Elk down

[draperjojo]

Why is it that I hear hunting stories where the elk was shot 30 yards from the truck, or it was shot on the snowy mountainside and it slid all the way to the atv trail, or it was shot crossing the atv trail...... when do I get to be that guy? I always have to pack em WAY uphill....have you got an easy hunt story?....lol

[ollogger]

Have had one easy one & more than I care to think about night mares with moose or elk
the easy one, while walking back to the pickup I shot a cow elk with a 25-06 in the lungs
it ran nearly 400 yds in heavy timber going towards the 2 track road I was parked on, I was on a heavy blood trail when I found her laying dead 20 feet from my pickup



Brad

[marlinman93]

Just got back from elk hunting, where my nephew shot a bull elk the 3rd day as it crossed an old forest road! Unfortunately we were 3.5 miles in, and that road closed Oct. 23rd to motorized vehicles! Three guys with an over 400 lb. elk on a homemade travois took eight hours to get to the closest road where we could use the quad for the final 5 minute haul out. Made me rethink if I wanted to drop one later.

[crs]

Easy one - in 2014, I took a mature cow elk with a double lung shot with my .308 at 190 yards.
It went maybe 40 yards and laid down to die in an open field. The guide retrieved it with a JD tractor:


Hard one - in 2012 in Colorado, I took a 6x6 bull with .338 on a ridge top 2+mile from camp.
My guide and I field dressed, skinned, and quartered it, covered it with the hide and walked down the ridge, across the river bed, and up to camp. We left our rifles ( kept side arms tho), rode a big ATV back across the river, up the ridge and through two barb wire fences, and to the elk just as the ravens were gathering in a tree above the meat. We tied the meat onto the ATV and I walked back while the guide drove the loaded ATV back to camp.


Why was there an ATV in camp? Because the guide and 86er took a bull on the same ridge in 2010 and had to make two trips carrying the meat from that bull! In this case, it was good not to be first.

[fordwannabe]

Whitetail hunting here in Pa one year, and as we walked back to the jeep in the afternoon, we spooked a doe. She ran into the spare tire on the back of the jeep, broke her neck and we didn't fire a shot. No I had not been drinking. True story and at the time we said NOBODY IS EEVER GOING TO BELIEVE US.

[rjohns94]

Wow, nice

[geobru]

Easiest one was a 5x5 bull. I shot it through the heart at 35 yards with my 308 BLR. It went about 50 feet. I fired the signal shots and 4 guys arrived at about the time I had it gutted. They drug it whole about 200 yards downhill and slid it down a cutbank into the back of a pickup.

Hardest one was a spike that I shot on a place we called Far Ridge on a very remote and steep mountain. We called it Far Ridge because it was as far as you could hunt and get back to camp the same day. I was by myself when I shot it with the 308. I had to tie a foot to a tree to keep it from sliding farther down the mountain when I gutted and skinned it. I walked into camp that night at 8:30 with the head, heart and liver. The next day, my hunting partner and I hiked back to the kill site and boned it out in a freezing rain and filled our backpacks with the meat. There was over two inches of ash from Mt. St. Helens on the ground and every step was a potential slip and slide due to the rain and the steep slope. It took over 7 hours of steady hiking cross country to get back to the truck.

I was really glad that it was just a spike before that day was over!

[marlinman93]

Not an elk, but about 5 years ago we were hunting mule deer in NE Oregon. Got up in the morning and everyone piled into the truck to head out. I was scrambling to grab things and as I locked up the trailer and walked to the truck, I spotted two deer about 50 ft. behind the trailer! I didn't have my rifle loaded, as it's illegal to be loaded when traveling in motor vehicles here. But I had a butt cuff with rounds on the stock that was full. I slid a round into the chamber, and as everyone was telling me to get in the truck, I dropped the buck right behind the trailer!
Nobody saw the buck, and they were certainly surprised when my old single shot boomed! I turned to them and said, "Go ahead without me. I've got some work to take care of in camp!"
They got out and looked my buck over quickly. Gave me some jabs about shooting a buck in camp, and then headed off to hunt. That was the only deer we got that season, so I got the last laugh, and the easiest haul!