Opening Day Spike

[dreadi]

It was 11 degrees at camp that morning. We had steak burritos for breakfast. By 8:30am I was still slowly driving to where I wanted to be when I looked out the window and thought, those are funny looking ants. So I got out and glassed the herd for a while until I saw a spike. They were all moving north cresting a ridge and disappearing, and no way could I bomb down the canyon on foot, across the bottom and back up. So I studied the map to see where they might go, came up with the plan.

I drove to where I originally planned to go, geared up, and got to hiking the bottom of the canyon. I knew it would take about four hours to get where I wanted to and by 1pm I had been hiking, crossing water, stopping to eat, rest, and realizing if I didn’t turn back, i be coming back in the dark since it took five hours to get to where I was at 1pm. Since I hadn’t reached my destination which was another mile, I decided to give it another hour of of pushing through.

Right about 2pm I saw some elk coming down a ridge on my right when I had expected to see them on my left. I got into a position to glass without being spotted, couldn’t see well, moved forward to cover and glassed some more. Well there’s that spike from 8:30am. The whole herd is going south back up to the ridge they had crested that morning. Tired, hungry, heart rate up, ranged to 400yds. Got the shooting sticks off my pack and tried to slow down my heart rate. Zoomed in the scope to makes sure it was definitely a spike, kept watching so I don’t make a mistake and for him to clear the cows.

PEW….thunk…still moving….PEW….missed???….still hobbling…PEW…thunk…tipped over.

Pack the sticks and trekking poles and close the gap. Found him laid over.





Fortunately, I was in a spot with two bars of service and was able to communicate with friends in the area that were also hunting. Five hours later I had him quartered and deboned right before they showed up for meat haul. We loaded game bags and packs, the four of us took him out in one nearly five hour hike. We stopped for breaks and snacks along the way. It was a full cloudless moon and we often didn’t need headlamps. We got back to my truck at 11:49pm I drove them back up to their vehicles since they were able to take a non motorized only road to me and save a couple miles of hiking in the dark. We rolled into camp just after 1am. The next morning I got game checked at camp and all was good.

In total I put on 15.5 miles that day but some of us had put on even more.




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[Karl Blanchard]

Well done congrats!

[MeepDog]

Thats a lot of miles considering a good chunk of them were with meat on your back. Congrats on a unicorn!

[Dan-o]

Right on!

Happy for you.

[brew]

Awesome write up and congrats on the bull

[full choke]

Right on! 

[wadu1]

Way to go 

[Wanttohuntmore]

Congrats!

[bosifus]

Congrats. That's the way to get it done!

[tgomez]

Congratulations on your bull.

[Smokepole]

Nice bull, and nice story.  Congrats!   

[Widgeondeke]

Thanks for sharing and congratulations 

[C-Money]

Nice one! Good going!!

[Rob]

Nicely done!

New hunters under estimate the effort required once the shot is taken.  Nearly 10 hours of hard work after the shot! 

[Skyvalhunter]

Congrats on a fine animal!!

[dreadi]

Thanks, everyone.

Four things I’m very glad I had this year.

1. Suppression. Three shots of 300WM through a Thunder Beast Magnus and my ears were not ringing. No discomfort at all.

2. Garmin Rino 700. One of my friends misunderstood where I was but due to having a radio that sends my location based on GPS, he made it to me without much confusion.

3. Kifaru pack. Meat hauling was top my priority list for this years fall hunting seasons. I ditched my backpacker’s style bag finally and got a proper pack.

4. Benchmade Meatcrafter. I had just bought the day prior because it had a sheath and was in my price range. The other knives I had showed me how easily they would poke through the roll when I was in Montana. I really didn’t want to get stabbed by a knife through my pack.


BLACK HAMMER ARMS
07/02 NFA Dealer

http://www.blackhammerarms.com
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[30.06]

Wow! Luck + Skill + Gear = Yum

[Dode]

Congrats!

[Bendejo]

Awesome! Good work

[gramps]

Congrats  !!    Well deserved

[dreadi]

Thank you!
On Sunday a friend got me access to a butcher shop and the owner came by to help. We got it trimmed, cut, ground, packed. I really can’t say enough about the people I’ve met in WA that hunt and have become friends.

If I had to guess, I’d say I got about 100lbs of meat from that spike.


Joe Cool’s cousin, Jimmy Spike wants you to know that smoking 300 Win Mag is bad for your health.




BLACK HAMMER ARMS
07/02 NFA Dealer

http://www.blackhammerarms.com
http://www.facebook.com/blackhammerarms
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