Lady luck smiled on the O�Connells in a big way Sunday morning, when my son Cody shot a bull elk within about 500 yards of the tent!
I�ve got a comfortable camp set up, with a wall tent, wood stove, cots, and all the trimmings, but no, we didn�t go there. Took a backpack tent and spiked out overnight at one of my other favored campsites. It was a brisk proposition, as it got down to ten below the night before, and must have been not much warmer than that Saturday night. I�ve got a little catalytic heater that can make all the difference in a backpack tent, and yes, I know that is potentially dangerous, but so are most other things & used with care�. Anyway, on this trip I believe I discovered the limits of its capabilities, and that is when it starts getting down around zero it no longer cuts the mustard for warming a tent. Oh, well, we have good sleeping bags.
Saturday we got in there with enough time to scout around a bit, ascertain there were elk about, and verify that an alleged horse-compatible trail into a nearby basin only exists in a friend�s imagination. Mountain goats, perhaps, but horses; definitely not. Reports from outfitters & various other folks in the know were that the elk are primarily high up, & so our plan for Sunday was to take a roundabout but more feasible route into the aforementioned basin.
Sunday morning we hadn�t walked twenty steps from the tent when Cody spotted a spike on the ridge right above camp! I never did see that spike, but immediately saw the one he wound up shooting, which triggered vast excitement heavily leavened with disbelief. We hunkered down and shifted over just a bit until some trees screened us, and beat feet up to a clump of aspen a couple of hundred yards closer to the elk. He was still standing there like he�d grown roots! Incredible�.
Cody crawled up to a suitable tree for a gun rest, as did I. We both needed to skootch around a bit to get a clear shot through the limbs, and any elk with a lick of sense would have been long gone, but this one was clearly predestined to go home with us. I had him dead to rights in my crosshairs, ready to blaze away after Cody shot, which wasn�t happening. The elk had been looking our direction, but turned & looked uphill, and I just knew he was about to go mobile. But no, he was just not a highly strung individual, and looked back at us just as Cody touched one off.
I�ve never seen an elk go down so fast. You�d think that Husky �06 with 165 Hornadies was the proverbial Hammer of Thor! It was literally like the earth had been yanked out from under him. He rolled over once, & that was that. And no, I haven�t been that excited in quite some time�.
I later stepped off the distance at 367 paces, but about 75 of that was down a pretty steep ridge, and all of it was sort of weaving through the sagebrush. I�d guess it was right close to 300 yards. Cody said he aimed high on the shoulder, figuring if it was closer than he thought he�d spine him, and if further it�d drop into the lungs. He shattered the spine, & the elk never knew what hit him, and you talk about some fine meat�. In fact, I believe I�ll go cook up the rest of a tenderloin as soon as I finish this. And that means I�m going to wrap this up in short order.
Cody said the reason he held fire was in hopes the elk would turn his head & he could get a better look at the antlers. The kid kind of wanted a big old nasty herd bull, and don�t we all. So, he had a millisecond of misgiving when we got up to the elk, but thankfully that rapidly passed. He�s in public school now (previously homechooled), and is playing basketball. He was already feeling the strain of nightly practice combined with climbing all over the mountains on the weekends, and the thought of being through elk hunting really started to grow on him in short order. Passing on that elk would have been the height of stupidity, especially for a 13 year old, and would have been a decision just fraught with a high probability of regret. Retrieval couldn�t have hardly been simpler, and all in all it was about as easy as elk hunting gets.
So, now the kid has his antelope and elk, and counting last year has shot three antelope, a decent muley, and two bull elk, and hasn�t missed a day of school in doing so! When he started public school this year we were all sweating a potential lack of time afield, which has turned into a non-issue. I think he�s going to miss a day or three when we head out after big muleys, though, and he says he�s holding out for Mr. Big now. Me too, and I believe I�m going to head out with that backpack tent again possibly tomorrow. Got some spots I want to check out high up, before the snow gets too deep, and who knows, maybe we�re on a roll!
