Muzzleloader Cow Elk

Longstride12

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jul 18, 2012
Messages
102
Location
Utah
This wasn’t a backpack hunt but was a great trip anyway and tons of fun.


I didn’t draw any elk tags this year and was pretty bummed about it, but then a buddy mentioned there were antlerless control permits available at a discounted rate but you had to have a buck or bull tag for the same units that the antlerless control permits were available for. I looked into it and the unit I drew my muzzleloader buck tag for, had antlerless control permits available. I was super stoked as I love hunting elk. I had to hunt the cow elk at the same time/season as the buck and with the same equipment (muzzleloader).


Life happens and I got busy, wife had baby #3 at the end of July, August disappeared so fast trying to adjust to life with a new baby again and September started out busy with family stuff. Needless to say I didn’t get out to do any scouting and didn’t do any planning for the hunt. I didn’t get to the range to check the zero on the Muzzy either so the night before the season opened I felt totally unprepared.


Depending on where we draw tags for depends on what type of hunting we do. My Dad, a few buddies and I all drew tags for the same unit where my Dad inherited a cabin from my Grandpa. This is like the bees knees. We have power (generator), good running water (developed spring), hot water and fridge (propane). Talk about spoiled! I got off work early the day before the season opened, and threw together all my stuff in about 2 hrs. I was going to pull the side by side up and my Dad was pulling the horses. With all the guys going we had 6 buck tags and two cow elk tags to fill and figured the horses and Ranger might come in handy.


Got up to the cabin after dark, unloaded and got everything turned on. Usually we use the cabin more during the summer but with the recent family addition this was only my second time being up there this year. Slowly everyone rolls in, we BS and throw a plan together for the next day. This is the first year ever that I have hunted for more than 2 consecutive days and I was stoked. For a long time school got in the way and lack of vacation time but this year was the year.


Wednesday morning, season opener we head up the hill, first thing off we spot some coyotes about 250 yrds out. I wanted to try and hit one but thought we better not as it was opening morning and we wanted to be sneaky. 10 minutes later I see an elk head looking at us over a saddle. We have never seen elk in this area so I was a bit shocked. It was a spike so we sit down and wait and 20 minutes later he feeds up the draw about 60 yrds from us. It amazes me how they can disappear so easy behind trees and bushes, even when you know they are there. The rest of the morning a buddy and I push the tops of the draws, sit down and glass, watch a monster bull moose and chill on the mountain. I spotted a three point buck and several two points that were too far away to chase at the time but we made plans to go check them out another day.


Usually when we hunt by the cabin we come back around noon to eat lunch, BS, nap or do some maintenance work. Wednesday I didn’t get back until 2 pm, ate lunch, rested, treated sore feet, shod the horses, as then haven’t been used all year, then prepped for the evening hunt. We headed out to sit a spot where my Dad had seen some bucks while grouse hunting a few weeks earlier, as we get close to the area we spook a small three point due to two members of the group who walk like elephants, and we don’t see anything else the rest of the time we sit and watch. As we head out my Dad takes a shot at a small buck and misses, we later learn he can’t see the front sight of his gun anymore. Looks like a red dot scope will be in his stocking this Christmas.


Thursday morning we head out early but find we aren’t early enough. In trying to get to our glassing spot we spook a buck that we don’t see and some other hunters shoot him. I love brushing for other guys, it seems to happen a lot. Mid morning we head out to a bush I have nicknamed the “Frat House”, I always find bucks there and usually good ones. Last year I missed a really heavy 3 point there and thought it might hold some good ones this year too. My Dad’s knee is hurting him so he goes low where he won’t have to hike hard and a Mike and I go high, we have to crash through thick brush and aspens before we hit the open sagebrush that surrounds the “Frat House”. As we break out of the trees we both freeze, about 150 yards ahead of us there are two bucks feeding toward the “Frat House”, wind is in our favor and they don’t know we are there. One is a good four point and the other is a tall two point that curls around at the top and his tips almost touch. Mike takes off and goes high trying to get into position for a good shot but loses site of them due to the slope of the hill. I watch them go and see the four point bed down in the highest bush, the two point goes into a lower bush and disappears.


