Well its been a bitter sweet rifle season for me and my group. First 4 days of general rifle were a bust, no one seeing any elk, we drove everywhere after our morning hunts. Up Coleman to the rue where my cousin has a camp, no one seeing squat. Down to the wind farm where we had our reservations on tuesday and hiked down the big canyons in search for elk, nothing. Even my buddy who hunts on horses down there werent seeing squat. Out the bruton a ways and no one really seeing much but sporadic small groups here and there. Tuesday night the wind blew like a sucker and it seemed as tho it blew everyone off the mountain because come wednesday there were a quarter of the hunters as previous days. Well, Wednesday all hell broke loose and the elk were out everywhere in our area. Woke up and waited till light and left camp and boom 100yds out of camp multiple herds of elk we all went different ways chasing different groups my dad was on a group with 3 possible true spikes in it but he just wasnt 100% sure enough that there wasnt a fork over 1"(tough call to make on the run through trees). Wednesday was cow opener, there were cows everywhere but no shooting. After chasing these groups around for an hour or so they made it to the firing line of ppl and i believe they got a couple spikes from the bunch. Wednesday consisted of a drive to the little Caribou to check sign....nothing period. Thursday morning comes i wake up late and frantically throwing on my gear trying to get out of camp. I get all set up and 100yds from camp and BOOM the trees come alive with elk running every which way chirping so i threw in my trusty mouth reed and begin calf chirping. Well it worked great the elk formed a herd in a small clearing, what i thought was a small group turned into atleast 100 head with rag horns 1x2's 2x2's 2x3's and a couple true spikes that i just couldnt get a shot at with out shooting into the herd. Well i kept chirping and mewing as i moved just outside the herd a good 75yds they knew i was there but the mewing kept them calm. Well i get on the radio with my dad and he is chasing after a seperate group with 100-150 head. I chased after my group for 30min chirping and mewing as they answered back keeping them from busting out. Finally i split the herd 3/4 of the herd went north but the rest hung up in the trees. I waited patiently as 1 by 1 they cautiously came out of the trees to join the big herd all cows. I check in with my dad to see how he is holding up on his chase and i see out the corner of my eye movement running...cow....cow.....cow...cow...SPIKE! I quickly cranked up my scope to 9x and hit a couple more calf mews. The spike slowed to a slow trot. Instinct kicked in my dad always told me the little spikes typically don't branch(he has 32 elk kills in our area in 49yrs) so i scoped the rack no branches and picked the next opening unsure of the distance i guessed 300...BOOM 7:45am on 11/2/2017 i sent a 180g Nosler accubond down range and there he was dropped in his tracks. Now my heart was pounding i walked over to him and shot high...i aimed at the top of the lungs but i must have raised up when i pulled the trigger because i hit him in his spine above the lungs and broke his back. Dispatched him, then my dad swung by to check it out snapped a few pics and he was off to chase more elk that were running around. Made quick work of gutting and skinning and halved it. Our partners showed up with a wheel barrow and i picked up each half with ease and loaded into the wheel barrow which this elk was #32 that the wheel barroe has hauld elk with. Off to camp to hang and clean. Wierd thing....this elk had either been shot or gored by something(as seen in photo) on bottom of chest because it had a big scab and a big lump under the scab pretty gross upon entering with a knife. All in all SLOW start to the season and mid week it picked up big time! Patience pays i have been coming up to this area for 25yrs and carried a tag and rifle for 16yrs of that 25yrs. Ive had 3 elk taken from me(shot and they ran into others who killed and tag
