I have a friend from college who moved to Colorado with his wife after he got married. I had talked with him about hunting multiple times and he was always interested but we never made it work together. He recently sent me an email that he got his first elk and first ever big game animal while living down in Colorado. I thought you might enjoy the story and pics. Enjoy!
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Hunting this year in Colorado I had thought that it was just another great time in the woods hiking all over the place trying to find one of those mysterious ghosts of the woods, ELK. Although I said this already and I love saying it again but this year was different. To start the season my younger brother Chris, father Lawrence, and good friend Lance where in the state to join me to what we all thought was going to be the year that we would harvest a couple Bull Elk; Both Lance and I had tags/rifles and my brother and father were our scouts, spotters, trackers, etc. After 5 days in the beautiful Red Table Wilderness just outside of Gypsum, Colorado we were worn out, discouraged, and ready to get out of the woods and back to reality. During that time we had only seen three Elk, 1 bull, and 2 cows; aside from the great fellowship and amazing scenery the trip was otherwise a bust. Although this year after all was different....
Returning home, our biggest of burdens was unloading the car and getting back to our normal lives as people, we couldn't quite call ourselves hunters yet; we had hiked our butts off for miles and miles, seen a few elk here and there but we all were yet to harvest an animal. Are our normal lives a burden? haha no not at all but had we killed an elk it would've been much easier to jump back to reality for which we would've done what we intended to do. My brother and I were still determined to kill a bull before the season ended so we drew up a plan in an area that we had heard was world renowned for huge numbers of elk inhabiting an area near Gunnison. Leaving Friday night after I got off work we drove 4 hours from Boulder, camped off the gravel road in the general area that we wanted to hunt. Since we had never hunted the area we wanted to figure out where we were going to go and hunt in the presence of light so we pitched a tent, spent the night and dreamed about getting a huge bull to bring home. Saturday morning we got a late start and began hiking around 8:00 am on a trail that heads towards a wilderness area near Crested Butte. It was a nice area with patches of snow left over from the the foot of snow that fell earlier that week; this gave us an advantage in that we were able to track the elk. After being on a few game trails with fresh droppings, unfrozen urine, and clean prints Chris spotted a cow just 15 yards from us which turned out to be 4 to 5 cows in the surrounding area. They knew we were there and scurried off for safety; I wasn't going to shoot a cow but in the presence of the females there very well could be a bull (male elk). As these animals scurry off they disappear like ghosts leaving us to continue tracking other animals.
After a few more hours off trail we came across an area that had been absolutely trampled on, fresh rubs, piss and poop everywhere, we suspected there had to have been a herd here recently. Following the direction of the tracks and looking at our map we suspected the herd was headed to a very wide open marshy area that was about 1 1/2 miles long and 400 to 500 yards wide with lakes and ponds all up and down the expanse. Heading through the thick woods we spooked another cow that we attempted to track but again it disappeared. Knowing there had to have been a couple hundred elk in this suspected herd we quickly got back to pursuing and heading towards the marshy area. Upon arrival we saw nothing, lots of tracks, but no elk. It was mid day 2:30pm-3:00pm, we were exhausted and decided to find a good vantage point to sit and watch. Upon sitting down we quickly became very woozy and fell asleep to nap for about 45 min. Waking up to more of nothing we decided to get up and keep pursuing down the expanse of the marsh. Very quickly after beginning to hike again we went off trail following some more tracks and fresh sign, sure enough Chris spots 2 cows and a calf. Being about 120-140 yards away the cows didn't know we were there, so we sat and watched praying that a bull would come into the picture. Prior to spotting these cows both my brother and I heard a very slight sound of a Bugle (the mating call a bull elk makes); it was so faint neither of us told each other we had heard it. Was it a bull bugling? Was it just in our head? NO the bugling bull kept getting closer and closer and louder and louder.
