Couldn't get the time off work this year for the annual elk hunt (I already filled my general tag so I could only hunt deer there anyway), so I went solo to try and fill my cow 'b' elk tag. Left Friday morn for the 1 hr drive and got to the area about 30 min. to legal light. Hunted all morning with no fresh elk sign located so I was heading back to lower country to find a muley or whitetail buck to chase when I crossed a herd of fresh elk tracks. The hunt was on! Picked up the tracks at 12:50 and trailed 'em for 30 min. up the mountain to a large park. When I realized they were going right thru the middle of the park I thought I misjudged the freshness of the tracks since in my experience elk don't usually frequent open areas during the general season. Much to my surprise, the herd of 30 elk were bedded right smack in the middle of the clearing about 250 yards away. After surveying the situation for a few minutes I stood up to get a clear shot which in turn caused a cow to notice me and stand up. A few seconds later she was on the ground and at the sound of the shot the herd ran toward me and stopped at 150 yards. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped 2 pics before they turned and trotted to the nearest timber. Went over and cleaned the cow knowing the next day was going to be labor intensive as I had to get her out myself and I was about 4 miles from the nearest road. Fortunately the landowner let me drive my machine up to some state land which cut off 2 miles. Used my icefishing jetsled to put the boned out meat in and drug her the 2 miles back to the machine. That sled was a back and leg saver! Overall it took me 45 min. from the machine to get to her, another hour and a quarter to bone the meat and 1.5 hours to drag it all out. Most of the drag was downhill except for the last 1/3 mile which took the most time. As I'm writing this, the crew of 3 that went elk hunting are coming back after 3 days as it's been whiteout conditions most of the time and they left the snowmachines home thinking they wouldn't need 'em! Oh, and the irony of it all... They'll be eating tag soup all winter
Naw, maybe if they tell a good story I might throw a few scraps there way.... Good huntin' - OH
The herd after the shot...
Pulled her to a tree to hide her from the birds and away from the gut pile. You can see the tracks from the herd after the shot and the county road is in the distance about 4 miles down the slope where the snow line stops.
Day 2 boning process...
Heading out just as a snow squall hits.
