# 2016 Pics - And The Story Behind Them



## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

With the 2016 big game seasons in the history books and some of the 2017 license application periods already open this might be a good time to rekindle the urge to hunt something out of state. As was stated in last year's thread, I lot of guys have been successful and there are pics scattered about on this forum but it would be easier to daydream about hunting if we could get them all in one place so even if you posted before, consider doing it again. Pictures are great but a blurb about the hunt makes the pics infinitely more interesting, to me anyway. 

Who will be first? I have some elk pics and stories and will post them after I finish working on taxes. FM


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## pigeon (Jan 25, 2009)

I did a guided hunt in yampa co this past fall for elk , I'm not much of a story teller but I shot a younger 5x5 the 1st day as I didn't know to wait for a bigger one or not but I'm happy that I just got one , only got like 5 pics for my hunt due to dead battery's and cracked my screen on my phone the 2nd day there


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## pigeon (Jan 25, 2009)




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## HevyD (Jan 10, 2010)

I was fortunate to fill my tag on the first morning of my hunt in west central Wisconsin. Just as daylight broke I saw him come out of the same thicket that most of the bucks I see come out of. He made his way around the ridge top peninsula and walked right by me on the downhill side about 10 yds away. Once he made it to me I knew I had my chance. He's not a monster but a very respectable buck. So my hunt was over an hour after it began. 6 bucks in 8 yrs from the same tree. Wisconsin has treated me well.


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## HevyD (Jan 10, 2010)

HevyD said:


> I was fortunate to fill my tag on the first morning of my hunt in west central Wisconsin. Just as daylight broke I saw him come out of the same thicket that most of the bucks I see come out of. He made his way around the ridge top peninsula and walked right by me on the downhill side about 10 yds away. Once he made it to me I knew I had my chance. He's not a monster but a very respectable buck. So my hunt was over an hour after it began. 6 bucks in 8 yrs from the same tree. Wisconsin has treated me well.


And he ran down the hill and dropped right off the road about 50 feet from my truck. Lol


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## Luv2hunteup (Mar 22, 2003)

First day of Colorado muzzleloader season I hung my tag on a 5x4 bull. We watched him move across the mountain face in the mourning with about 30 other elk to bed for the day. We climbed up in the afternoon bugled once, he got out of his bed and bugled back. We bugled one more time and he covered 200 yards in no time. He trashed a aspen in front of us for ten minutes before offering a 100 yard broadside shot. He walked off about 60 yards before piling up. I went back to cook for first rifle season and we went 6/7 on bulls.


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## WMU05 (Oct 16, 2004)

November 7th, NW Illinois. Second year in a row I beat the odds and killed a buck on public land. Third day of the hunt and it was the fourth buck I saw that morning. Grunted him down off a ridge to 10 yards. Shot him right after he stepped over the fallen tree in the bottom of the second picture. 

















+


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## Jet08 (Aug 21, 2007)

Even with unseasonably warm temperatures Missouri treated me well.


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## bowtech84 (Mar 4, 2016)

Spent the last week of October in Montana and was able to fill my elk and deer tag. Filled my bow tag back in Iowa the following week. First gun season i was able to fill a buck tag and punched my late muzzy tag last week. It's been a pretty good year for me. Went 7-7 on tags if ya count turkey season.


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## hooknhorn (Oct 15, 2007)

Wow what a season Bowtech.....congrats to all


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## Namrock (Apr 12, 2016)

Bowhunted Central South Dakota for the 2nd time. My bil has family that has a cattle/crop farm about 50 miles east of Missouri River. We stayed with one of his cousin's. Because it was my 2nd time to this place & I had seen what was there before. I said I was going to hold out for 1 of those bucks like his cousin had on his walls. & possibly eat a tag sandwich if it didn't happen. I was honestly passing up bucks every other sit that I would've been happy to shoot back here during the 1st 4 days of the hunt. I actually passed on an 8 point that was bigger than anything I've shot before. & Yes I was taking a WHOLE bunch of crap from the other 2 guys who had tagged out already. But on November 9th the 5th day of a 7 day hunt at 12:20 pm my Moby Dick came to check out a couple does that were just off to my right. He stood (& stood & stood) in this, so thick you can't see through stuff 10 yds to the right of the ladder stand I was in. & All I could do was stare at his horns & hyperventilate for a couple agonizing minutes. Then the does finally left the thick stuff, he followed, hooked to his left & gave me a 26 yd shot that I managed to not freak out & screw up. 40 yds later he was down & I was sitting next to him in disbelief & thanking the big man upstairs.(& My wife for telling me 2 go)








Most amazing hunt of my life.


