Richracer1
Handloader
- May 12, 2005
- 2,138
- 117
I just got back home last night from 18 days at our elk camp. My Uncle and his friend came up on the 14th to help set up camp and then left to return on the 21st. This left me to fend for myself for 7 days. I started the bull season packing my 375RUM w/260ABs on the 15th. I got lucky and came upon a group of muleys does with a forked horn hanging around - his mistake. I let him have it at about 50yds. He took maybe to steps and that was it. Now it's elk time again. I saw some cows, a spike, and a rag horn Sunday morning, but couldn't get a shot off. The next few days, I didn't see squat. Come Wednesday morning, I walked up to my Uncle's perch (as we call it). I got bored sitting there and decided to walk down the backside through the quakies and then circle back around the cattle trail below his perch into the clearings. I was just about out of the first group of pines and all hell broke loose. A large bull shot out from my left, I pulled up the rifle but didn't have enough time. Another bull was right behind him, but with my rifle already up I let one loose. No eveidence of being hit, and no sign of blood, I started a 2hr scouring of the hillside they run up. I was almost positive I didn't hit him, but something told me not to give and to go up one more time to an area just a little further down and look again. Well, I'm the luckiest guy as I came upon a warm 4x4 elk laying between two small pines. As I started to move him out I heard air blowing and found that I had hit him in the area between the ribs and the rear quarter. After a cleaning him - suprisingly I didn't blow his guts up so cleaning was a bit more pleasant than anticipated, I got him back to camp, hung up, and skinned. Here's the interesting thing, a person would figure that using a 375RUM-260AB combo shooting an elk at about 35 -40yds the bullet would exit - NOPE - I found the entry hole and where the bullet had smacked the offside skin, but didn't exit. The guy absorbed over 5000lbs of bullet energy. I figured the lack of an exit had a lot to do with he was hauling some butt to get out of there.
Sorry I rambled on and mad this long, but this definitely one hunt I'll never forget. A 4x4 Elk on a true DIY hunt.
I didn't get any pics of him as I was more concerned about cleaning and how I was going to get my quad (FYI - using an ATV to retieve is legal as long as the trail isn't closed to motorized vehicles)up to him as he died up in the timber with a bunch of dead fall. I tried pulling him down hill but as you can guess that wasn't going to work. I'll get some pics of me with his head/rack in a few days.
NOTE: For those that may get pissy about my ATV use, during that week, my ATV was used to haul wood and to go out the main road to high ground to checkin each evening. All of my hunting was done by hiking around, not riding around.
Sorry I rambled on and mad this long, but this definitely one hunt I'll never forget. A 4x4 Elk on a true DIY hunt.
I didn't get any pics of him as I was more concerned about cleaning and how I was going to get my quad (FYI - using an ATV to retieve is legal as long as the trail isn't closed to motorized vehicles)up to him as he died up in the timber with a bunch of dead fall. I tried pulling him down hill but as you can guess that wasn't going to work. I'll get some pics of me with his head/rack in a few days.
NOTE: For those that may get pissy about my ATV use, during that week, my ATV was used to haul wood and to go out the main road to high ground to checkin each evening. All of my hunting was done by hiking around, not riding around.
