Meat in the freezer! As any of you that were over there last week know, the weather was not ideal for elk hunting, and the moon was brutal until the end of the week. My dad and I did our best to get deep and high every day for the first 3 days of the season, usually hiking miles before daylight to be in position at shooting light. We saw a cow and calf, and moved a small herd late in the day on Tuesday, and saw no animals Monday/Wednesday. I talked with a couple other hunters up there and it was pretty much the same story all around.
Thursday I was beat so I decided to hunt low and close to camp. My Dad dropped me off at the trail I was going to use to access the area and headed back to camp. I walked in about a mile to the good timber and was just easing through the timber when I hear it, "crunch snap crunch, munch munch munch". The tell tail sound of an elk feeding in the timber in front of me. I was blocked by a thick wall of young trees, but could tell the animal was close. I had the wind so I hunkered down where I was and waited. About 5 minutes later I caught a flash of tan coming out of the left side of the trees about 30 yards away. I brought the gun up and tracked the now confirmed elk. I still had not seen its head. Finally he turned and dropped his head to feed again and I saw horns. At this point, all thoughts of trophy bulls and big racks disappeared, and auto pilot kicked in. Elk, bull, safety off, one step forward, shoulder in scope, BOOM! He staggers downhill about 10 feet and stands there staring right at me through the only gap in the trees. I've always lived by the rule, if they're standing, you're shooting, so I took the only shot I had and put him down for good. I made my way to him and only at this point did I realize he was a spike. I never felt, and still haven't felt any regret in using my bull tag on a spike. He was hard earned and I walked away with a ton of fantastic meat.
This all happened about 20 minutes after Dad had dropped me off. He had no more than pulled back into camp and stepped out of the truck when he heard my two shots. About 2 minutes later, I placed the phone the call to him and he climbed back in the truck and headed my way. I am lucky enough to have good friends in Yakima who were available that day so I sent out the text and within an hour I had another back and pack there to help haul. We got him out in one trip and down to their place to cool in the meat/beer fridge.
My best friend showed up Friday night and we hunted the same area Saturday, but it was now a party zone with no less than 25 people in the little basin I had been hunting. Sunday we headed into the Cowiche unit to a little honey hole. Over the course of the day we saw over 70 elk including 3 spikes. It finally came together for my friend and he got his first bull. Dad was 30 seconds from pulling the trigger on another spike when my friend fired on his and blew the herd out of the canyon. We quartered/packed that bull out in the dark and got back to camp around 11:30.
I feel very fortunate to have harvested that bull and supplied my wife and I for the winter with great meat. I also appreciate my Dad spending the whole first week with me hiking all over hells half acre and always being willing and ready to do whatever he could to help. I know my time with him is getting smaller every year so I truly cherished this time with him. He is still over there trying to get a spike, and I think this will be his year. My pack is still loaded and ready to make the 4 hour trip back over if he needs the help getting it out.
