WI ELK, the story of a once in a lifetime hunt

Nice bull and congrats to both of you! Thanks for taking us along on a pretty unique elk hunt.
 
6:20PM time to contact the DNR. Text to the DNR: "Bull down"

They give me a call to find out where we are and they are on their way to resister the harvest and collect all the samples. They informed us when they got on sight that this bull was over 3 miles away on the other side of a river earlier in the day. How lucky were we to be in the right location to make it all come together? Now that you have a 1,000lb animal on the ground what do you do? Well, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I like to work smarter than harder. I went back to the land owner and asked him if he would be willing to bring that tractor and loader over and help us out. He jumped at the chance and was there in minutes. How fortunate are we to have that as an option.

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This was one of my biggest concerns. How was I going to get this guy out of the wood in just 5 pieces. Problem solved. Some may call it cheating. I am calling it a blessing.
 
That was an amazing write up! Thanks for sharing your complete adventure! Congratulations to your daughter!
 
Now it is time to get him home and cared for. A quick stop at a gas station and a few snacks after a long day.

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As I am fueling up a semi was driving down the highway and all of a sudden I hear him hit the brakes hard and come to a stop. He jumps out of his truck and comes over. Is that what I think it is, holly cow that is amazing. He congratulates her and as quickly as he stopped he was back to work.

We made it back to our place for a couple quick hours of sleep then home and off to the butcher. Since it was her elk, we both wanted her to take it home. So I loaded it onto the two place snowmobile trailer and put it behind the other vehicle so she could take it home and I would follow her.

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There were cars serving waving and taking pictures the whole way home and she was grinning from ear to ear the entire way.
 
For those interested the 7mm-08 did it's job with those 140gr Accubonds leaving the muzzle at 2,880. One shot was a pass through and the other was found on the opposite side and it performed just like you would expect the bullet to do. Final bullet weight was 98gr.
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When we pealed the hide back we found the bullet holes, now one shot was taken from each side and the bullets were less than 2" apart in their path. I think that is pretty impressive to shot standing on game that is dynamic and to have those two rounds be so close.
 
Thank you for following along on our little adventure. It truly was an amazing experience and I wish we could do it again in our home state. For any resident in the state, I encourage you to apply, it is only $10 and you could be on the short list of those who have harvested an elk and experience what we did here.

Now my daughter can say she is the first youth in the state to ever harvest an elk and she had an amazing time doing it. We couldn't be happier.

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If anyone has any questions, hit me up I will be happy to answer them.
 
Thanks so much for the whole story. I had found out about your daughter being the first youth to get an elk here and saw the photo and I was not expecting such a fantastic story to go along with it right here on HT! Take that other social media (assuming you aren't double posting elsewhere)!
 
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