JmmgBOWhunter
New member
After several months of wearing down a buddy from work I got a hunting partner, which was very beneficial for hauling meat. I didn't pester him to come with me but he has experience hunting elk and loved it. So, every time I got a new piece of gear I has up in his office showing it off. Then I started practicing my calls and having him listen. It all worked the last month we planned this thing together. He started by joining me running hills at 4:30am every morning and then he jumped in to the online scouting with me (side note On X Maps or On X Hunts is the pooh!).
Anyways Friday (9-1-17) morning we left Dallas headed for the Colorado Rockies and for 14 hours we listened to all the elk related podcast I could get my hands on. Also we spent a good deal of the the truck ride fine tuning our calling abilities, not good for the ears but fun as heck. We thought we knew what we where getting to by not parking at a trail head and bush wacking our way in, couple dumb city slickers is what it felt like. It took us 6 hours to get the 2.5 miles to where we marked a base camp. Granted we both had some difficulty adjusting to the 11,400 elevation and this is a wilderness area with a good amount of dead fall. It was all worth it when we got to camp. I could easily die a happy man staring at those mountains.
On the way in to camp we saw a stream near a meadow with a lot of sign and with camp set up we still 5 ish hours of legal shooting light so we went back. Before going we worked a deal were I call and he hunts one day and then we alternate, seems logical. Either way he got dips on hunting first. Nothing at all happened but a thunderstorm rolled in and pushed us back to camp.
Day 2
During our E scouting my buddy marked a meadow with a wallow and we decided over a cup of joe that should be where we sit for the day.
We set there for 6 hours with nothing going on but about every 45 minutes I would let a cow call rip (it was my buddies day to call but I am better at calling, I had my release on and on arrow nocked don't want to sound rude or cocky but he understood. Then it happened, we heard a bugle about 300 yards up the side of the mountain north of the meadow. I pointed my bugle tube directly at the sound and fired of a cow call. In 3 minutes I had five cow break through the meadow 30 yards directly in front of me. Since this is my first ever elk hunt I was willing to take a cow for meat. Likely for me my hunting partner was there to tab me on the shoulder and whisper to wait. Sure enough a winded passionate bull came in right behind the cows. I took the shoot and it didn't look good to me. I thought I gut shotted him but because of the angle he was standing to me the exist was through his looking. I don't how to express the emotions that filled me but it was amazing. He laid down 70 yards from where I shot him.
After that the hard work started. The meadow I had been referring this all time turned out to be a marsh and before we could started quartering and pulling meat we had to make a platform to hold the game bags.
3.5 hours later we have 385lb of boned out meat and one beautiful rack, to haul up and down a ridge for the next 36 hours and 30 miles.
It didn't take long for the excitement to be sucked out of us by the but kicking that mountain gave us. As soon as it was all on ice and we hit the highway back to Dallas we started planning the next hunt.
By the way I think I am pretty much the luckiest guy in North America to tag on Elk first time out with less then 2 days of hunting.
Anyways Friday (9-1-17) morning we left Dallas headed for the Colorado Rockies and for 14 hours we listened to all the elk related podcast I could get my hands on. Also we spent a good deal of the the truck ride fine tuning our calling abilities, not good for the ears but fun as heck. We thought we knew what we where getting to by not parking at a trail head and bush wacking our way in, couple dumb city slickers is what it felt like. It took us 6 hours to get the 2.5 miles to where we marked a base camp. Granted we both had some difficulty adjusting to the 11,400 elevation and this is a wilderness area with a good amount of dead fall. It was all worth it when we got to camp. I could easily die a happy man staring at those mountains.
On the way in to camp we saw a stream near a meadow with a lot of sign and with camp set up we still 5 ish hours of legal shooting light so we went back. Before going we worked a deal were I call and he hunts one day and then we alternate, seems logical. Either way he got dips on hunting first. Nothing at all happened but a thunderstorm rolled in and pushed us back to camp.
Day 2
During our E scouting my buddy marked a meadow with a wallow and we decided over a cup of joe that should be where we sit for the day.
We set there for 6 hours with nothing going on but about every 45 minutes I would let a cow call rip (it was my buddies day to call but I am better at calling, I had my release on and on arrow nocked don't want to sound rude or cocky but he understood. Then it happened, we heard a bugle about 300 yards up the side of the mountain north of the meadow. I pointed my bugle tube directly at the sound and fired of a cow call. In 3 minutes I had five cow break through the meadow 30 yards directly in front of me. Since this is my first ever elk hunt I was willing to take a cow for meat. Likely for me my hunting partner was there to tab me on the shoulder and whisper to wait. Sure enough a winded passionate bull came in right behind the cows. I took the shoot and it didn't look good to me. I thought I gut shotted him but because of the angle he was standing to me the exist was through his looking. I don't how to express the emotions that filled me but it was amazing. He laid down 70 yards from where I shot him.
After that the hard work started. The meadow I had been referring this all time turned out to be a marsh and before we could started quartering and pulling meat we had to make a platform to hold the game bags.
3.5 hours later we have 385lb of boned out meat and one beautiful rack, to haul up and down a ridge for the next 36 hours and 30 miles.
It didn't take long for the excitement to be sucked out of us by the but kicking that mountain gave us. As soon as it was all on ice and we hit the highway back to Dallas we started planning the next hunt.
By the way I think I am pretty much the luckiest guy in North America to tag on Elk first time out with less then 2 days of hunting.
