This all started I guess around Halloween. I was looking to thin the gun cabinet down and I had a rifle I no longer used much and thought it was time to go. As a general rule I do not like to get rid of guns, I just don't, but I think my wife was giving me some grief about our finances and my "investments."

So feeling a little guilty I decided to get rid of a rifle. So I went on ARBAY and put a rifle up for trade. Your thinking how does trading a rifle ease any financial worries? Well, it doesn't, my wife worries too much.

Any way I get a PM from Ray Atkinson with an offer for Browning BLR rifle in the caliber of 270 win. I have never owned a 270 before nor have I ever really wanted to. Also I have never owned a lever action rifle before, and the only time I have "shopped" for one it has been a model 94. I was intrigued, I did a little reading about the BLR as i knew absolutely nothing about them and I struck a deal with Mr. Atkinson. He is a pleasure to do business with by the way.

The transaction went smooth and the rifle arrived the day before rifle deer season. I really wanted to use it during the season. It was my son's first deer season and I thought using a "new" rifle for myself would make the season even more special. Well I went to Wal-Mart, one must be able to buy the ammo at any Wal-Mart as I have learned on AR, and bought some 150gr. Core-lok- I know Ray is a fan of these "non-premium" bullets so am I. I mounted a fixed 4X scope and was ready to sight it in. Do we really need variable scopes? after a few shots I had the rifle sighted in, and it shot a little over an inch @ 100yds, not bad for shooting over a wadded up coat on a not overly steady outdoor patio table.

I did not shoot a deer during the regular rifle season, but my son got one. It is a nice rifle to carry though. It is light and I think a cool looking rifle. Thanks Ray!

So a month later I am getting ready to go on a cow elk hunt. With all the threads about is the 270 enough for elk, and then is the 130gr bullet enough for elk, and then the final straw was severe weather and hunting with lever guns. You know where this is going. I loaded up some 130gr Sierra Game Kings using 59gr of H4831 which shot wonderfully and I was off. One more connection to a current thread regarding "300 WBY fans." I am one and no shit my wife says as I'm packing, "Are you going to take Old Reliable?" That would be my well used 300wby, I have never called that rifle old reliable, although it has been. My wife is a good one. I brought that rifle along also just in case.

I am an elementary school teacher and I don't have time to go away for hunts during school. I do have time during Christmas Break though and so I was able to hunt the last three days of the season. I could have gone a few days earlier but my hunting partner is the asst. basketball coach and he was involved in a tournament.

Anyway we get to our hunting destination and check into a motel. We stayed in my camper last year, but decided to not rough it this year. We unloaded the extra stuff out of our pickup into the motel room and head out to the happy hunting grounds. We leave the main road and have to go through a private ranch to access the public ground, we get stuck next to the ranchers house in a snow drift. No problem put on the chains and we were off. We got stuck a couple more time the road was drifted badly and if you have ever dealt with a road that is drifted over after a path has been broken through knows it just gets shittier when it drifts in the next time. Any way we get a s far as we dare and look up at one of the mountain sides and soon spot elk, lots of elk. We get excited and get our gear gathered and get ready to go for them. A thought hits me. its 2:30pm we will never make it in time, so I tell my hunting buddy, "Hey, we are not going to get there today. Let's go back to town and have a good meal and a good nights rest and we will have all day the next day to get those elk." He agreed. Well we got stuck, threw the chains off, and scooped for hours to get out of there. We made it back to our motel room about 9:30 tired and with our chains broken, but not our spirit. That will come later.

Did I mention I have been up over 24 hrs at this point?

We're up early, but really can't go hunting until we get the chain situation figured out. So we had to wait until business hours to get some more chains.

We are confident now, chains on all four wheels and we know where the elk are. Oh, happy times.



We drive to where we made the day before, and decide to go for it, I'll kill the suspense, bad idea. It was after noon and those mountains are farther than they appear to two eager elk hunters. I have been dreaming about this hunt for a long time.



The elk are on that mountain behind me, I am packing the BLR, and there is hope. Are those dark clouds building up? Well after not too far in to our trek toward the mountain the wind starts to pick up. I mean blow, my buddy asks me if this is what musk ox hunting would be like? I didn't know and I want to go on record as never wanting to go musk ox hunting.

This is about 2hrs. into the hike, I hope the video works.