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## josheupmi (Dec 9, 2008)

Started my season in Ohio with my wife sitting in a groundblind, following weekend I had the property all along and was in a great stand. After passing many does and smaller bucks for 2 weekends I gave it a break till November. Well the weather was just short of terrible with highs in the mid 60s and windy. November 5th I get just barely a chance at a 150, he decided the gig was up and give me the slip, after countless small bucks I decide to give it a rest till gun. Gun rolls around and the deer all but disappear, acorns crop was terrible and we didn't have enough food for them to stick around. After a very disappointing gun I was all but ready to hang it up, muzzleloader rolls around and all the sudden we have tons of pics. My first eve of muzzy finds me in a stand I started the year off for my first sit. After watching 10 does I decide to take a mature one that has been a thorn in my side all year, I know which one cause a giant cut on her right ear. The brudal cold had me not wanting to reload right away and warm my hands, but I figured I better. 10 mins later a nice main frame 8 appears chasing a doe mind you, and the rest is history a well placed 90 yd shot and my season was done.


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

This is a long one folks, I hope the few pics I took post where I want them.

The trip west in early October was pretty uneventful, other than seeing lots of ducks in the potholes of SD and antelope in Wyoming. Antelope season would have been open for a while but there were still some pretty nice bucks within sight of the interstate.

Not far west of Gillette I saw what I had been waiting for, the Big Horn Mountains. The trip through the mountains was refreshing to say the least, after driving a couple days across the prairie. Seeing several sets of elk tracks in the snow sure got the heart pumping.

South of Ten Sleep the guide was waiting and we drove another thirty miles or so to the base of operations. Base was plush by elk camp standards with propane heat in the two man rooms and multiple bathrooms with hot showers. Electricity was provided in the morning and evening when the generator was running. There were 18 hunters in camp (twelve bull hunters and eight cow hunters) along with a cook, camp manager, and 9 guides. After unpacking my guide had me get acquainted with my horse and adjusted the saddle so we would be ready to go before daylight the next morning. The ranch was over 100,000 acres so there was plenty of room for everyone to spread out.
Shortly after dawn shots could be heard from various directions on a somewhat regular basis so it was obvious others were having success. We were seeing small bands of two to six elk and herds of a dozen to about forty all morning but no bulls I wanted to tag. At around ten a mega herd crossed between some hills about a mile away. We rode directly to the area and when we came over a rise there were elk everywhere in the snow covered bowl. It was an unbelievable sight. We never got within range because a couple animals busted us just as we crested the rise and they all moved up the valley at a rather fast walk. I thought there must have been a couple hundred head but the guide said “more like five hundred”. What a sight, we were seeing even more elk than the outfitter had led me to believe!

In midafternoon the cow hunter I had been paired with decided to fill his tag so we set up pretty much out in the open and the guide proceeded to use his cow call to try to chirp a group of cows out of a wooded ravine where they had disappeared earlier. After a half hour or so the herd of cows, calves and a spike or two came boiling up over the lip and I thought we were going to get run over. When we moved the animals flared and the cow hunter made a great shot on a running animal at about 20 yards. This was his seventh hunt with the outfitter and his seventh elk. He goes out every two or three years, if he does not have enough preference points for a bull tag he gets a cow tag. The guy was just a regular workaday Joe but his hunting priority is elk. He tucks away something from every paycheck to support his habit..... and his wife puts up with it. He cannot wait to take his kids out when they get old enough.

After quartering the cow and loading it on the pack horse we went looking for a shooter bull. Just before dark we spotted a herd of about one hundred and fifty head. Some of the bulls in the group looked pretty good so we decided to get a closer look. We left the horses with the cow hunter while I trotted, then walked, then crawled through the sage brush to close the gap. There were some wide antlered bulls and some tall antlered bulls, there were even some bulls with a lot of points but none had the combination I was looking for. While moving on the elk two antelope bucks that anyone would be proud to put on the wall walked right through the main body of the herd. The elk paid no attention. Back at camp we discovered that all but four of us had filled up. That’s 14 for 18 on opening day or 78% success. The rest of us could have tagged out if we had wanted to.

