Quick story as I have promised some members due to the intel they gave about this youth hunt. I won't call anyone out by name / HW name....but you all know who you are and a HUGE thanks for the pointers / locations provided.
My son drew a rifle youth cow tag this year. To say he was excited would be an under statement. He has quite the hunting resume coming into this hunt (turkey, deer, moose, bear), but has never killed an elk. The tag he drew had 4 GMU's that were huntable. I am super familiar with one of the 4 GMU's but was worried that the elk would be driven out with snow. About a week before the season, an early snow hit the mountains.....I was sure our normal haunts would be void of elk. Plan "B" was now the plan "A".....which was also exciting as we would get to look a new ground and do some exploring.
The youth tag is Nov. 1-12, which overlaps the general tag / season, which ends on the 5th. We decided to leave Friday morning on the 3rd and use the general season days to get to know the unit. We expected and found piles of hunters.....but knew this going into it and told ourselves to stay positive. We figured out cow hunt would start on the morning of the 6th...and we had the week to get it done. My son was super excited he had a week away from school and was completely OK with not shooting during the general season....."unless it is a spike dad, then I want to shoot it." I laughed and told him the odds of finding a unicorn was slim to none....especially during the final three days of the season.
Day one (Friday):
We arrive around noon and start looking for a place to make home for the next 9 days. As we sit at an intersection trying to decide which way to go, we notice a far away hillside moving.....120-150 head of elk making ground as a hunter a ridge over has pushed them. We look to our left to notice a very respectable 6x6 bull 100 yards away. We are now stoked....and ready for the hunt, WHAT A WAY START A HUNT!!. We continue up the road and find a place to set camp. Couple hours later we are loading up the side by side to take a drive and do some glassing. We pick a direction and drive to the first good glassing vantage point....withing 2 minutes of stopping we have two groups of elk spotted. The closes group has a decent bull and a handful of cows. Easily huntable and killable.....but we decide we don't want it to end this soon. We keep glassing till dark head back for dinner and good nights sleep.
Day two (Saturday): We wake to rain and fog. A good cup of coffee and a warm Danish and we are off again. We have new areas picked out to explore and figure we will cover miles to see what access and terrain look like. It is so foggy, 50-100 yard looks are long looks. We cover lots of ground, but very little elk sign and no sightings for the first half of the day. Mid day hits and the fog starts lifting. We are in another area and things are looking up. We spot a small herd 12 to 15 head that don't want anything to do with us and are running at the first sight of us. We continue on and about an hour before dark, we spot a bull and a couple cows. We stop, set up and look over the group. They tolerate us for a while, but no shots taken....no spikes!! We move down the road on our way back to camp to come across another herd of 30-40 head that another had bumped and they were running about 100 miles an hour and not stopping. They were 200 yards away but moving way to fast to even think about a shot. Still, a very productive day and lots of elk spotted.
Day three (Sunday / Last day of the general season): We wake to a cold, clear morning. More coffee and another warm Danish to get the day started. We pick yet another new area and head out. The area was absolutely beautiful and a guy could glass for miles......but the area was void of elk (well...with the exception of the 5-6 elk we saw an a distant ridge a long ways away). We saw deer, grouse, a few sheep / rams and a pile of hunters. We stopped and talked with one of the hunters and he said they had 6 elk spotted and they were all surrounding them. This canyon / bowl was 2 miles wide by 3 miles long and you could see 6 rigs with orange everywhere......we put it high gear and headed out of the shooting gallery. Wowwwwwzzzersss....what a crappppp show that looked like.
The afternoon of day three puts in yet another / new area. It is the last area we are gonna look at, as we have found plenty of areas to kill a cow. The area is absolutely amazing and the elk sign is unreal. Trails, fresh prints, fresh poop, feed, etc....and none of looks like the elk have been pressured. It is relatively close to where we saw bunches of elk from day #2 so we decide we would be back. The decision to leave the area alone for the remainder of the night was made and we were headed back to camp. At this point, we are not really looking and just really enjoying the time we are having. We are bombing down the road 15 ish miles an hour headed to camp......
Out of nowhere we see a calf elk on the ridge...my buddy said, "theres a deer." It was a small, very dark calf elk.....looked like a big dark brown doe. My son says, "that's an elk." I'm watching the road and starting to stop when I look over and see a small herd of elk.....sure enough, they are elk and not deer....LOL
Instantly, my son picks out a small bull and says, "I think that is a spike." He is out of the side by side and moving closer to take a look. I have him load his rifle and I put my trusted Swaro's on the elk and confirm it is a clean spike. He has his rifle shouldered and says, "can I shoot it??" My response is, heck yeah....if that's the elk you want, it's legal. Before I could finish my sentence......BOOOOOMMMM!!! The rest is history. He made a great shot and anchored it right where it stood. His first elk was a bull.....He is still on cloud nine. Now I have to euro a skull.....
We never got to hunt the cow tag when we would have had most of that country to ourselves. With that said, I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. I'm a proud dad and he has now added an elk...bull elk...to his hunting resume.