Here is a pic. notice electrical tape over end of barrel and ice forming down the side of the barrel. I use a Kifaru gun barer to carry my rifle. I highly recommend it. I hate slings.



Again I hope the video works I have never embedded video before. But any way after 3 hrs of trudging toward the mountains we gave it up, wish we would have turned back earlier but the Siren Song of those elk kept pulling us forward. This is where we turned around. You can see the elk, little dots when I zoom toward the end of the video.




Anyway about 7 hrs. after we started we make it back to the pickup. I didn't think I was going to die but it was just exhausting and I knew I was spent for this elk hunt. We proceeded to get stuck and throw chains and rechain and dig and repeat until we where tired of the process. about 10ish we gave up for the night stuck in a drift, we had a 2 lb. bag of peanut M&M's and beer in the cooler, and visions of a perfectly good motel room far away. I woke up at 4 am with the beer I had opened still 3/4 full in my hand. The wind had quit so we started digging and moving again. At about 7 am we made it back to the county road and made it back to our motel room. Packed our belonging up in the pick up, found a local mechanic to fix our brake line, chains clipped a break line. I hate chains.

We went home tired a little beat up, but isn't it amazing how I want to go back next year.

So I did not get to test the 130gr non-premium 270 win bullet with a fixed power scope with a lever action in miserable conditions. Sorry, I did try.

Makes about as much sense as some of the other treads.

PDS, Truer words have never been typed on this forum.

Great Story!
I like the way you wrote it, perfect for a sequel.
Been on many hunts where the real battle was chaining up, re chaining up, unchaining for the pavement, rechaining, throwing and or breaking chains, breaking the truck, you know the drill. However it is a story you will not forget and in some ways are dying to repeat it.
If you added a couple paragraphs about the tent caving in or blowing down in the blizzard we could be brothers....

Sounds like a hunt from the tv show " On Your Own". A Cluster!

Good story.

When you get tired of truck troubles, and think you are really worn thin, try horses and mules. You'll get much farther in before the wreck hits.

I once packed in with two friends, about 12 hour trail to make camp. In the wee hours of the morning, we see some friends' horses (we were waiting on three more hunters)drifting into camp about every 20 minutes, no gear or riders. We saddled back up to go look for them. Found them couple miles back.

It looked like a plane had crashed into the side of that mountain... Gear scattered for about 3/4 of a mile. Found them afoot, had been thrown, panniers packed poorly and also thrown/scattered. What a damn mess!

Anyway, sorry to hijack your thread. Again, great story. Better luck next time!

Thanks.

Aggie, I have never been involved with horses and hunting, and will try to avoid it. I don't need any assistance finding adventure.

The trying experiences one has on these types of trips is what makes them memorable. I think about this hunt almost every day, and it makes me chuckle every time.

I really really wanted to spend the night in that motel room.

quote:

Originally posted by Aggie:
Good story.

In the wee hours of the morning, we see some friends' horses (we were waiting on three more hunters)drifting into camp about every 20 minutes, no gear or riders. We saddled back up to go look for them. Found them couple miles back.

It looked like a plane had crashed into the side of that mountain... Gear scattered for about 3/4 of a mile. Found them afoot, had been thrown, panniers packed poorly and also thrown/scattered. What a damn mess!

Aggie, the plane crash analogy is spot on! I have been there, seen that.

As i'm sitting here reading your hunting experience i'm thinking to myself that it sounds all to familiar. More times than not i'm digging out, having a tent fail. Straps on a new pack break miles away from camp. You name it it happens. But we all are glutens for the punishment and are all to willing to go and do it again the next year.

Kind of like women during child birth. They say it's the most painful thing in the world and suffer through it saying they never want to do it again. Then next thing you know they are baby hungry and ready to do it all over again.

Prime reason why I would/will never do a DIY elk hunt.

quote:

chains clipped a break line. I hate chains.

Most modern trucks have too much close plumbing to successfully use chains. Not recommended. Sounds like fun. Whisky over beer though in cold weather.

Wife and I spent one -0 night doing a 10 mile pack out, interesting experience to say the least.
Grizz

Ive driven for miles with chains driving trucks. The key to a good chain up is to make them as tight as possible "without" the use of bungees first. Otherwise you just end up messing around with them all day long. Far better to take the time and get it right the first time.

See, I told you a 270 wouldn't kill an elk and certainly not with cup and core standard bullets!

