Hey all, wanted to throw in a success story that wouldn’t have happened had I not attended the S2H course. Second weekend of hunting my cow elk tag and day 2 of the unit’s bull season being open as well, which meant far more hunters chasing the elk around the area. Had been seeing lots of elk, but had not been able to get on any for a shot. Spotted a herd Friday evening, made a game plan for the morning which entailed hiking up to timberline where we thought they’d feed past in the morning. I’m 6 months post-op ACL/MCL repair so my training this summer has been less than optimal. We elected to go an easier route up, but that meant a less favorable position in the trees. Once we got up there, the wind shifted and we had to alter our plan to work the wind. Well, as we crested a rise to get eyes on the elk, we had shots cracking over our head from hunters up the ridge who couldn’t see our position. Dropped back below the rise to be safe and then saw the elk skylined about 600 yards away moving over a ridge. We skirted behind the trees following them over the ridge hoping they would stop to feed when they got closer to cover again. Ended up having two other hunters cross our path that were chasing the same group and we all made our way across this face until we started hearing them in the trees. The other hunters opted to head out in search of another herd, we decided to stay put and see if they’d feed out of the trees when it got quiet again. We had just decided to start packing up when we heard a shot below us near a road, so we sat back down. About 1 min later, 6 cows popped out of the trees below and left of us. I was on the gun in prone on my pack with the mollinator and ready to fire in less than 10s and was waiting for elevation and yardage from my spotter, who had to grab my binos from my harness as his RF binos weren’t functioning all of a sudden. First shot was 300yds and took out both lungs, then they moved through a low spot and we lost them. I could just see their ears as the came out of the low spot, so I grabbed my pack and ran about 10 yards, then sat, got my elevation adjustment and made my second 336 yard shot seated with pack in front, unsupported rear which went through the neck and dropped the cow instantly. My second shot did not hit where I was aiming, so it’s clear I need to do more positional practice. Fortunately the story ended with a recovered animal. No way would I have been able to make those shots, let alone in that short of a time period, with moving in between before this course. I was shooting a tikka .243 1:10 with 95gr Sierra TMKs, my hunting partner posted the damage photos in the .243 thread for anyone interested. Huge shout out to S2H for the knowledge and skills that helped me get my first elk this weekend!
