2014 Elk Meatpole

[In God We Trust]

Opening morning Colorado 1st rifle bull. The elk were still rutting pretty hard so the hunt was easier then usual. Good luck to everyone that still has a tag in their pocket.

 

[manbearpig]

Head looks like a moose!

Is it a moose with elk antlers hybrid? Beast, congratulations!

 

[bbrown]

First rifle here in Colorado - big thanks to Liv2HntBigBullz for the hand.

 

[HJW]

WY Unit 7, Public Land

 

[cprice0910]

my first archery and bull both on the same tag.

 

[Elkfitness]

Great job on the first archery bull. BBrown, I think I was in that same storm for my cow.

 

[LITTLEJOHN]

MT Archery

 

[LITTLEJOHN]

Hunting Partner MT Bull

 

[dangerousD]

Love seeing these elk pics! Some damn nice elk on the ground! Great job guys!

 

[ChrisS]

MT Archery

Love the mass on that first one, He's a bruiser for sure.

 

[TheHardWay]

My wife's 2nd season bull from earlier this week. She nailed him with the 338-378 at 450yds.

 

[Titaniumman]

MT Archery

WoW!!!!

 

[DWarcher]

WY Unit 7, Public Land

Nice work right there!

 

[Nate]

MT Archery

LITTLEJOHN, that place looks familiar lol. I think the bull looks way bigger in person.

 

[Bigfeet]

Alberta bull. 2nd day of rifle season at the end of October.
6x6 frame, with stickers just behind the sword point. One side has 2 stickers, one on the inside of the beam that doesn't show in the pictures. Makes him an 8x7. Pretty happy with him. I bowhunt almost exclusively for elk, so going out with the rifle for elk is something I haven't done for over 20 years. Was out the day before with the my hunting partner and his 12 year old son, looking for his son's first deer. Had a great day and his son got his first deer, a small whitetail buck, that evening. That was a lot of fun and very rewarding.
The next morning I decided to try in the same area for a bear (we had seen lots of sign) and ran into a small group of elk first thing in the morning. Pretty lucky.

 

[LostArra]

This isn't a big antler story (cow tag) but here is the herd I started after at 10:30am from 1 mile+ away. (At the time I was disgusted with myself for getting busted by a lone cow at 75yds at 8:30am just by being careless.) This group had one herd bull, a couple of smaller bulls and 40 some cows. A spike was run off early. A sneaky 4x4 hidden in the rocks spotted me at about 3:00pm at 80 yards while I crawled thru an open sage field but fortunately the herd bull ran him off before he could sound the alarm.



Keeping wind, trees and rocks in my favor I very slowly closed the distance as they periodically fed and bedded on the edges of semi-open terrain. I actually ate lunch and sat around for an hour behind a single tree while they bedded in a meadow I could not approach.

6 hours later at 500 yards. They eventually bedded in the right side of the photo and I ran around to the left to close distance while staying in a draw and out of sight. I know my rifle limitations and I was wanting a shot of 200 yds or less. I ended up shooting across the meadow in the photo.



She was the second cow to stand up. The first stood right in front of the herd bull.
158 yards. As I shot the herd exploded in a cloud of dust but hung around just over the hill for over an hour as the cows called and the bull bugled.
I didn't find her immediately and thought "did I miss?". I had to go back to my shooting spot, range the shot again and then found her in the sage. My orienting tree was about 80 yards behind where she dropped and I was looking in the wrong spot. She took one step and died. I got her skinned, quartered and everything off the mountain a little before midnight.





Another group I saw the following day while helping a buddy.

 

[Jared Lampton]

Montana archery backcountry double:
My buddy and I killed these two bulls in about 10 minutes on the first morning of what was supposed to be a 4 day bivy-style hunt. When the arrows stopped flying and the knives had finished their work we had about 470 some pounds of meat to pack almost 7 miles out of there. We left our camp gear in a tree and packed as much meat as we could that evening then went back the next day with some good friends (all of strong back and weak mind) and got the rest of the meat and our camp. One of the shortest and most amazing elk hunts I've ever been a part of.

 

[BTH]

Idaho 2014 rifle bull. The story behind my elk is actually a short one. This bull came out just after light and did not present a shot as he was moving fast pushing cows through the only small opening I had, and at over 700 yards I was not about to take a moving shot. About ten minutes later he left the herd and circled back to get a stray cow, (I think) and stopped in just a big enough opening for a shot. I ranged him at 775 yards and let the 300gr Berger fly, with an audible "whack" coming about 3 seconds later. He picked up his back legs on impact of the bullet and immediately hit the ground, where he rolled just out of sight into the brush. As you can imagine I did some pretty crazy dance moves in combination with multiple fist pumps, all while smiling from ear to ear! To top the hunt off I got the whole shot and impact on video (solo) with an HD camera from my buddy Travis Schneider of Stuck in the Rut Outdoors. I truly am blessed to have harvested such an amazing animal, and know that the Lord blessed me with this once in a lifetime bull so I want to glorify and give thanks to Him. There is something about being in relationship with the Creator of the universe that fulfills like nothing and no one on earth can fill. We were all placed here on earth for something greater than self reliance or being better than the next. I don't want to go to into depth on here and bore some to death, but if anyone would like to talk more (not about religion but being relational and how to start a relationship with God) Id love to chat. Anywho.... back to hunting here lol The bull has a 9x9 frame and green scored at 346 4/8" gross and 334 6/8 net non-typical. One hunt and experience I will not soon forget!!

 

[GOnDEEP]

Ryan, that is one heck of a creature you put down right there. Congrats on a great shot on a stud bull.

Jared, looks like you had a pretty good hour of hunting also congrats to you as well. Doubles sure aren't easy to accomplish especially in archery let alone the work it takes to pack out both animals, well done.

 

[Zbowman1]

Horrible pics but I couldn't move him to save my life. His fronts were locked into that root ball and I never actually saw the abnormal side until I took the last quarter off him and rolled him over. He is a 6x6 with 3 main beams.