We had quite a time this year, with a week+ to get it all done. My twin brother Layne and I left for 'elk camp' on Thursday the 14th and got up there mid-afternoon and set up a 14'x16' sleep tent, and a 14'x16' storage tent. Friends Glenn & Joe rolled into camp about midnight with 4 horses for the 15th elk opener.
On opening morning without the cook tent set up, we had a quick protein-deficient breakfast before a 6-mile ride to a high 9000+ ft basin. We spied some elk way up that we figured would come down when pushed, and they did. Brother Layne was set up below a rocky slide area when 'warning-shot-Joe' and I pushed into the basin. He plugged a nice cow at 373 yards with the 30-06 with a 180 gr failsafe. A tremendous 6x6 bull we figure would have scored 340 was among them, but as these things go, none of us with bull tags! We quartered that cow and got her out that day.
Friend Jeff showed up that evening and the next day we all hiked up basins pushing towards each other. That morning, heavy rain and a late sleep-in. We all hunted after the rain stopped early in the morning, but nothing hit the ground. That evening, friend Jill came to camp....and forgot her rifle...a Ruger M77 243 Win! I had my extra Win Mod 70 25-06 in camp so she used that.
That morning, Jill and I were sneaking up a creek bottom at about 8600 ft elev when I spied a doe and fawn bedded about 100 yards out. They busted me and got a 3x3 buck nervous that bounded into the opening. Jill got a rest on an avalanche tree stump and gave that buck a 'warning shot' over it's body! The next shot was fatal, low in the boiler-house and dead within a minute. Her third lifetime buck, but breaking her 2-point streak!! A half-mile side-hill drag to the horses and we quartered her buck up for the pack out.
The next day, brother Layne and friend Jeff went up from camp on a hillside late afternoon and spotted deer for the next morning hunt. Joe and Glenn & I went down-canyon to spot elk for a next-morning hunt. We were just spotting...that was the plan anyway! We spotted several cows feeding out only about 1 mile out. We decided to go after them, and here we have Joe in just camp slippers!! He was a trooper though and he waded through the sage in his slippers with us and we sat on a ridge watching the elk feed into timber 600+ yards out and after about 1.5 hours, we thought they might sidehill out towards us to water about dark-thirty, and they did, at 275 yards.
Glenn fired first with his 6.5-06 (120 gr TSX) on a cow. I fired 1/2 second later with my pre-'64 30-06 fwt with 165 gr Fed High-Energy Trophy-Bonded Bear Claw load and that big cow dropped hard with a high shoulder shot (it was near dark and no snow for tracking in thick aspens, so I wanted to put her down right there). She rolled down the steep hill, dead. Then Glenn hit his cow again after she showed no sign of being hit, but she was dead on her feet after the first shot through the boiler house, on post-mortem inspection. We quartered those two cows mostly in the dark and hung them up in the aspens for pick-up with horses the next morning. We were 'tagged-out' on our elk! My cow had a radio collar and ear tags on her that I need to call F&G on.
Meanwhile, brother Layne and friend Jeff spotted several muley bucks for stalking the next morning. A few more celebrations in camp that night!
The next morning, we trailered the horses to pack the two cow elk out, and brother Layne and friend Jeff went after muley bucks. The two elk got back to camp, then we heard on the radios that Jeff had gotten his buck, a nice 27" wide 4x2 in age-regression; a nice old buck. That buck rolled about 100 yards down a steep rocky gully and broke a back tine off that they weren't able to find. The meat pole was getting heavy!
Here's a few elk & packing pics:
Well, we had a day of rest then in camp. Can't remember much of that!
The next morning we all headed out to 'lost basin', where several of us got 'lost' in fog, years prior, thinking we were in one basin, but we we were in another. We parked the horses several miles below and pushed into the basin from several directions. Warning-shot-Joe and I blasted a buck out that didn't offer us a shot, and I thought the day was over. Brother Layne then pushed a ridge and blew 2 nice nice bucks down to Joe & I. Joe gave the big one three 'warning shots' before he connected well. As that buck was rolling down the steep hill, his buddy bounded down in the spruce scrub watching him roll, and I gave him a 165 gr Trophy-bonded Bear Claw in the back thru the vitals and he didn't move. The two bucks were not more than 30 yards apart.
We drug them down to the same spot and tried a new butchering technique. We didn't gut them, but detached the hind quarters and shoulder blades, then cut out the backstraps and tenderloins. That worked quite well! The 5 of us packed the two deer parts down to the horses parked 1+ miles away. We got back to camp right at dark. More celebrations!
It was a great year. Jeff got the 'widest' award at 27" on his buck. I got the 'tallest' award, a 4x3. Joe got the 'massive' award, and the pics don't do justice for that 5x4; it is a tremendous buck.
We took a hot-spring soak the last night in camp, and at about midnight, the wolves were howling up a storm on a full-moon night. A hunting year to remember.
Cont'd with more pics....
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