The stalk is on and I get Mike to stop and stand still since he doesn’t know where they are, I get him set up in a good location and I go high and wide to get around the four point so I can push him into a good spot for Mike to shoot. He is fairly new to hunting and I wanted to get him a good buck this year. I stalk as quietly as I can and get to within 20 yards of the bush the four point is under. Wind is now blowing from me to him but he isn’t moving, I start to have doubts on whether I bedded him in the right spot and go over it again in my mind. I’m sure he is in there but he sure doesn’t want to move. By this time Mike has started to day dream a bit as he thinks I’m full if it. I take a few more steps and boom, the buck runs out of the bush at 110 mph, my gun is up, the safety is off but all I see is a butt running away from me. I wait and wait and wait for Mike to take a shot and he never does, I wait to long and blow my chances of taking a shot, even if it is a poor shot. I go a little further and find out he couldn’t get a bead on the buck in time before he lost sight of him and there was maybe two seconds where he saw the buck and had a good shot. There are 4 more deer that bust out of the scrub oak below us but we can’t see them. As we descend to regroup with my Dad he saw the deer come low and there were a few small bucks in the group but he didn’t have a shot at them and he had a doe almost run over him. We laugh, eat some candy bars and head on out.


Thursday night sucks as everywhere we go we run into hunters, on the bright side my Dad gets some video film of the monster bull moose, then on our way out another bull moose (much smaller one) comes within 30 yards of us, grunting and walking and scaring the begeebies out of Mike. That night at the cabin we BS, laugh until we cry, discuss effective ranges of our muzzleloaders and whether our guns are sighted in. We conclude that Mike’s gun is sighted in for paper target, two are sighted in for anything and Jason’s gun is sighted in for two points as he has never killed anything larger in all the years he has hunted and my Dad can’t hit the broad side of a barn due to not being able to see the sights. Life is good.


Friday morning we split up into three groups and all converge on the same spot. It is a really deep bowl/pocket with water, good cover and in the past has held quite a few bucks. We call it the “Buck Hole” and it’s where I shot a nice four point two years ago. After 3 hours of strategic hiking, glassing and brushing we conclude there are only does and fawns in the area and we are tired. One guy suggests a shooting competition and ranges a rock at 236 yards. Everyone shoots two to four times with some hitting the target and everyone else really close around it. We laugh, give each other a hard time and realize we can reach out there a little further than we had previously thought. We spend the rest of the day and early afternoon hiking and glassing and don’t see anything promising. That afternoon my brother comes up to hang out and act as designated chauffeur.


Friday evening we split up into two groups. The majority want to go high and chase bucks we’ve seen in the past, I want to chase elk and my Dad’s knee is bothering him so he doesn’t want to go to far. My Dad and I hike up behind the cabin about ½ mile and sit down in an open bowl to glass the other side of the canyon where we have seen elk in the past, it’s hot and we dose off a little. We hear elk sounds, mews and then one long bugle then nothing but silence. We both conclude it’s a hunter goofing around up in the trees and figure the evening is a bust. Then after a period of silence we hear barking. Sometimes elk can sound like sea lions and I’ve never heard a call make that sound so we decide maybe there are elk over there. 10 minutes later I see elk moving through the trees, 3 cows and a nice 6x6 bull. One cow starts feeding down lower and we decide to try a stalk even though we are in an open bowl. Every time she went behind a tree we moved, crouched low and as quiet as possible. We close the distance from 400 yards to about 250. 250 is a stretch for me with open sites so we continued on. Right about when I got to where I wanted to be we hear a noise up above us and look up to see a large two point buck about 30 yards above us, where did he come from??? My Dad says he is going to shoot the buck, he shoots and the buck runs. Adrenaline is pumping as I turn back around, take an anchor and shoot a different cow cause the one we were chasing disappeared. 210yrds and when the smoke clears I can’t see the cow so I pull up the binos and can see she is down on the ground and kicking. I re-load, we go to check for blood from the buck and don’t see anything. My Dad aimed at the neck and we conclude he shot high. By now it’s 7:15 at night and it get’s dark about 7:45 so we head over to the cow. She was hit hard but not dead so we finish her off and start the process of getting her down off the mountain.

