cohunter14\'s 2016 Rifle Hunt Recap

[cohunter14]

This year\'s hunt is in the books and it was an interesting one for sure. I\'ll be posting the story here as quick as I am able.

As I mentioned on another thread, prior to this year\'s hunt a ton of stuff just hit the fan. Work was crazy busy and to top it off, my father ended up hurting his back less than a week before we were to head out and found out that he had two herniated disks and a bulged disk that would require surgery. So he was unable to make the trip this year, which was definitely sad and a little emotional as him and I have elk hunted together for the last 20 years. At least we were able to archery hunt together earlier in the year, so technically we still made it 21 years :upthumb:

Thursday morning we were up early and headed to the high country. Camp would be myself along with a father and son who are great family friends. My sister\'s boyfriend would also be joining us Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately we all had bull tags this year, but we were hoping to make the best of it. We were in camp by 1:00 and had camp all set by 4:00 or so. We decided to head up and glass for the evening, but nothing showed up.

Friday was spent putting the finishing touches on camp, gathering a bunch of wood for the stove, and relaxing a bit as we prepared for the hunt. We also went out to glass that evening and sure enough, a bull was spotted about 1 1/2 miles out. We followed him until darkness set in and put together a plan for the morning to get after him.

Now I\'m not much of a \"full moon jinx\" kind of guy, but I will say that this year\'s full moon was SOOO bright that it did put concerns in my head as to if the bull would still be around in the morning. We are talking bright enough that you could easily spot and shoot an animal 200+ yards away. It was easily bright enough to not need a flashlight when getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

 

[cohunter14]

Here\'s some pictures of camp...

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[cohunter14]

I finally remembered to take some of the inside setup as well. The front tent is our cooking and eating area, back tent is sleeping. It was nice only having 3-4 in camp this year. At times we have slept 6 in the back tent.

Front right side of the cook tent is a Cabelas kitchen and a 6\' table for additional food. Left side is the wood stove and our bar for the week. Nothing like a cocktail or glass of wine after a long day\'s hunt :upthumb:

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[cohunter14]

Opening morning always comes with that awesome feeling and hope of a filled tag, and this year was no different especially after spotting a bull the evening before. Alarm sounded off at 5:25 and we were in the woods by 6:30, well ahead of shooting light. We made a trek over to where the bull was and glassed the hillside from below, but unfortunately no bull yet. We slowly spread out and climbed the hill, with the plan to push through some of the fingers of timber in hopes of coming across the bull. No luck though. It appeared that the bull did utilize the full moon and moved off in the middle of the night. After a 3.5 mile loop we returned to camp for lunch, a nap, and to regroup for the evening hunt. Our hopes were still very high as we had seen quite a bit of fresh sign.

 

[cohunter14]

Saturday afternoon we all branched out to cover some ground. My plan was to make a loop out of camp and down a valley, up the other side, and traverse a long mile-plus long bench that is mostly aspens with a little bit of dark timber mixed in. I quickly realized that this plan was going to make it very difficult to spot an elk before they heard me as the aspen leaves were CRUNCHY! Having first season almost a week later this year was very different than years passed, where most of the leaves were still on the trees. There were no leaves left on any of the aspens in the area and the dry weather made for extremely loud walking. I did occasionally make a few cow calls as I walked with the Pink Lady, but unfortunately it didn\'t help. I completed the almost 4.5 mile loop and returned to camp to put a big X on our camp map over the area I covered - very little sign and way too loud to even bother with the area again on this trip.

 

[cohunter14]

Sunday morning I decided to sit the hillside and glass. That is a tough strategy for me to convince myself to stick to as I typically always cover a lot of ground trying to find the elk. However, glassing proved to be worth it last year and this was still in a spot where I could realistically have a shot at an elk, so I stuck with it. The rest of the crew went back to a similar spot as opening morning. Again, no elk seen from any of us but a few more fresh piles of elk scat. There were definitely some individual elk in the area, which seemed to be a good sign for all of us with bull tags.

After lunch and a quick nap, I drove down and met my sister\'s boyfriend and led him back to camp. A quick change of clothing and we were off making another loop through the general area we had seen the bull and some sign. I caught my first good whiff of elk on that route and a couple more piles of scat, but no elk yet. This place had to have been epic a few weeks back though. Fresh rubs everywhere and a bunch more scat that was only a couple weeks old. The thought continually went through my head that maybe next year I should hunt this for archery instead.. :think:

We pushed some dark timber coming back towards the truck, which turned out to be some absolute awful stuff. Blow downs everywhere made it impossible to walk quietly. We eventually busted something out towards one of our guys, but he never got eyes on it. It was starting to feel like we were chasing ghosts. Nothing was showing up out in the open areas and the aspens were impossible to hunt, meaning we would have to try to dig them up in the thick stuff and see them before they saw us.