As we sat and watched these cows grazing we decided to find a better view of the animals; sure enough 3 more cows come bolting down the hill spooking the 2 cows and calf we had been watching. We thought we had spooked them and it was all over...we were wrong!! One last bugle came within just 200 yards of us and the cows were running away simply because they weren't interested in mating with this bull. Finally the bull comes into site and things really start to get intense, my brother see's it, I see it, and we move quickly to find a good shooting lane. Dropping down into a nook through some trees we found our shot. My brother was just below me saying "JON come down here now now now!!!" as he had the best view and suspected shooting lane. As I am moving down the bull is beginning to intersect our shooting lane, I'm not set or ready yet, we are both thinking we are going to lose our chance when the bull STOPS; we couldn't see its head and we couldn't see its rear end but the kill zone was available for a 140 yard shot. My shooting stick isn't long enough to give me a steady shot, time is running out and Chris quietly exclaims "JUST SHOOT the damn thing, shoot it, shoot it, shoot it!!." Within seconds I steady myself and take the shot. The bull runs out of site and I see what looks like branches falling, "I think its down, I think its down." After waiting a few minutes we continue towards the animal with a bullet chambered and sure enough 30 yards away from us is a 5x5 bull elk laying dead on the ground. I can not explain the excitement of this moment for the both of us but we were emotional, and ecstatic with smiles as big as they could get. We thought the work was all about finding and killing the elk but really the work started as soon as the thing was dead...
It was 5:00 pm on Saturday at the time of its death; we gathered our adrenaline, took in the moment, snapped some pictures and decided to handle dressing the animal that night. After 30 minutes of taking in the moment and observing this beast of an animal we hiked back to the car 4.5 miles away from where we killed the elk. Arriving at the car at 7:30 pm we got our backpacking packs, dressing materials, and made some soup before we headed back to our prize. Arriving back at the animal by 10:00 pm we began the process of skinning, removing the innards/guts, the hind and front quarters, the tenderloins, back straps, liver, neck, and some other miscellaneous meat. This was both of ours first time dressing an animal and it happened to be the size of a horse; 7 hours later at 5:00am Sunday morning we filled our packs with the hind quarters, top sirloin, back straps and other sorts of meat and began what would of been an hour and 45 min hike but with 95+ lbs of meat on our backs it took us three hours to get back to the car. Arriving at the car at 8:00am Saturday morning we had been up for the last 24 hours, our ankles, hips, backs, and knees were pushed to the limit; the mental, physical and emotional exhaustion broke us into tears of joy, pain, and the surreal fact that after 3 years of pursuing these majestic ghosts of the forest we had finally harvested one.
But that was just half of what was yet to come. Taking a 4 hour nap in the car we woke up to the idea of possibly finding a shorter route to our kill because the wilderness area we were in was surrounded by private property we may have been able to access it from if given permission. With gates closed and no one home we accepted that fact that we had to go in and come out the same way we did that Sunday morning. As we prepared ourselves for another 5 hours of grueling meat packing we hit the trail once again to pack out the front quarters, liver, and head. Getting back to the animal at 4:30 pm Sunday afternoon we loaded up the rest of the meat we had hung in a tree over night to keep it away from any carnivorous creatures and began the final HOORAA of hiking. As we came within site of the car I fell to the ground onto my hands and knees and broke into tears of more pain, happiness, and joy. We had done it, it was finished and what we thought would never end finally ended in amazing fashion. Loading up the meat into my Yakima box on top of my Subaru with the head strapped to our bike rack was a site to see; we got heads turning all the way home to the site of two young men that could now call themselves hunters with a Subaru full of meat and a head of an elk strapped on top. Getting home was surreal in amongst itself, we did what we went to do, we both accomplished the hardest thing we had ever done in our lives and IT WAS FINISHED. My wife Amy and younger brother Chris took the meat to be processed and the guy said surprisingly "I've been doing this for many years and never once has anyone delivered there prize in a SUBARU!!"
God answered our prayers of getting an opportunity to harvest one of his amazing creatures and every moment we believe he had his working hand in. From the decisions we made on where to go for a shot, to the bull stopping in the perfect position, and to the steady hands on my rifle for a shot right through the heart; it was all in his plan and we are so thankful to be given the opportunity we had both worked so hard for. Praise the Lord and God Bless all of you.