Just before sunup the next day we tied the horses and hiked about a quarter mile to a slight rise with a good view of a large area. Immediately we saw a group of 40 or so that we ranged at over 600 yards. One bull had a very large body but the top of one antler was broken just above the G4 so we just watched them slowly feed up the long, low hill. Shortly thereafter and about a mile away a few elk popped out of the scrubby juniper and pine also feeding up the long hill. Then more came into the open, and more, and more………. I counted two hundred fifty before I quit and I know there were many more. Most were cows of course, but there were some decent bulls too. One of the other guides had indicated he would be going to that area later in the morning so I opted to leave the animals alone. We just watched and enjoyed.

When the sun was less than a fist’s height above the horizon my guide whispered that an elk had jumped the fence right in front of us and he quickly set up the shooting sticks and insisted that I chamber a round and get down on the scope. Unfortunately I was looking almost directly into the sun and mostly what I could see through the scope was a white haze. More animals were jumping the fence but I could not see any of them and whenever I tried to look over the scope he would insist I get back down. I finally located an animal in a small area between the pines and saw the foggy image of an elk with decent headgear just as the guide said “there’s a nice bull”. He had ranged the first animals and said it was 230 yards. As I sighted on the bull with the scope at 10X I recall thinking that the body looked rather small for only being a couple hundred yards away.

The cows cleared the scattered pines and headed across the sagebrush after the shot but there was no bull behind them. Walking up to where the bull was last seen I was thinking it was the longest 230 yards I had ever hiked but chalked it up to excitement. The bull had gone about 15 yards before falling. While the guide was bringing up the horses I looked back to where we had been sitting and thought it was longer than a couple hundred yards so when he got back I asked him again how far it was. He checked his rangefinder but this time said 330 yards. When asked if I had not heard correctly the first time he said I had and that he had no idea why his rangefinder read 230 originally. Was he more excited than me? The 6x6 was hit squarely in the heart. Good thing I was trying for a lung shot or might have missed completely.










On the way back to camp my pack came open and unbeknownst to me things began to fall out. Unfortunately for me they were falling on the backside of my horse. Near as I can figure when my orange vest fell out it startled the horse and he took umbrage. Shortly thereafter I made an “emergency dismount”. By the time the guide turned around I was laying on my back with the horse standing about five feet from me and munching grass like nothing had happened. What is that saying about something not really happening if there are no pictures? We picked up everything we could find and continued our journey. The other three hunters filled tags and were back by noon.










I stayed in camp a couple more days but everyone else left ASAP. I don’t understand why everyone left as soon as they tagged out when they had paid for a five day hunt, the scenery was so spectacular, and best of all cell phones didn’t work, only the satellite phone the outfitter had was reliable. I asked the owner of the operation if that always happens and he said fifteen years ago folks were a little pickier about the elk they shot and stuck around for at least a couple days after filling their tags but now it seems like everyone is in a rush to fill their tags and leave ASAP.

The day after filling my tag one of the guides was going fishing near camp and offered to take me with him so I jumped at the chance. The creek was so small that the horses would step across it in places but he said he had caught 75 fish from it the year before, mostly in the little pools on the corners. Well, the fog rolled in right after breakfast and the temperatures dropped way down so we decided to cancel the fishing trip. My guide then asked if I would like to see the ”Wyoming Gash”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...anoes-and-earthquakes/?utm_term=.d131f037d2cc










I had heard about it the year before but did not realize it had occurred on the ranch I was hunting. Talk about a cool geological occurrence. On the way there we saw two antelope bucks that made my eyes pop. The guide said that they both would likely have made the record book. When I go back, not if I go back, I may try for an antelope tag too. After leaving camp I was off on the second leg of my twofer, a hunt in the Book Cliffs in Utah. FM


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## Namrock (Apr 12, 2016)

Forest Meister said:


> This is a long one folks, I hope the few pics I took post where I want them.
> 
> The trip west in early October was pretty uneventful, other than seeing lots of ducks in the potholes of SD and antelope in Wyoming. Antelope season would have been open for a while but there were still some pretty nice bucks within sight of the interstate.
> 
> ...


Now that's a hunting trip. Congrats on a great bull elk & thanks for sharing an awesome story. & When will part 2 be available?


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## Luv2hunteup (Mar 22, 2003)

Congrats Pat, I wish I was at camp when you stopped by with the antlers.


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## pigeon (Jan 25, 2009)

Congrats on a awesome hunt , sounds a lot better then my hunt in CO lol


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

Namrock said:


> Now that's a hunting trip. Congrats on a great bull elk & thanks for sharing an awesome story. & When will part 2 be available?


