Every year my brother (Beeman), brother-in-law (Buck man) and I try and make the trip down to N/E Utah for the muzzleloader elk season with my brother (Daydreamn) who lives in N/E Utah. This year it was my second to oldest boy Nicholas’s turn to go down with us. He was extremely excited and loves and enjoys the outdoors just as much as I do.
My brother, Nicholas and I arrived the day before season. Daydreamn had put in a couple days scouting prior to our arrival and had only located a small handful of elk. This was unusual for this area this time of year. It seemed that the majority of the elk had already moved down low onto the local Indian reservation.
Opening morning we decided to hit an area that we always get into the elk. Beeman and Daydreamn went down one ridge and Nicholas and I went down the other. After settling in on a little saddle that the elk usually cross Nicholas and I waited patiently for daylight and hopefully some elk to arrive. This year I purchased and extra cow tag to go along with my bull tag in that area so we would be able to take anything that presented a decent shot. Daylight finally arrived and we continued to wait patiently for the next couple hours with no elk showing up.
We moved into a position to glass the ridge that my brothers were on and again, no elk in sight. We then make our way over to the other side of the ridge so that we can glass the canyon and ridge on the other side.
After a few minutes of glassing Nicholas spots a small bull clear down in the bottom of the canyon. He wasn’t bedded down yet so I told Nicholas we’d just watch him and once he bedded down we’d try and make a stalk on him. We watched this bull for 30 minutes and he just stood in one the one spot the entire time. I was hesitant to make a stalk on this bull with him not being bedded. I knew it would take us a good hour to get into position and explained to Nicholas that he could be long gone before we even got there. I could tell Nicholas really wanted to try and get in on this bull and this being his first elk hunt with me I figured what the heck. We hiked back up the ridge we had come down and prior to dropping down into the bottom we spotted the bull again, still standing in the same spot. It took us another 40 minutes or so to close the distance, the hill side was extremely rocky with some boulder shoots that we had to cross and tons of thick aspen saplings. Getting through this mess quietly was almost impossible.
Sure enough we get into where he was at and he was long gone.
Oh well that’s hunting.
We head for the top and get about two thirds of the way up and spot six cows about 400yds out coming directly at us. After about another 50yds the lead cow decides to change routes and takes them all straight to the bottom.
We finally make it back up to the truck and meet up with my brothers; they hadn’t seen a single elk. We go and check out a couple other areas with no luck and decide to head back to the house for lunch and to make a game plan for the evening hunt. Once back to the house we met up with Buck man and his daughter Makayla who had just arrived. After some lunch and with not much time for an evening hunt we decided to go to an area and glass the hillside to try and locate some elk and make a plan for the next morning.
A few years back a very large, hot and fast moving fire went through this area and left a lot of the landscape completely bare. One of these bare hillsides is where we went for a glassing point. As we’re hiking up to the glassing point there is a small ravine about a half mile up the hill from us. The ravine had a small patch of cedars about 60x80yds in it that the fire had left alone, the only cover for about a mile in all directions. During the hike up we all joked about going up and pushing a couple big bulls out of that tiny patch of cover.
When we finally got to our glassing point we were only about 2-3 hundred yards away from the ravine. We glassed for a little while and curiosity got the best of me. I asked Nicholas if he wanted to be my bird dog and go push a bull elk out of the cedars for me. He was all for it so the two of us headed up towards the ravine. We get up to it and I told Nicholas to wait for me to get into position at the top and then I would signal him to go down in the cedars. I get into a position where I would have a good shot for anything that came running out and signal to Nicholas to head down in.
To be honest with you guys I wasn’t expecting anything at all to come out of this area except maybe a couple deer or a coyote. Less than a minute after Nicholas drops out of site I hear hoofs on the rocks and look up to see a nice bull elk coming out about 60yds away.
I whistle to try and get him to stop and he just seemed to pick up his pace even more. I knew with the muzzle loader it was either now or never and if I didn’t take the shot I would be watching him for the next 10-15 minutes going up the hill side out of range. He was slightly quartering away and my shot hit him perfect, took out his heart and shattered his leg on the opposite side. He didn’t go 25yds and it was all over. This is my largest bull to date and what makes it even more special is that I was able to have my son along for the experience as well. I’m an archery hunter up here in Washington so most of my hunts are solo. Now that they are getting older though I am able to take my kids with me more and more. I have been blessed to have all 5 of my kids love spending time in the outdoors hunting and fishing as much as I do.
The rest of the season was pretty much uneventful Nicholas and I hunted pretty hard the next few days but came up empty handed. We took Sunday off and attended church where I had the opportunity to help bless my niece. Nicholas and I decided to give it one more day after that and try and fill my cow tag. The next day was met with the same misfortune, no elk in sight. It didn’t really matter that much to me though just being outdoors enjoying Mother Nature and all Gods scenery and being able to share the experience with family is more than one could ask for. The next morning Nicholas and I headed for home as I could tell he was really missing school work and his wrestling practice.
That morning Daydreamn got into a few smaller bulls and was able to fill one of his tags, Buck man and Beeman got into some elk the next few days but just weren’t able to seal the deal.
