After two long days of driving my hunting partner Adam and I met Larry Bishop, owner of
Rocky Mountain Ranches in the town of Oak Creek, Colorado on Friday, October 10th. Larry led us to the piece of property that we would be hunting, along with the 5 other hunters that had paid a trespass fee for D-I-Y hunting rights on the same 4200 acre ranch. We set up camp and eagerly awaited the opening of the 2008 elk season at dawn the following day. With the exception of Adam and I, everyone else in the group had hunted this piece of property before and they all had preferred areas to hunt. It was decided that Adam and I would hunt the left side of the ranch road that basically ran right through the middle of the property and all of the other hunters would hunt on the right hand side of the road. There was PLENTY of hunting territory for all!
Opening morning found us "up and at it" WAY before daylight due to anticipation and excitement. Adam and I parked about 2 miles from the end of the ranch road and Adam dropped off to the left about 1 mile from the parking area. I continued to the end of the road and planned to drop off to the left around daylight. The wind was blowing from my left to right as I walked down the road so everything seemed perfect. However, as daylight approached I spooked a herd of elk on the right hand side of the road that contained a bull since I was paying more attention to the left hand side of the road. Long story short, I never saw another elk that day except for a small group of cows that had been spooked by one of the other hunters not long after lunchtime. However, as I later found out, it was another story for Adam.
Adam had gotten into elk immediately after daylight. He was slowly making his way down a barren ridgeline and there were elk all over the ridge that paralleled the ridge that he was walking on. He played cat and mouse with them all morning and belly crawled into shooting position of a 5 X 4 that had a large group of cows with him. He made a good shot with his custom built .300 RUM and the elk dropped immediately and started sliding down the mountain. He said that the elk kept moving so he kept shooting and shot it a total of three times. He also discovered that on the trip down the mountainside that it had broken off most of the 5th point on his left antler, but he was very proud of his first elk.
The elk lay at the bottom of the valley below the access road and he didn't know how he was going to get it out. He took a GPS coordinate and later talked to some other hunters in our group and he found out that there was a County Road that ran not too far from where his elk was lying. After he and I met back at dark, we decided to find the elk that night from the County Road, gut it, and wait until the following morning to pack it out since it was going to be a cold night and it was already snowing. The next morning, Adam skinned and deboned the elk while I packed the meat back to an awaiting cooler in my truck. It wasn't too bad at all, we had the job done in about four hours and four trips to the truck.
I hunted that afternoon (Sunday) and saw three cows but no bulls. I did hear one bull bugling in a patch of timber, but he never left it before it got too dark. On Monday morning, not long after daylight, I had a group of five cows come by me with their tongues hanging out. Evidently one of the other hunters had spooked them and they crossed the ridge that I was standing on about 100 yards behind me as I was working my way down. Not long after that I heard a bull bugling in a patch of timber on the side of the next ridge about 600 yards away and I decided to try to sit down and wait him out. I also noticed a small bull (it looked like a spike) had decided to bed down right on top of that ridge. I continued to glass and saw a couple of cows feeding in an open area two ridges over and I continued to wait. After a couple of hours the unseen bull bugled and I heard the elk moving in the timber directly in front of me, almost in the area where the spike bull was lying. All of a sudden a cow appeared on top of the ridge, then another, then the bull! I couldn't tell much about him (other than he appeared to be a legal bull) because he crossed the ridge and went out of sight very quickly; followed by yet another cow. Long story short, I tried to circle the ridge that the group of elk had crossed and ambush them from the back side but I never caught up with them.
On Tuesday morning, I got up too early again and waited in the truck about an hour before finally heading out just before daylight. It's hard for Easterners to get used to Colorado time! I didn't want to arrive too early and spook elk out of the country before daylight. Anyway, right as it was beginning to break daylight, I heard a bull bugle about a mile to my left and I put my binoculars on a small group of elk. It was still pretty dark, but I could see at least three elk and I knew that that there was a bugling bull in the group so the stalk was on! I got in a ditch that ran perpendicular to the drainage that the elk were feeding in and literally ran to the bottom. I was trying to hurry to get in shooting position becuase the elk were heading for a patch of timber at the head of the drainage. At the bottom of the drainage just below the elk and out of their sight, I decided to circle the ridge to my right as I faced the area where the elk were. I hoped that I could climb the ridge from the back side near the area where I thought that they might be, crawl to the edge, see if the bull was a legal bull, and shoot from the top of the ridge. As I neared the top of the ridge, I took my backpack off and got my binoculars handy. As I peered into the drainage I couln't believe my eyes. If there was one elk in that valley there were fifty! The first bull that I spotted appeared to be a 3 point. Then I spotted another bull and he was definitely the boss of the herd. He looked straight at me and I couldn't tell much about him until he dropped his head and began feeding. Then I could tell that he was a nice 5 point and I lasered him at 263 yards. I rested my 14" MGM .308 Win Encore pistol on my backpack and let the crosshairs settle just behind his right shoulder for a perfectly angled quartering away shot. When the gun fired the elk staggered slightly and I could see through the scope that the 150 grain Accubond had hit its mark as he ran about 30 yards and piled up. I had my elk!
He wasn't as big as last year's elk, but I worked four times as hard to get him and I was just as proud. We had a GREAT time!