Glad you enjoyed it. Part two may a bit of time. It took a few days to compose and edit the first part and I have a couple projects to finish up before I start. 

What I will say about the second part is that the hunting was harder but the elk was bigger, way bigger! FM


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## Mr Mom (Dec 21, 2009)

After several years of practice I finally felt confident enough to hunt. In September I hunted on a crop damage permit for a doe. Lots of bug bites and I shot over the back of a doe. Early October I missed two more does. I was aiming too high and they were jumping the string. Finally figured it out and took my 1st doe and a Spike on Michigan state land.
Then it was off to Iowa. First day of the hunt I grunted in a nice buck when he was done fighting. 
Having the rest of the week free it only made sense to go hunt in Ohio because it was on the way home, Sort of. ;-) Arrived at the farm around 3:00 and shot another great buck by 4:30. 
WOW what a year!


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

After leaving the Wyoming elk camp I headed for the Utah part of my twofer. About three hours out of camp I pulled into Wally World in Riverton to replace the orange stocking cap and shooting sticks that were still somewhere in the foothills of the Bighorns courtesy of the events leading up to my “emergency dismount”. They had a hat but no shooting sticks. As I was walking out it suddenly hit me that my elk antlers were still leaning against the tack shed at camp. Fortunately I was able to contact the outfitter, who contacted the camp, and on their next trip to Casper they brought my antlers to the packing plant where I would pick them up along with my meat on the trip back home.

Having an extra day I decided to backtrack a bit and hit I-90 at Rawlins in order to see more of the Red Desert on my way west. Reading several articles over the years that touted the Red Desert as thee place to hunt antelope I wanted to see for myself what it looked like. Different looking country but I did not see any wall-hangers.


Stopping for lunch in Rock Springs at a 50’s – 60’s restaurant I ran into these two. I had to dig the camera out of the duffle in order to get a pic for a woman I used to work with, a real Elvis fan.











Not being in any rush the next day I set my GPS for shortest route rather than fastest route hoping it would take me through some rural areas off the interstate. Well, it did for a while. In mid-October the quakies were at their golden peak and some sort of low brush that was as red as our fall maples lined both sides of the steep hills along the expressway. Then it took me on a two lane through the mountains to Provo. A thoroughly enjoyable trip until it guided me into Provo instead of around it………..but at least now I can say I toured the campus of Brigham Young University! Once that was straightened out it was back through the hills to Wellington and a meeting with my guide, Rick, and one of the other two hunters, before we headed north up the Canyon. The road was a paved snake trail where cattle were allowed free range. If a sign indicated a 10 mph curve or dip it really meant 10 mph! Every so often we would see small groups of mule deer but no large bucks, not even any medium sized bucks. The road turned into gravel and then into a pretty fair two-track and eventually what appeared to be a modified cow path with some major washouts that had to be carefully negotiated. Overall the pucker factor was about an 8.1 with a couple spots hitting 9.5. If I recall correctly the last four miles took about forty five minutes to traverse.

Camp consisted of a bunk house where the three hunters would stay, a smaller “shack” where two guides would stay and a kitchen building where the guide that did the cooking stayed. Just like the previous camp we had electricity as long as the generator was running. Fortunately we all had good sleeping bag because the camp was at 9,005’ and the only heat provided was a portable propane heater with an oxygen sensor. If it was on, it was hot; when it was shut down for the night it got rather chilly.
No horses on this hunt, we were going to ride in comfort on Polaris Rangers. After unpacking the guides took their Rangers off the trailers, except for my guide. The starter on his Ranger would not engage. They worked on it for an hour but the issue could not be fixed in the field so next day we had to go out riding double on a quad. Talk about hard on the back. By a stroke of luck the land owner had left a bottom of the line Ranger parked next to a shed. Rick knew the rancher personally and felt comfortable commandeering it so on the second day we gave up the quad for a rough riding but still more comfortable side by side. It rode much smoother after the tires were deflated to the recommended pressure but we did not realize that until the fourth morning.

Elk were very scarce until late afternoon on the third day. I was told that they were scarcer then had ever been witnessed by any of the guides. We attributed it to the unceasing gale force winds caused by the remnants of Typhoon Songda that came ashore in the North West. We were just south of where the rains and snow hit.

