My first elk hunt was out of a cabin north of delnorte. I was with my wife’s uncle and his friend. They had hunted together for many years. Both of them are older and their knees are basically toast. These guys both like to drink and I only really get the idea of what’s happening on our drive down. These guys have hunted with a group in an elk camp since kids, particularly uncles friend. I finally start to realize, these guys have never really hunted this far out and isolated, they’ve always had a bunch of rvs and trailers pulled up in a circle, guys stay back to cook or whatever. This is not the case at this cabin. They are used to hunting on top of a big flattop, walk up in the morning and a nice cruise down to camp in the evening. This is not the case as well. After the first morning where it dumps a 1.5” I start to realize that these dudes have never hunted anywhere like this. I’m young, but green and track two moose over a ridge that morning, thought it was an elk, but was psyched. I tell these guys that and they say, don’t shoot one over there!! We can’t walk up there! Now I’m sad. Every night we eat well from what we brought in. Then they drink. At that time I drank too, and I can be a real asshole. This was right after an election and uncles friend keeps wanting to talk politics, his side lost, as he gets drunker and drunker. This is also the guy that supposedly doesn’t drink anymore after choking out his ex wife, (find that on the way down there) but drinks a suitcase of NA Bush Lights on the way down there and hits the bourbon hard at the cabin. He’s running his ****ing mouth at me because I won’t engage him in an argument and then I let it go. I embarrass him, he’s looking to uncle to get him to ease me back but he’s letting it go on. I hit the sack and the next morning he’s packing up. Doesn’t say hardly a word and away he goes two days early. This is why I decline offers to deer camps and duck camps and elk camps. It’s often families who get drunk and people fight and the weekend is about that, which seems fun for most of them. It’s not really quitting, but it’s another thing to remember when hunting with others is how far they can go and are willing to go and what their other experiences have been like. Saw a cow and a calf, a huge muley and was close enough to a bull moose at twilight in a swamp that I could smell it. I had a blast.
