like you learned some valuable things as well and I'm sure you'll put those to good work in the future.

You aren't the only one that had a learning curve, everybody does! Well done to you fellas.

 

[Dan O]

Check out neetkart.com if your interested in a game cart. I had one built in that style. I have hauled a total of 3 cow elk with it in one piece. You can side hill with it and go over downfall if needed. They are expensive but work very well.

Dan

 

[Crumb]

Congrats!

 

[widnert]

Well done!

 

[teej89]

HAHA wow congrats! I quarter my whitetail here in PA and take em out, the heck if I'm dragging it so props to you guys!

 

[MT_elk]

Congrats!

 

[kansasdad]

The struggle of the learning curve, and you nailed it! Congratulations

Now I need to go rub some emu oil on my calves....... reading about your 30 mile death slog gave me leg cramps.

 

[PrairieHunter]

The struggle of the learning curve, and you nailed it! Congratulations

Now I need to go rub some emu oil on my calves....... reading about your 30 mile death slog gave me leg cramps.

Me too. But I will admit I always wonder when people say stuff like that. In reality very few people who can cover 30 miles of ground in a day, let alone tough terrain. In fact I suspect the % of people who have covered 30 miles in one day that is minuscule.

Stories about distances walked can be kinda like fishing stories, they tend to grow.

 

[Clawsar]

I think PrairieHunter is fishing for the gps tracks ��. My OnX tracker had three loops: 10.43, 10.65, and 6.91 miles. It died at the end of the day and I’m estimating about two miles covered after my phone shut off. It was a long, sore day. The elevation was fairly minor though (38 floors per my iPhone?) but OnX doesn’t track that. Normally I’d agree wholeheartedly though!