All kidding aside. If a guy hasn't had a few of "these" hunts then he hasn't spent much time in the hills!

We just got back from a 2 for 2 cow hunt and, yes, we got stuck and, yes, we got thrown off the quad. and, yes, we had a ball!!!

All part of the deal.... and one elk was even killed with a 130 .277 pill. Barely adequate! haha

Zeke

Once you get 50 and older, that stuff ain't near as much fun as it was!

If I ever have the slightest interest in seeing anymore snow, I'll look at a postcard. F**k snow!

Luckily we don't get much here and that's too much.

Great story though.

I will be the first to admit I have not had to put on chains often. I will do better next time.

Zeke, glad you had success, and next year I will give the 270/130gr combo a try again. And you are correct that the more one goes afield the more chances for an adventure to happen.

CHC, I can almost see 50 from my current location, so I have a couple more "fun" hunts left.

On every elk hunt I have been on there has been a period of time that I wished I was somewhere else, and the rest of the hunt and until I get to elk hunt again wishing I was there.

Next year 4 lbs. of peanut M&M's and whiskey.

Gatogordo, the first snow of the year is always fun, but going on 2 months does get a bit tedious. It sure helps one appreciate spring though.

Slim,

Great story. It sounds like something that could have happened to me. But, fortunately hasn't!

Snow makes everything harder. But, I still love hunting in the snow. It thins the crowds out and just seems to add something to the hunt. It certainly makes the stories afterwards better!

Tom

Enjoyed your write-up, SB. Thanks for taking the time.

Slim Buttes,
First off thanks for the kind words. Its always makes me feel good when a hunter or a gun buyer is happy..

As to your hunt, its an experience, something to remember and laugh about in years to come, and it ain't all about the kill..Had more than a few that didn't work out, and mother nature has a since of humor for sure. The Red Gods don't always smile on us..

As to hunting horseback and pack strings, been doing that since I was about 6 years old, had a few bumps in the road over the years but put things back together and continued on..My preference for hunting is always horseback, I raise them and I use them to hunt, I rope simi pro on them, ranched on them, owned as many as 50 at one time, horses are my life..

My suggestion is ride broke horses or go with an outfitter that has broke horses..Problem horses are create by problem humans, they are not a mean animal, they are an escape animal,but that's another thread...Pick your outfitter carefully, and be aware of your skill, too many hunters overrate their skill level when they book hunts, that's not healthy. A do it yourself pack in is great fun, but you have to know your skill levels, and its not recommended for first timers, without a couple of good cowboys to mend broken bones and find lost horses in a wilderness.

quote:

On every elk hunt I have been on there has been a period of time that I wished I was somewhere else, and the rest of the hunt and until I get to elk hunt again wishing I was there.

I have had fun on all the elk hunts I have done, and hope to get in one or two more before the end, but after I killed my bull in 1997, I realized taking 5 days out of life, spending 1 or maybe 2 of those killing a cow elk in a hay meadow that we could drive up to and load into the vehicle weren't near as strenuous and I could get in a little time visiting and sight seeing.

To be clear when I stated "I wished I was somewhere else," it was not that I was wasting my valuable time, but rather I was hauling a heavy load exceedingly far from a vehicle or finally getting that fire started when I actually had visions of freezing to death on the far side of the mountain or my most recent reenactment of the Baton Death March.

The more important part of your quote of mine is that except for those fleeting moments of delusion I wish I was there.

Hunting can damn sure be dangerous, its easy to freeze to death in the high country when your afoot, always carry lots of matches, it beats the hell out of rubbing two sticks together, and if you have fire, and a little shelter chances of freezing are slim..Sometimes just walking out can get scary..

The older I get the more I appreciate Alfalfa patches and camping at a ranch house..Been there done the hard part my whole life, now I go fetch meat to appease my cardiologist..

quote:

To be clear when I stated "I wished I was somewhere else," it was not that I was wasting my valuable time, but rather I was hauling a heavy load exceedingly far from a vehicle or finally getting that fire started when I actually had visions of freezing to death on the far side of the mountain or my most recent reenactment of the Baton Death March.

I am pretty certain all of us that have spent time hunting and fishing , have had our fair share of those "What In The Hell Was I Thinking" moments. In fact I have had them as a client and as a guide, and in those where I was the client, I knew the guide was thinking the same damn thing.