Here it is
November 4 2016 6;40 AMish
It was opening day of antlerless permit elk season in the Colockum area of eastern Washington. We (myself and my great nephew Taylor Z________) had just exited the Art Coffin game reserve at the south end on Colockum pass road. Found our hunting partners parked near the cattle guard so pulled over bedside them to BS and talk strategy for a bit. Spent 5-10 minutes there, and since I and my dog in the back seat needed to use facilities, we moved on up the road about 200 yards to a secluded drive to the left (SE) I let the dog out and we did our thing and I let her have a few minutes to stretch her legs since she is a rather large dog in the back seat of an extended cab PU for long periods of time. after about 2 minutes a vehicle rolls in and at least 4 hunters get out, pet the dog and start out in the field.
I was thinking of parking here but that changed it all.
Pulled out and drove farther up the pass road about a1/4 - 3/8 mile to where Petttit road crosses, saw the absence of any hunters between where we had been parked before and where we were now, AND how open the area was and decided to turn around and drive back about 100 yards and pulled off to the left about 50 feet off the road. since we had a large open area in our view I decided to park, and listen for a while before deciding to any farther toward our intended destination of the Caribou/Stray Gulch area. (Where one of the other trucks with us had already moved on to, and the one we talked to earlier had not moved yet).
By now it was almost 7 Am and we had the engine off, windows down, listening, when off to our southwest I'd guess over a mile away the gunshots started. As time progressed they became closer, and louder. About that time a truck pulled up on the road off to our left and sat there.....at least 10 minutes had passed and we had since loaded our weapons( Both mine)and placed them securely outside the truck. (30.06 Remington model 742 Woodsmaster Semi auto (me), and a Remington 300 Rem ultra mag bolt action (Taylor)..... By thins time there had already been at least 20 gunshots...and they were still going off every few seconds to minutes in duration in between
As we discussed were we wanted to hike off to Taylors says "ELK" and I look up to ( about 7;10 am)see a herd trotting quartering toward us single file from about 100 yards off to our right. we got out and by the time I was any kind of ready to attempt a shot at least 10 animals had passed of which I had not paid attention to their sex. (since we could kill ANY cow, and ONLY True spike bulls) I advised Taylor not to get in a hurry since there would be more and better shots coming.... Since I had a cow tag I had ZERO interest in shooting to count antler points so I did not even consider shooting at ANY animal with antlers to avoid the situation that due to over zealous rookie DFW enforcement I have found myself in anyway. as the last 4 animals trotted by I squeezed off at the third to last antlerless ( single file....NO animal behind in in my line of fire......I guarantee it!) animal, and Taylor Squeezed off also. I can't guarantee we didn't shoot at the same animal but after about 100 yards of running only one animal went down.
As Taylor and I walked toward the downed animal the elk continued the same direction toward a camp to the SW on Pettit road where they turned and headed NE after encountering hunters. ( this fact will come into play later) During this time these were not the only elk in the area and a few more shots had gone off. at them OR not I don't know but there WERE animals with antlers in the leading group of that herd...
We get to the animal and I suggested Taylor get to work since we both figured by the size of the wound that the big weapon had brought it down- and he was the one using it. He asked me how to get started and I suggested it was like a big fish and not to get the blade in too deep...while I bent over-put down the Woodsmaster and picked up the 300 Ultra Mag for the remainder of my hunting trip.
I told Taylor I was going back to the truck for ziplock bags for the liver and heart and started slowly walking toward the truck about 100 yards away. At about 30 yards I heard more shooting off to my forward left as I stood....Next I saw another larger herd of elk on the skyline about a quarter mile or so off (there were a few bulls I saw go by), but as to their distance from me and their fast trot to run I did NOT even consider even raising my rifle. So I kept walking slowly looking at the truck and ( I'm about 3/4 of the way to the vehicle by now) I'm looking at the truck and I hear a strange...... kind of loud noise off to my forward right (1;30). I look over toward this noise to see about 40 to 50 elk in a group like statues staring back at me 50 or so yards out.
