ciller160
Member
- Messages
- 69
After a bit of luck in the spring draws my wife and I each ended up with an elk tag, hers in New Mexico and mine in Arizona.
Life quickly got busy, as it does, and I spent a good portion of July, August, and September working in Iowa and Minnesota.
Her October hunt eventually rolled around and I had spent all of 12 hours in the unit scouting the the previous Sunday.
Opening morning I asked her if she felt like heading to an area I had found a few elk, or heading to a high lookout to spend the morning glassing. She said she wanted to take a chance so we drove towards the area I had last seen the herd.
Wouldn’t you know it, I took a wrong turn driving up the canyon and found myself at a locked gate. We got on our way back to the main canyon road, but something on a ridge line caught my eye. A herd of elk with at least 3 branch antlered bulls was feeding across the top just a mile off the road. We quickly made a plan and began climbing our way up the steep hillside. We had just barely gotten above the timber in the bottom when I spotted a herd of elk moving through a burn just 400 yards away. Change of plans, there’s a bull big enough to shoot. After a couple set ups, and changing angles to get a shot through the trees, 1 shot was all it took.
Two weeks later it was my turn and I had not been able to spend 1 minute in the unit before the season started. Opening day we were finally on the road and in the area well after dark. A friend had sent me several waypoints so at least I was not going in completely blind.
Less than 30 minutes into legal shooting light we found the first few elk and as luck would have it, a bull big enough to shoot. I left the truck with just the gun and shooting sticks. A mile later the bull was dead and I had no phone or marking tape to mark a trail back to the road.
Life quickly got busy, as it does, and I spent a good portion of July, August, and September working in Iowa and Minnesota.
Her October hunt eventually rolled around and I had spent all of 12 hours in the unit scouting the the previous Sunday.
Opening morning I asked her if she felt like heading to an area I had found a few elk, or heading to a high lookout to spend the morning glassing. She said she wanted to take a chance so we drove towards the area I had last seen the herd.
Wouldn’t you know it, I took a wrong turn driving up the canyon and found myself at a locked gate. We got on our way back to the main canyon road, but something on a ridge line caught my eye. A herd of elk with at least 3 branch antlered bulls was feeding across the top just a mile off the road. We quickly made a plan and began climbing our way up the steep hillside. We had just barely gotten above the timber in the bottom when I spotted a herd of elk moving through a burn just 400 yards away. Change of plans, there’s a bull big enough to shoot. After a couple set ups, and changing angles to get a shot through the trees, 1 shot was all it took.
Two weeks later it was my turn and I had not been able to spend 1 minute in the unit before the season started. Opening day we were finally on the road and in the area well after dark. A friend had sent me several waypoints so at least I was not going in completely blind.
Less than 30 minutes into legal shooting light we found the first few elk and as luck would have it, a bull big enough to shoot. I left the truck with just the gun and shooting sticks. A mile later the bull was dead and I had no phone or marking tape to mark a trail back to the road.
