Wife's First Animal (proud husband moment)

[high_hunter]

**11/14 Update: Story and more photos added on page 2**

Wife got it done opening evening.   Her first ever animal let alone elk!  Going to be hard to top.  Busy late night and still lots of work left to finish today.   More photos and story to follow.   

[boneaddict]

GOOD FOR HER!   Congratulations
Looking forward to hearing more

[high_hunter]

Thanks!  Adding some pics to not be a tease   

[HntnFsh]

That's a dandy bull! Congrats to the missus!

[boneaddict]

Holy smokes!  Again, good for her.   I'm glad it was a positive experience for both of you.   What a nice bull!

[elkrack]

Congrats to you both! Great memories right there

[cem3434]

Helluva first animal, let alone bull. It might be hard for her to top that one. Congrats to your wife on the harvest and to you for getting to spend some quality family time in the hunting woods!

[Dan-o]

Great bull. 

That will be hard to top.

[highside74]

Great bull and awesome smile. Definitely going to be a hard to top. Guide husband's deserve a little umm errr uhhh, recognition also. Good job

[Birdguy]

That is what it is all about!! The new experiences and the SMILE!! I enjoy seeing the "firsts" more than most of the great animals killed by the many great hunters we have on here. They are all great but the firsts are really cool!

Congrats to her and the guide, enjoy that full freezer!! 

[carpsniperg2]

Congrats to her!!!! Have her post a story!!!!

[brew]

Great pics....congrats to her

[Boss .300 winmag]

 Great first animal, nicely done young huntress.👍

[7mmfan]

That is awesome, great work! I remember walking up on my first elk. It was a spike, and I'd hunted probably 7 or 8 hears to get one. I was amazed at how big it was compared to a deer. That bull has a massive body, I'm sure the shock was tangible.

[Ironhead]

congratulations to you both, great Bull!

[glocksWetrust]

Good lord he is a monster bull . I can’t wait to get my first one . Amazing job , congrats

[redi]

Congratulations that is awesome.

[huntnfmly]

Very cool congrats thanks for sharing

[C-Money]

Congrats to her!! Wow, what a bull!!

[hunthard]

Great bull, congrats to her

[nwwanderer]

Perfect! and it looked tractor recoverable, good job!

[high_hunter]

Thanks all, will let her know!  Good recommendation about having her do a write up so will get on that.  Very fortunate all the way around as things just fell I to place on this hunt.  I have some additional photos of him on earlier in the season raking, in neighbors yard, and on game cams I'll get posted soon.

Then have some insights to performance of barnes ttsx out of an '06, can weigh in on antler point length (since it's such a hot topic in the spike thread) and may be looking for taxidermy recommendations if my cousin Garth is no longer taking new animals at Fidalgo as rumor has it. 

[bearpaw]

that's fantastic 

[high_hunter]

I’d been watching this bull since last season.  You can see him and a wider racked bull (on the right) in these photos are almost a year apart in June 2021 & 22.

Surprising difference a couple of weeks makes on growth and velvet.  Unfortunately, the other bull was hit on the highway last summer and I haven’t seen any other mature ones around.

[high_hunter]

This year the bull didn’t come around until a few days after my muzzleloader season so I never had a chance at him.  When he did show, was staying nocturnal, so could only catch him on the game cams

[pianoman9701]

Beautiful bull. Beautiful smile. Congratulations.

[high_hunter]

Video is from when he first started to come around following muzzy season.  As modern approached there was more sign around and even a few elk passing through in daylight.  He'd finally slipped up and come through the neighbors during daylight hours (photo next to truck). 

Wife had completed the hunter deferral earlier in the year so she was excited to try and get after him.  On opening evening some elk came out of the adjacent wood lot and started feeding through a field.  We stalked to about 80 yards with favorable winds and found a good spot where she was able to get set up for a shot.  Sure enough, the bull was with the herd and soon he came out as well.  There was a nice broadside opportunity but a few pesky cows & calves were right around him so had to wait for them to feed past.

[high_hunter]

Apparently, horn fever doesn’t affect women as she amazingly kept her calm this entire time.  Once I’d told her it was clear to shoot she squeezed one-off; the impact sounded good and I could tell based on his reaction she hit him well.  It ended up being a bit forward, but the 180-grain Barns TTSX copper bullet slung from the ‘ol 30-06 did the trick.  It smashed the right front shoulder bone on impact, broke through both scapulas, and expended all of its energy in the body later found trapped against hide during caping.  I was happy with the penetration but very disappointed by the lack of (nearly zero) expansion.  He only went 20-30 yards following the rest of the herd towards the woods but kept falling farther behind, limping with that broken right leg and finally slowing down to a walk.  He then started missing steps, beginning to look sickly and sway.  Not wanting to lose him in the woods or to suffer, told her to shoot again and this time she hit right in the boiler maker dropping him in his tracks.  This bullet fully penetrated broadside and exited the other side with less resistance through softer rib/lung/heart tissue. 

As quickly as it began was over.  We celebrated and congratulated each other on a job well done.  With additional hands as the light waned, we worked quickly to have him skinned, quartered, and hung by midnight.  It’s a first bull that will be hard to top!

Meat is now up with Bobbie Jo at Trial N Error meats in Blane.  I was very happy with her work on my boned-out deer last year so decided to take the quarters up to her for processing.  Very nice, clean, fair priced and quick to complete the job.  Plus her brats/smokies and pepperoni sticks are about the best I’ve had. 

We decided to take the head to Gary at A-1 Taxidermy in Blane.  There are some other posts on here about him.  Between that info and a recommendation from a buddy I was sold.  Solid guy with a nice shop and a great attitude.  Reasonably priced but what convinced me was the lead time at 6-8 months vs over a year from most places.  That’s really the only reason I didn’t use Garth & Tammy at Fidalgo as they ARE still taking new work but wife didn’t want to wait that long to have her mount back. 

[erk444]

 

[KDfishbiologist]

Thanks!  Adding some pics to not be a tease

Woohoo! Congrats to your wife

[Pathfinder101]

Awesome!

[high_hunter]

Update on the elk mount and I finally got around to bullet weight retention.

Received a call from Gary at A1 Taxidermy in B'ham last weekend that the elk mount is ready to go.  Great turn around time I'd say from early Nov to mid Feb at 3 months.  Picking it up Friday so will post some photos once I get it installed.  Wife is thrilled and I cannot wait to see it!  Perfect timing as my Bday is coming up in Feb and hers is early March. 

As far as bullet performance, it killed the elk for sure, but like I'd mentioned earlier piss-poor expansion granted it wasn't a super hot load.  Specs are 30-06 56.00 grn RL-19 in Remington once fired brass and Winchester standard large rifle primers going ~2600 fps out of a 22" barrel.  They shot accurate, recoil wasn't terrible for the wife, and I was able to use up a bunch of components on hand (plus it worked).  Regardless I'll likely go back to the 62 grn RL-22 compressed load and Nosler Partitions my ol' man used to run.

Scale is in grams but grain conversions are added.  It's 98% retention weight on the main projectile.  If I include the small separated tip/jacket portion it actually jumps up to 103% due to tissue I couldn't get out:

                Grams     Grain   Retention %
Nominal         11.69   180.404   
Slug              11.41   176.083     97.60%
Slug & Shell   12.00   185.188   102.65%

[high_hunter]

Additional bullet pics

[high_hunter]

About 75 rounds and 40 bullets up for grabs is anyone is interested Going to make good target ammo or you can eat right up to the hole 

[Alchase]

That is awesome!
Congratulations to your Wife!