I raised my rifle and scoped them seeing that there was no way I could shoot at any of them as they were tightly grouped and the projectile from the weapon I was using could easily pass through one to three animals so I waited hoping one might step out. after a few second ONE elk at the leading edge took two to three steps away from the group and I took my shot (about 7:20 am) as it stood motionless with lots of space between it and the herd. Down it went....the herd ran off about the way it came from what I remember. At this point I KNEW that I was done hunting and continued to the truck not paying attention to any other animal but the one on the ground and found it trying to get up and squeezed off another to stop her struggle and suffering. Meanwhile there are sill gunshots going off to the north and east of us although my best guess would be about 5 - 10 more after my final shot. I would say that that morning I heard about 40 to 50 gunshots including our own.
When DFW shows (about 8:30 - 9 as I remember) up they ( 2 in one pickup indicating a lack of field experience of the officers....EVERY other DFW vehicle only had one officer in them) seem to immediately seem suspicious of our account of the events of the morning .......
(By this time our other hunting partners from the truck that had parked just outside the reserve had arrived and there were 5 of us present to help out with the work to be done and witness the investigation as it turned out to be....)
............They tell us a 2 point bull had been wounded and we assured them that NO WAY that either of us could have been responsible, but they seemed astonished that we would not even try to bring down an bull, while carrying an antlerless special permit and kept trying to trick Taylor to admit he had. ALSO the fact that both our animals had been shot by the same weapon seemed to make them focus on only us as to the fate of the bull elk in question. We kept assuring that we did not and they finally left and finally we loaded up and went back to camp to finish the work on the animals.
Now to the next day....... About 9 AM 2 WDFW pickups show up at camp........( officer W______ and his mentor in one pickup, and Officer S______ V________ in the other Vehicle) they have a .30 caliber slug the allegedly pulled out of the supposed animal in question and say since it was the same caliber (.30 cal) as my weapons they would like to do a play dough type insertion into the barrels.( Myself, Taylor and my brother Fred were in camp at this time.)
From the beginning it was clear that Mr W______and his mentor were focusing on us as their prime suspects as to the bull , and that if we admitted it, it would be a minor offense....... to which ONCE AGAIN we assured them we KNEW there was NO WAY it was either of us.
We allowed them to do their play dough type insertion into the barrels which it seemed they were using as a form of intimidation since there was no way it would prove it wasn't these weapons that committed the offense- only that the caliber was the same.Their next step was that if so we should have no problem turning over my weapons for ballistics testing.. So being a good citizen (as I see later....Sheeple) I signed their form and allowed them to pick them(I did not hand them either weapon at any time) up and take them when they left. In the meantime as W________ and his partner were doing their thing we showed Mr _______ our hanging animals and showed how we could tell it was the the Ultra mag that had hit both animals by the damage to bones in both carcasses and started to think of how that there would be no way the 300 RUM could POSSIBLY have hit that animal and leave a pristine mushroomed slug under the hide, that had it not hit bone it would be FAR downrange and there was no reason to test it! (300RUM)
Unfortunately W______ and his mentor couldn't see the logic of reality in this case and took both....
As they were leaving I asked officer Vincent (since he seemed to be the only one of the 3 with any people skills) how I would learn what was happening with my property and he instructed officer W_________ to give me one of his cards, and he responded by telling officer Vincent he did NOT have any. Vincent seeming shocked that his compadre would not have cards on his person in the field had officer W write his name and phone number on the back of one of his cards and Mr ________ gave that to me and they left.........
Case # WA-15-010753
20 months later (Not W/O inquiring early and often and getting what sure felt like blown off- including a call minutes before........) I finally get them back due to calling the Kittitas county prosecutors office who had a very helpful young lady that did a little investigating (Called DFW Olympia) and the NEXT MORNING 8;30 AM the evidence custodian calls and give me the red tape for return which took another 2 weeks
Story above was from an e mail to an attorney in Skagit County
(after I did a more thorough proofread and fixed some issues)