Guys headed up to hunt high, yes we can drive to the top, sort of.

Bad picture of her but it was late and we didn't take time for a good photo.


Neither of us has ever done the gut-less method so we gut her, take off the back quarters and leave the front half intact. We drag the quarters to the bottom near the creek and my Dad heads back down to get help, his knee is really hurting now so he just takes his pack and the two guns. I climb the hill again to retrieve the front half. I was totally unprepared to shoot an elk, others had told us they had chased all the elk out of the area so I wasn’t hopeful of finding any. I only have a small daypack and my game bags are at the cabin. We left the hair on to protect the meat as much as possible. At the front half I tie the legs together with para cord, grab a stick and drag it down to the creek. From there I got both hind quarters 100 yards further down the canyon before help arrives. Two guys each grab a hind quarter, throw it over their shoulder and walk out, the moon is bright and you almost don’t need a headlamp. Four of us head up to handle the front half and like rookies we grab a sturdy stick, put it between the front legs and carry it out on the meat pole. At this point I’m tired, Mike was gung-ho to “pack one out” but soon tires and it’s up to my brother and I to pack the weight.


That was a long walk and with 130 lbs of dead weight swinging between us. My brother is a gym rat and tough as nails. He was like a tank and smiled every step of the way. I’m smaller than him, not as strong and that thing was throwing me all over the place. Eventually we get it down to the cabin and strung up by 11:30 pm. The other group had a high school kid with them and he shot a two point buck so in one evening we bagged a buck and a cow elk.

Meat Pole, hanging under the deck. :)


Saturday we sleep in, eat a good breakfast, skin the critters and clean up. My Dad and I finally get on the horses and go for a ride where we both have some excitement and get in wrecks. I stayed on, my Dad came off but was okay. The Horses settle down and we enjoy a pleasant ride in the mountains.


It was a fantastic trip full of fun, action, highs and lows and will go down as one of the most memorable hunts, even though it wasn’t backcountry. I tried out some new gear, OR Crocodile Gaiters worked like a charm. My boots are worn out and gave me bad hot spots on Wednesday so I switched to my Solomon hiking shoes with the gaiters and my feet were happy the rest of the trip. Petzel Nao headlamp was great for packing out the elk. Lights things up really well when you need good light and the battery seemed to last well too. Sawyer Mini we played with, didn’t need but tried it out and liked the way it worked. All other gear was the tried and tested old stuff. My Dad was super impressed with my Gerber Gator knife, it did the whole elk (gut, quarter, skin) and was still fairly sharp, now he wants one. I did lose my bone saw on the pack out so I’m open to recommendations if you have them.


Items to buy before next year. A good PACK that can carry weight I’m on a tight budget, paying off a baby and some home repairs/remodeling but I’m thinking I’ll at least get the Kifaru hunting frame and some pods/pockets. Maybe I can swing a whole pack, we’ll see. New boots, bone saw, range finder, game bags. For my Dad, red dot scope no magnification, Gerber knife, Vortex Binos. We didn’t end up using the horses cause my Dad loaded stuff really fast too and forgot scabbards for the guns and panniers to pack out the game. Horses got a vacation while we worked.


Thanks for coming along, sorry I don’t have tons of pictures, I kept forgetting my phone and left it at the cabin most of the time.
 
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Longstride12

Longstride12

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jul 18, 2012
Messages
102
Location
Utah
Thanks. She isn't a trophy really but she fills the freezer up just fine! Next year I'm going after a bull again if I can draw the right tag.
 
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