 

[Zpd307]

keep it up derek! I want to know what rifle hunters go through

 

[iccyman001]

Keep it up! Thanks Derek. :upthumb:

 

[cohunter14]

keep it up derek! I want to know what rifle hunters go through

Always about finding the elk Gary. That part seems to typically be a little more difficult during rifle than during archery because the elk are typically silent. But once you find the elk during rifle season, your chances are a little better than archery at that point

 

[cohunter14]

Sunday had gotten a little breezy in the afternoon and that wind continued through the evening and into Monday. It was amazing that once you got into the thick dark timber, you wouldn\'t feel much wind at all but then get out of the trees and it was howling in spots. Monday morning found us making another loop up through the area we were seeing sign. We ended up going to the top of the hill through an open meadow because the wind was at our back, allowing us to push some of the dark stuff back into the wind coming back down. Thermals were not going to matter today with how hard the wind was blowing :crazy:

We pushed the dark stuff back down the hill with no sign of elk, but we did bump a big mulie buck. I\'ve left this out, but we were also seeing mulie doe\'s everywhere each day. We kept saying \"if only elk were as dumb as mulies.\" :lol:

As we looped back to the truck, we came across another slimy pile of skat but it wasn\'t still warm. There were still a handful of elk in the area though, we just needed to find them.

 

[cohunter14]

I forgot to add another note as I was typing this up. There were not a lot of hunters in the area, but we had been hearing shooting. There were over 20 shots fired to the south of us on private land on Sunday and Monday. Not sure how many people were actually shooting during this time, but it did seem like at least one person needed to spend more time at the range :wtf: But once again, evidence that the elk were around.

Because we had heard shots on the private both Sunday and Monday, and also because it was still windy, I decided to spend Monday afternoon still hunting some dark timber along a fence line that separated the public land from the private. I was hoping to find some evidence of the elk maybe crossing over or at least find a good spot with some game trails where they could potentially cross, but that was unsuccessful on both items. I did stumble across two hunters hunting a meadow that was about 100 yards from a road. Proof once again that the majority of hunters simply do not get off the road very far.

We all met back at camp to enjoy some carnitas burritos and figure out what we were going to do tomorrow. We only had a day and a half left to hunt and after logging over 20 miles the first three days, I was starting to lose faith that we were ever going to stumble across the few elk that we knew were in the area.

 

[cohunter14]

Tuesday morning found me back glassing the area. With the wind down, I figured it was a great time for me to take that spot as it would also allow me to make a longer shot, if necessary. I also had a hard time justifying putting another 4+ miles on the boots through that area without seeing an elk. The occasional fresh pile of skat is all we had seen since Friday evening and it was getting frustrating. Nothing showed up that morning, but I did hear some additional shooting from the private land, this time downhill a little farther. It seemed those elk had still not crossed over onto the public, but the direction of the shooting told me that there was a chance they could be crossing at a different spot. So even though it would require hunting through the crispy aspen leaves, I decided to spend Tuesday afternoon and evening hunting another fence line, once again looking for some game trails or any evidence of the elk potentially crossing over.

This time, the hike was at least a little more productive. I found two great game trails that crossed the fence line, spots that I marked on the map for future use. However, it didn\'t appear that anything had crossed recently.

I continued to make my loop through the area, walking only a couple of steps at a time and scanning through the trees. It was so loud, but at this point I figured I had nothing to lose. We needed to find an elk and this is one of the only areas we hadn\'t been through yet. Unfortunately it once again yielded nothing. Very little sign and, again, I bumped into two hunters posted up in different spots, both less than 400 yards from the road. At this point, the only hunter I had seen outside of that distance was a guy on horseback who I had glassed multiple times, but never bumped into.

So, one more day left and the plan was to hunt the morning only and then head home.

 

[cohunter14]

I convinced the other three guys that Wednesday morning should just be spent glassing. They had continued to spend time in the area we were seeing the occasional sign and just hadn\'t come across anything. If we were going to put an elk down at this point, we at least needed to see it first. So, back up to the glassing area to watch the sunrise. We spread across the area to give us a different perspective of the area below and to open up some different angles. Probably 45 minutes into it, the son comes jogging over to me...\"ELK!! ELK!!!\"

 

[Billy Goat]

dang it, Derek, done leave us with a \"season ending cliffhanger\" like that.

we need an update, man!