Elk were not plentiful but we did see some mule deer with eye popping antlers. Down in the quakies very early our first morning a half dozen deer were feeding in a little clearing about 100 yards off the trail. The does high-tailed it (or whatever mule deer do) into the aspens but the buck paid little heed and went back to feeding. Rick got very excited and said he might go 32”. I had no deer tag, of course. I saw quite a few other bucks that by my standards were outstanding animals, up to maybe 25” to 27”, and every time I saw one over about 20” I would say “I’d shoot it (if I had a tag)” and the response from Rick would always be “I wouldn’t let you”. He relented when we came upon a main frame 4x4 with tall mahogany antlers and brow tines with about a 24” spread feeding in the sage brush. When we stopped to look at it I noticed it has a sticker on the left side and two stickers on the right. The rack would have been really cool on the wall. I digress, back to the elk.

Those first days we saw a couple lone cows and two or three bands of a half dozen to maybe ten animals feeding in protected areas quite far from our glassing spots. There were some smallish bulls in each group but as I had told the guide when he jokingly asked if I was looking for the King of the Mountain: “No, I’m looking for the one what whipped his butt”. So we made no attempt to get closer. With one bull in the freezer I could be picky and had my sights set (pun intended) on a bull bigger than my last. The third afternoon the wind lay down ever so slightly and we managed to spot a bull at the edge of my comfort range, about 450 yards away on the other side of a ravine. He was a decent 5x5 but not what I was looking for. The guide was a lot of fun, he knew his stuff to be sure, and he knew I wanted to enjoy the entire experience so he suggested we try to call him over to our side. Ducking in what was left of an old mostly fallen down log line shack (which broke the wind a bit too), he chirped a couple times on the cow call. The bull immediately bugled and started down the far side of the quakie and conifer ravine coming in our direction. Fifteen minutes later he responded from the bottom of the steep ravine and fifteen minutes after that he sounded like he was closer and moving up our side. The next time we chirped at him he seemed to be locked in about the same place. We could not figure out why he was not coming out of the raving and I volunteered that maybe there was another bull down there so he did not want to leave his cows. Just a few minutes later and off to the right I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and almost soiled myself thinking the bull had somehow gotten on the opposite side of us and was only about 50 yards away. I didn’t turn, I was afraid to, so I just whispered “bull on the right, bull on the right”. Facing the guide I saw him look left (where we had heard the bull last) “the right, on the right”, still he looked left! Eventually he caught on and looked behind me to see a cow and calf staring in our direction. Another couple of cows came out of the ravine and all started circling around to get down wind of whatever sounded like a cow but didn’t look like one. We chirped a couple more times and each time they would stop and stare. Whitetails would have long since vacated. Mean time the bull would just not come out of the ravine but further cow-calling revealed why. There was indeed another bull. He looked to be a smaller animal, either a small 5x5 or a 4x5. That was fun! We eventually moved off to another vantage point and although we did not see any elk we did see a herd of wild horses.


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

Next morning we went back to the vantage point where we had seen the two bulls and an hour or so after daylight we heard a bull bugling in the quakies where we had seen the monster muley the first morning. The bull was moving in our direction and we zeroed in when some cows popped out of the timber. The bull that was with the group of a dozen or so cows was easily recognizable from over a half mile distance as a bull even with the naked eye. His size and color gave him away, but we could not see antlers even though his size indicated they should be substantial. The field glasses showed why. Both antlers appeared to be broken off immediately above the first point and one of those was partially broken off too. He would have made fine elk burger if a person wanted meat. It is possible the antlers were freaks and not broken but we were just too far away to tell and the wind was shaking the spotting scope so we could not zero in with that.

After lunch that fourth day a couple guides broke out their long range rifles to try some shooting. One was a 6.5 Creedmoor and the other, I believe, was a Nosler (something or other). With a spotting scope we located an isolated rock on a hillside. The rangefinder said it was 905 yards away. There was still some wind and the first shots with the 6.5 were several feet left but the elevation was right on. Knowing about the wind and what it did to the first shot the Nosler guy actually hit the rock dead center on the first try! Oh, using some fancy apparatus one of the fellows said the rock was 23” high and about three feet wide if memory serves me.

For the evening hunt we left the spotting scope at camp ‘cuz the guide had a hunch about a small cattle pond at the downhill end of a long finger of sage and anything in sight would be less than 450 yards. There was no comfortable place to sit out of the wind so we stayed right on the Ranger in the lee of a hill and right out in the open on the side of the opening. The wind was still strong enough to shake the Polaris with every gust. About 45 minutes after we arrived we began calling and about every 20 minutes or so we would bugle again. A couple small bucks wondered by early on and entertained us for a while.

