I like to eat elk. To me, it's the best of all big game meat; so I always try to get a cow/calf additional license here in Wyoming. Most of the time I do, but not all of my seasons end with a kill.
On my fourth day of hunting, I shot this calf just as it was light enough to shoot. Before light, I dropped over the edge of a ridge into what turned out to be some God-awful blow down timber, trying to get to an open hillside just as it would be light enough to shoot. After noisily picking my way over, around, and under downed trees it finally began to become light enough to shoot and I could see up ahead that the timber was opening up to the open sagebrush hillside. When I was about 75 yards from the edge of the trees, I heard brush popping. Looking toward the sound I could see the dusky sides of a few elk trotting away. Obviously, I had been detected. By that time I could partiall see the opening. Sitting down into a sitting position, I glassed and saw a spike standing as though wondering what the big deal was. Then other movement down the hill as another elk moved into a small opening in the trees and stopped. Glassing, I could see it didn't have antlers. The head looked small, like what a calf's head should look like. The elk was quartering away, but its front shoulders were visible. Using a Marline 444P and 300 gr. hardcast bullets, I put the crosshairs on its shoulder. At the shot it dropped. It tried to get up but could not, obviously a spine hit. I quickly made my way through the trees and down to it and put another round in its neck.
After field dressing the bull calf, I cut it in half, then went back to my truck to get my pack frame. Returned to the carcass, lashed each half, one at a time to the frame and packed the pieces uphill to the top of the ridge and then slid each piece downhill on the other side in the snow to a road where I could load it in my pickup. Loaded the last half at 2:00 in the afternoon. I was pretty sore for 3-4 days afterward. I am glad it wasn't any bigger. The second pic is looking south toward South Pass (across which meanders the Oregon Trail) and Oregon Buttes...my kind of country.
