So this elk season was more of a after thought than anything else. In May we found out that my father had espogeal cancer and needed to start chemo and radiation imediately so all hunting and fishing trips that were planned were canceled and I focused on doing everything help him and help him get well. After spending all summer giving rides and taking care of his house and making him as healthy as I could for his surgery. After a 8.5hr surgery and 2 weeks in the hospital and then a big bump in the road and a life flight back up to Seattle he is finally back home and headed down the road to getting well. I talked to him and I had 3 days of vacation left so I decided to take monday, tuesday and wednesday off and see if I could locate a elk. Opening morning started out a bust because I had no time to scout at all and spent all day driving around and seeing which gates where open and which were locked.
Sunday started at 5am with me sitting at a new gate and taking off to a area I have killed a couple bulls in. After spending all day hiking and glassing and seeing a total of 15 elk with 3 legal bulls but not being able to pull it off I headed back to the Cherokee and looked at my GPS 11.3 miles.
Monday came and went with pretty much the same thing with not much changing. 13 total elk with 2 legal bulls with zero chances at a shot.
Tuesday I was sitting at the gate at 430am and knew where I wanted to be so I took off. I got to where I wanted before daylight with not another person in sight. I sat and waited til it was legal light and slowly took off walking through the timber. I got to where a old landing was and seen a bunch of fresh tracks so I slowed my pace and was really looking....and walked right up on a bull laying in his bed and by the time I figured out what the heck he was the only thing left in his bed was his smell!!
Feeling pretty bummed about my hunting tactics I skirted around and was going to drop off the side and through some deep canyons but when I went to step over a log to drop down I see a cow and calf just eating and meandering their way down the hill. So I take a back step and sit down on the log and start watching. They are cow talking all around me and a total of 5 cows and calves walk right by me. I am really liking this and all the sudden hear a chewing sound and look to my left and see the tips of horns on the other side of a tree I am sitting behind
I slowly raise my rifle and wait.... it seems like an hour but in reallity it was probably three minutes I listened to this bull eat and bump his horns against the tree and other branch and tried to control my breathing. He stepped forward and gave me a perfect shot of where the neck meets the top of the shoulders and one 225 grain accubond from the 338 and it is all over. I ranged him after he dropped and from where I was sitting it was 20 feet