 

[cohunter14]

Sorry guys, I promise I didn\'t actually mean to do that. Still busy getting caught up but I promise I\'ll finish the story tonight or first thing tomorrow!

 

[Zpd307]

hahaha :lol:

 

[bowhunter]

Still waiting impatiently..........Way to leave us hanging.....

 

[cohunter14]

Alright, sorry for the delay guys. Just been crazy busy since getting home. Anyway, he comes over and points out where he spots the elk...and it\'s WAY up the hill from where I was glassing. I probably wouldn\'t have ever seen the elk because I had never glassed that high up and that\'s because I honestly didn\'t think elk would be that high. They were traversing an extremely steep and mainly open portion of a hill. We didn\'t have a spotting scope with us, but we could tell it was 7 cows and a bull just based on the color of the hide. So, a decision was to be made: \"Guys, this could be brutal but it\'s up to you. Do we go after them or do we wait and see if we spot something lower?\" The son\'s response was awesome: \"I didn\'t work this hard all week to bail on chasing that bull.\"

So, a plan was put in place as we watched the elk traverse into a bowl and off we went. We were covering ground very quick as the initial part of the trip was downhill. Then all of a sudden we come into an opening and our hearts sank...there was the guy on horseback and he was traversing the hill across from us and going right towards the elk. We quickly bailed on our initial plan and made more of a direct route right at the elk, which would require an extra hill climb in between as well as a much steeper crossing at a creek. We were trying to continue to hustle, but the uphill was kicking our behinds. We were out of breath and dripping in sweat, but we just kept on trudging.

We crossed the creek and started climbing the initial portion of the hill, trying to find somewhere where we could get an opening to view the elk from below. Up, up, up we went and as we got to the base of the steep portion of the mountain, we came into an opening that we thought would provide a glance to where the elk should be. All of a sudden, we catch movement very close...

 

[cohunter14]

That movement was the guy on his horse. He had obviously not seen the elk, which was a good sign! He came over and chatted with us for a couple of minutes. I felt kind of bad when he asked \"So, have you guys seen anything?\" and I answered no. He probably suspected something was up due to three of us walking together, and all of us probably looked like hell and were dripping in sweat. After a couple of painful minutes, off he rode.

We settled down into the shadows and started glassing the hillside, trying to find where the elk might be hiding. There were some different fingers of timber and we were hoping they hadn\'t decided to bed down as a sneak approach up to them would be brutal and give them a big advantage. All of a sudden a few of the cows appeared from out of the timber and into an opening. We ranged them and agreed that this was as close as we were going to get without spooking them. One of the cows even spotted us, but continued feeding, apparently not afraid of us at this distance. Because we were outside of the other two\'s comfortable shooting range, it was agreed that I would shoot if a shot was ever presented at the bull. I pulled out my gear and ballistic chart and began making adjustments to my scope based on where the cows were at. There was zero wind both where we were at and up the hill, which was great. It was approximately a 20 degree incline, so I made the proper adjustment to the yardage and dialed up my scope. I stacked my pack and one of the other guy\'s on top of each other to help me get a solid rest for that much of an incline. I continued checking and double checking my setup as the cows slowly fed and traversed across the opening. The other great thing about having this much time is I was able to throw my ear plugs in and save what little hearing I have left. I also had the other two guys roll up some toilet paper and put it in their ears. I explained that I needed them to do their best to help me spot the shot and the TP would definitely help.

As the cows were disappearing across the opening into another finger of timber, we began to second guess ourselves. There was a bull with them, right? We continued glassing when all of a sudden I spotted him. He was a bit lower down the hill, so I quickly ranged him and made adjustments to the scope again. Everything was set and I got on him through the scope and watched him start to traverse into the opening. A final confirmation from me to them, just to make sure we were going to do this: \"Are you guys sure you want me to shoot?\" The resounding \"HECK YES!!!!\" was all I needed.

\"As soon as he stops, I\'m shooting\"

\"Go ahead, we are ready\"

The bull stopped perfectly broadside and I tried to steady the crosshairs on him. I was actually shocked at how nervous I was! I tried to breath through it and settled the crosshairs right behind the shoulder. A squeeeeeeeeeeeze of the trigger and the 300 Ultra Mag barked.

 

[bowhunter]

My timing is terrible!! Derek must still be typing Did you connect???? :ill: