Alright, now that the site is back up and running, I will try to recreate my experiences from my Toutle Modern Rifle Hunt. I had spent several weekends scouting throughout the summer and had seen a lot of elk, including some nice bulls. I had taken the entire week off, but had to work the Friday before opening, so my dad was tasked with going down Friday and setting up camp for us. He found a great camping spot and saw a herd of elk heading to a clearcut that night. So we had a definite idea of where we wanted to be come morning...
Day 1: The weather was perfect, stormy and snowy. I was so excited to have a week off and be able to hunt in a unit that took me 10 years to get drawn for. I was positive we would both be getting bulls and it would be pick and choose which one to shoot. Opening morning we told each other that we were not going to shoot anything less than a 5 or a monster 4 for the first few days, and then would change our tune to anything with antlers come midweek, depending on how the hunt was going. First morning, we wanted to be in the clearcut that my dad had seen elk going into the night before. We drove over there to find that some *censored* had put a personal masterlock on the DNR gate so we could not get in. Frustrated, we decided to drive all the way around to get into that area. It was becoming light and as we were driving through the timber, we spotted a bunch of yellow butts 50 yards off the road, we immediately noticed there was a bull in there, as they took off into the timber. We headed in after them. The wind was perfect and we were able to get to within 150 yards of them as they were feeding on the hill, about 800 yards from the nearest road. We were in place, trying to find a bull worth shooting. There were 3 bulls, along with about ten cows. Two of the bulls were raghorn 4x4s and one was a nice 4x4 with ivory tips. We were debating on whether to take a shot, debating for about 5 minutes, and when we finally decided to take a shot, my dad got in position, but it was too late, the elk was out of sight. We hiked out of there feeling pumped about our first morning, and went to set up camp. It took us the remainder of the day to set up camp. First off - we were missing our adapter for our camper, so we had to splice a cable in order to plug it into the generator. Second - we found out that the generator fuel tank had been corroded with rust (most likely from our rainy last season's elk hunting trip). We cleaned out the tank and had to fully rebuild the carburetor at night, in order to get this baby running. Middle of the night, it cuts out again, and we are required to fix it once again the next night.
Day 2: We spend day 2 (sunny as can be) checking out a lot of the unit and doing some road hunting to familiarize ourselves with some of the roads that had been gated off during our summer scouting adventures. Day 2 was uneventful, without us seeing a single elk. We did, however, manage to see at least 50 different road hunters cruising down the logging roads.
Day 3: We decided to hit a clearcut in the dark on day 3, and wait there until a few hours after morning to see if anything would show. Not an elk in sight for the morning, so we decide to do a little bit more driving and hike into a few areas. We met up with bearmanric to see how he had been doing and he hadn't seen much more than us at that point. Once again, we were cursing the sunny weather. We spent the second half of the day hiking (I went up high, my dad went down low). My dad got into a herd of elk right at dark, but the wind shifted and out they went. He didn't pursue them, so we planned on going in after them come morning. Had to rebuild the carburetor one more time on this night before bed.
Day 4: We went in where my dad had spotted the elk. Sounded like WWIII going on as we heard at least 15 shots that morning. We did a half day hike, found some serious trails, but the elk never did seem to stop. Spent the rest of the day hiking in several different areas, but did not see an elk. This was again, a very sunny day. At this point, we were kicking ourselves in the butt for not taking those bulls opening morning. I decide to pull out the regs this night to see how many permits they had given out, since we were seeing people everywhere, to my surprise, throughout all seasons they gave a total of 823 permits in the Toutle this year. This included a bunch of permits for the October 1-7 hunt. Now, this really did not look good. No wonder we saw so many more elk while scouting than we did the first few days. Shower night, thank God! We shower outside in the sub-freezing temperatures. It feels good, but at the same time, I wonder if I will ever see my manhood again!
Day 5: We were originally going to go down the south end of the unit to meet backcountrybow, where he would show us some of his areas. It did not work out this morning and we spent our time finding another place to hike. We hiked in where we knew there was a lot of elk, found a dead bull in the bottom of a ravine with its antlers sawed off. Somebody must have shot it, been unable to find it, it died, and somebody else found it and sawed off the antlers. We hiked almost all day without seeing another elk. Go figure, once again it was completely sunny. We were absolutely disgusted with ourselves at this point. I have seen many more elk hunting general units than I had on this special permit that had taken me years to get. Why had we not just shot those bulls opening morning?
Day 6: Day 6 finds us waking up at 3, driving down to the south end and hunting in an area backcountrybow had told us about. It took us 2 hours to get down there and we hunted there in the morning. I got into a herd of cows, 6 in all, but no bulls in sight. Once again, this was a pure sunny day. We were very disgusted and getting downtrodden, as we spent the day driving north into the center of the unit. At about 3:00, we decided let's take a little hike and try to wear off the tiredness and depression. We hiked about 100 yards off the road, when I immediately spotted two elk walking the valley below us. I motioned to my dad, and at this point, we heard a bull bellowing angrily in the drainage to our left. This was some noisy crap to walk in, nothing but downfall, with sticks everywhere. I could hear branches break to our left, but it was hard to tell if it was elk or squirrels dropping nuts off the trees (it was that faint). My dad spotted elk about 150 yards to our left, they were bedded down. He says he sees a spike and decides that it is go time! He successfully drops it where it lays, and I see about 5 elk take off into the drainage. As my dad starts the process of skinning it, I take a jaunt through the thickest crap of all time to try to push the elk back out. No luck for me. It is getting dark quickly as my dad quarters this fat sucker out. We are a good 350 yards downhill from the truck. I decide to try to cut the trips in half by packing out a hind and a front quarter on my back in one trip. This about did me in as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel upon making it to the truck. Down a bottle of water and back down I go. As he quarters, I pack out. I packed out the entire elk and was soaked in a mixture of my sweat and elk blood. We get out of the woods at 9 oclock and then we have a drive to make! As we're driving back, we immediately see a herd of elk run across the road, with a nice big bull in it. We continue our drive, excited, beat, drenched, dirty, in the middle of the woods (a good 20 miles from the nearest highway), there's a van blocking the road. This seems very sketch to me, as a Mexican guy approaches our truck. We ask him what he's doing and he says cutting boughs. We say "At night?" He says of course. We tell him to move his van so we can get through, as we do, I jot down his license plate because I am sure this is not legal work. We get back to the camp around 12:00, time for another ice cold shower outside the camper and in to bed, exhausted and drained, but excited.
Day 7: We get up at 3:30, 3 hours of sleep and an exhausting day the day before, with the intent of driving back to where my dad got his bull, in hopes of finding that bull we saw cross the road! As we're driving up (it's a 3 hour drive), we spot five cows in a clearcut, no bull! We get to our spot, to notice 4 different rigs milling around, dang it! See a doe in a clearcut and that is about it. We hike in where my dad got his, but there are no elk in sight. Next, I decide to hike in a few yards off of a landing to see if there is anything in the timber below, no sooner do I get into the timber than I see 5+ elk moving from left to right, trying to get into the drainage. I get my scope up, I spot two cows, but cannot get a bead on the rest. We go in after them, saw some beautiful area, but they never did stop. The weather is finally starting to change, wind and rain and even some snow. At this point, I feel like crap, I had been battling a sinus infection the entire trip and the depression of not seeing much elk as well as not sleeping and working my butt off had finally caught up to me. At about 2 o'clock, I tell my dad, let's just drive back, get some rest, and hit it hard for the last two days. He agrees, and we decide to road hunt back. He decides to take a different route because there was a clearcut he wanted to check on our way back. It is raining and windy something ferocious now, rain blowing sideways into the truck. As we're driving back, he spots elk in the bottom of a clearcut. As I get out of the truck and load my gun, he says the front one is a bull! Well no sooner had I gotten out then the thickest pea soup fog blew in. I could not see 10 feet in front of me. At this point, I wanted to cry, if the fog didn't blow out, or the elk sensed us and left, I would be heartbroken. Two minutes later, the fog blew out, and there they were, 2 elk in the bottom of a clearcut about 175 yards down. My scope is fogged up, the wind is about blowing me over, and the rain is almost drowning me, but after making sure the front one was definitely a bull, I let him have it. Hit it hard the first shot, but it took two more for him to go down, finally. Put one last round in him to finish him off. After my second shot, the other elk lifted it's head, and sure enough it was a deformed 5x5, dang it! Bigger than the one I shot, but at this point I was excited. My dad drove down to the road below, as I hiked down the clearcut to my bull. There he was, nothing fantastic, a raghorn 4x3, but it was my bull, a hard fought hunt to finally get this, but succeed we did. And the best part, the landing was 50 yards below! We were able to drag the sucker down hole, gut him, and then back the truck up to the hill and load him hole into the clearcut so we could skin him back at camp!
Well, this was a long story, but we are not eating tag soup, but enjoying some nice tasty elk. Not the monsters we were hoping for, but it was definitely a hard hunt for me. It was the hardest elk hunt I have ever been on, which says a lot. I was not overly impressed with the unit or the weather. If anyone actually reads this entire story, I hope you enjoyed it! Here are the pics!