After the third or fourth bugle I turned to the right and behind. Coming down the middle of the opening toward the pond and at a steady pace was a bull. I immediately said “there’s a bull, is he a shooter”? That was more of a rhetorical question because it was obvious the antlers were tall, heavy, and many points were obvious. Locking on the animal Rick said “oh yes!” 

OK. Shooter bull, in the open, slight downhill angle, didn’t know we were there, and ranged at 270 yards. How could anyone ask for a better opportunity? Since we had opted for the comfort of being mostly out of the wind and on the padded seats of the side by side instead of sitting on the dirt along the trail road I would have to get out, grab my rifle, and chamber a round before I could center the crosshairs. To top it off the elk was on my side so I could not slip out unseen. Tapio, (if you’re a Yooper and Odin if you are not,) must have been smiling on me because the bull put his head down in the sage for a bite to eat. At that I quickly jumped out (stumbled actually), grabbed the .300 win mag, chambered a round, took up a kneeling position and shot. Down he went on the second shot. While reloading he got to his feet but was staggering badly so I took up a prone position and at the shot he went back down. I think he was going down as I shot because one of the bullets merely grazed his back. That 6x6 was my second bull in eight days.

Walking up to him the antlers were bigger than I had originally thought and an inspection revealed that he had been rubbing some aspen immediately before he came into view. Apparently his response to the calling was to fight with some trees to build up courage before quietly moving down the opening to see what the other “elk” was all about. 











Even before the pics and the obligatory back slapping the guide said that he could not believe how calm I had been when I told him about the elk. He said most people would have almost lost it. I told him it helped to have shot a decent bull just a few days earlier. 

We finished quartering about sundown but since the little Polaris did not have enough capability to haul out the meat along with the head we placed the quarters on top of some sage brush, loaded the head, and left for camp. Personally, I would have preferred to get the meat back and pick up the head next morning but I was overruled. Antlers seem to be a status thing with many guides and they want them in camp for bragging rights. Rick had been guiding on that ranch for 26 years and said the bull was probably the third or fourth largest that had been taken in all that time. He said it surely went over 325 in spite of having the G5 on the right broken off and the G1 on the left broken near the main beam. The G1 on the opposite side was over 15” and the opposite G5 was over 9” long. Mass was really good and main beams about 55”. Looking closely at the pic you can see the beginnings of points between the G1 and G2. Apparently those are not uncommon in the area and if they would have developed into full-fledged points they were called “devil points”. I have never heard of such before.

Next morning, the last day of the hunt, we went out to help the other two hunters glass for animals. One of the hunters went to the spot where we had seen the two bulls a couple days earlier. We were maybe 3/4 mile away on a slightly higher hill. After we saw them scurry toward the ravine we knew something was up. Five minutes later we heard a shot, then another, and another. A few minutes later we heard several more shots and then several more. Rick thought multiple hunters had run into a herd of elk on the next ranch over and were busy filling tags. It turns out our hunter had dropped a 5x5 across the valley at 430 yards and the second and third shots were to finish it off as it lay on the hillside with its head up. It was the same 5x5 I had passed two days earlier.









You never ever want to let an elk get any further down a hill than you have to when the only access is at the top of the hill. 











The rest of the shots were fired by his guide trying to run off a mountain lion that he noticed in his field glasses while making sure the bull was down! We went over to help them pack the bull up the hill but it was a bit uncomfortable knowing I was probably the slowest person in the group and the lion might still be nearby and looking for a meal.










The two of us who had been successful left in the early afternoon leaving one hunter and his guide to try to fill his tag that evening.

The only noteworthy event on the way home was picking up the meat from the first elk in Casper. I mentioned to the lady at the locker plant that they also had my antlers and she asked me if I was the guy with the socks. What? I had no idea what she was talking about so said no. Well, I actually was the guy with the socks…..also an orange stocking cap and a set of shooting sticks. Turns out the guide on my first hunt had found the last of my stuff in the sagebrush and zip-tied everything to the various parts of the antlers. Words cannot describe what that looked like but suffice it to say several hunters waiting to drop off or pick up meat got a good chuckle out of it.

Also, you actually can fit your gear and the meat from two elk in cap of a Colorado pickup along with two decent racks. The racks took a bit of maneuvering but it worked. 









This is a pic of the two racks. The Wyoming bull on the left and the Utah bull on the right. FM


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