Thanks, she is very excited about it. She's doing alot of walking now & some light weightlifting
to get ready.
This is were the hunt starts, I just love it!! 
(I think I might be addicted to this whole hunting thing!! )
Sweet 6.5, indeed, this is where the hunt starts. She did a great deal of walking & getting in shape for the hunt. You do not have the altitude of the Rockies there of course, but some of the slopes are comparable for sure. While she was getting in shape she was Deer hunting as well when time allowed & took a nice Doe with the load I worked up (more on that later). We gave up some Deer hunting weekends for Elk scouting, time well spent, as we have alot of time to kill Deer, she will be out to fill a Buck or Doe tag with a crossbow now, season ends at the end of Feb.
We made 3 scouting trips, the first was Sat. Nov. 5th, then we went back for a 2 day scouting the Fri. & Sat. following Thanksgiving & the weekend before the hunt. I can tell you that the first trip & and to a lessor degree the second trip was dissapointing, as we saw very little sign. After talking to some of the Forestry people & Wardens things cleared up a little. It appears the Elk have really taken a liking to the large White oak acorns in the area, which scattered the herds greatly. Yes, they are grazers as a rule, but they are hitting those acorns a little more all the time. Right before the season started, during that last scouting trip, the weather turned cold (by AR standards). very wet, but now it had that wintry feel & the oats & others foods were coming up in those fields & the Elk started hitting the plots.
To give you a little better feel for the area, I want to show a few pics. Keep in mind many of these were taken during our earlier trips, hense the fall colors.
As you can see, the weather changed dramatically, from the 70's to the 30's for highs. The next to the last pic is one of the small plots that the Elk & Deer really started hitting. The last is the one lane road that we took as a back door with the last house before going in, the other route was WAY under water. The large fields in the other pics are hay fields along the river, there is no vehicle access except for LE/Rangers except in the summer, when they let farmers go down the mountain to cut hay. After that, they seed Oats & other Elk/Deer food & close the gates at the top of the mountain. The countryside above the mountains is timber.
My wife did alot of shooting to get ready for the hunt. I asked her to shoot sitting, standing, leaning against trees left side, right side, you name it. Then I had her do some bench shooting, to gain confidence, the little of that she did resulted in some near 1 MOA groups. I used Nosler brass, 140 Gr. Nosler Partition & 46.0 gr. H4831SC with Win Large rifle primers. The throat is crazy long as most Swedish Mausers are, so I loaded to near mag length & seated the bullets where the base was about even with shoulder/neck junction, pretty cool. I often wonder how much we have really advanced with rifle technology whenever I shoot her rifle. I have paid many times more money to get rifles that don't do as well & only a couple that do marginally better.
The following is a group that says it all, the calipers are showing outside to outside. Fluke, maybe, but I expect 1/2"-3/4" with this load.
The Hunt: Day 1, we went down the mountain and set up a blind before daylight overlooking a food plot with alot of sign, again they had just started on these fields with the cold. The rain really started falling, then the rain tuned to sleet & then snow, which stuck. It was a wild morning, but we were dry in the blind. We saw no Elk. We came out at mid day and went to the campground. My brothers arrived & we set up camp. A Warden stopped by & told us he saw a herd of about 75 in one of the fields. We decided to go below that spot & I asked my brothers to watch from a cliff some fields & glass. We saw no Elk, but my brothers saw a larger herd down in one of those fields alittle before dark. We went down there the next morning, we saw no Elk in that field & decided to spot & stalk in the next fields along the river. When we entered the edge of the 3rd field, we saw a small herd. BTW, one was a very nice Bull, but we started planning a way to get close (I wanted her within 250 yds.) & made a stalk. As we snuck from cover to cover, it was clear the Elk spotted us & had about enough. As they started to leave, I bent down alittle, grabbed my knees & asked her to shoot off my shoulder.
The practice paid off, the Elk was just under 200yds. broadside & she drilled the center of the shoulder. The Elk did not show much reaction to the shot, but it smacked load & I saw it was a good hit. As the others started to leave, I could see this one could not run.
She took a few feeble hops & fell over. The nice thing about this hunt is the Wardens will bring an ATV/Tractor whatever it takes to get the Elk out IF it goes down in a plot. If you get on on the slopes in the timber, you quarter it & you are on your own. We called the Wardens & they came down & we loaded it. The Elk weighed 445#. They weighed it, gutted it & cut the head off. They send blood samples, part of inards & head off for testing. If you have a Bull tag, they don't have to take the head I understand & will work with you if you want a mount. The pic of the Elk on the ground is from my phone (sorry) as we did not take our camera, but the other pics came out nice.
I was very proud of my Bride, it was a great hunt & the meat is good too!!
