Hopefully these are better pictures, I'm still figuring out the photo bucket thing. My friend and I hunt on bicycles a lot. On friday evening he went on a scouting trip. He biked in about 2 miles and saw this guy on top of a clear cut, so we went for him the next morning. We are usually the only ones around when we go because we can get farther earlier on the bikes than most walkers want to. We got to where we ditched the bikes and started walking and all of a sudden we can see headlamps up the mountain ahead of us, and then headlights up and to the left of us. Lo and behold there is another road that we knew about, but thought was gated and apparently wasn't. Obviously someone else knew about this elk because they were headed up the same clear cut we were going to. We were a little depressed so we just got up there and sat and watched, hoping they didn't get pushed out in the dark. It got light out, didn't see the elk, but didn't hear any shots. Once it was light we could see hunters crawling all over the mountain side, still waited just because it was pretty open except for a few patches of timber here and there. Just hoping someone would kick them out. We waited until about 1300 and after the last hunter we could see, gave up and headed for the road we were ready to go also, but there was one patch of timber that nobody ran through, it was a long shot that they would be in there because it was a small patch and people were walking along it, but not through it, if they were in there they should have bolted. We tried any way. I got set up and my pal started up and over to it. He got about 200 yards above me into some thicker burn area, but still pretty open and busted them out of there, literally 200 yards away from where we sat all morning! I can't believe nobody saw them in there, like I said it was pretty open. He ran across a bottom on the side hill across from us, he shot and hit him, the elk ran sidehill across from me and I dumped him. Biggest rifle season elk either of us have been a part of. We halved him and got him to a skid trail. Got to our bikes at about 7pm, then came back by the road you could drive the next morning and parked about a mile from where we shot him. Ended up being greatful that the road was there. Head's at the taxidermist and 480lbs of meat hanging at the butcher.
