well, it was a low odds deal, hunting 15 square miles that we'd never been in before. We put on about 12 miles hiking, stop and glass, hike, stop and glass, hike....
we spent the last hour sitting in some cover where we'd seen a bunch of tracks in a huge ravine, we'd both physically and mentally given up. With about 5 minutes of legal shooting time left we got up from our spot and saw about a dozen cows behind us coming down the hill. Ducked back down and peeked around the corner, put the handi-whelen on the monopod.... When the crosshairs settled on the lungs of a medium sized cow the gun went off, funny how the body takes over. BOOM....WHAP! Broadside shot, double lung but elk are tough! I knew my shot was perfect and she was done, but she didn't know it. She just stood there, waivering around a little, the other cows ran towards us until spotting us and did a U-turn, my cow hadn't taken a step. I wouldn't have shot again but it was just about dark. Two more through the vitals, then she tipped. This was a stout load too, 225 grain TSX's at 2800 fps at a range of about 165 yards! The good news, she landed 20 yards from the road. 15 minutes later we had her field dressed and loaded, it was a good day.
here's the end results:
