Devil Diver Down
Well-known member
Picked up some sheds on my Limited Opportunity elk hunt this weekend. Hot temps (mid 80s) and total lack of water slowed the action on what is a Depredation (or as my dad called it, Desperation) Hunt. The first pic is from Sunday and shows how close this matching set were to one another--about 12 feet on an open slope of a hill I had been on at least 3 times since Friday afternoon. Guess I was too busy looking for antlers still on the hoof to notice them.
The same set dwarfing my Eberlestock Dragonfly pack. To give you some idea of scale, I'm 6'1" and these sheds reached from the top of my pack to below my calves. Haven't put the tape to them yet but for that area, he's a pretty great bull.
I found plenty of other sheds, mostly busted ones, but this set belonged to a bull I got a glimpse of Friday from this hill. He was 800-900 yards away at sunset. After a Lawnboy-inspired sprint off the hill I was on, across a small flat and up the hill he was feeding out toward, I found myself slightly out of breath and within 30 yards of frantic hoofbeats. I had left my cow call in my pack so I used a half-assed whitetail grunt to slow them up.
I caught glimpses of him, a smaller bull and a cow (all legal on my tag) through the thick juniper. We bobbed and weaved through the trees in the failing light--the hunter/hunted dance for the last 8-10 minutes of light. I passed on an iffy shot on the big guy--only a bit of neck exposed through a dead, twisted juniper--and the cow who walked directly away from me, showing only butt.
The smaller bull burst into the open and just as I squeezed the trigger, he turned 90 degrees out of my crosshairs. Sixth sense saving him for another day and keeping me elkless.
By Sunday night, my dad was hurting (back and sciatic nerve issues) so I told him I'd hunt early morning Monday and then break camp. Unfortunately, I woke to a 4am flat tire and didn't want to risk taking the truck up the mountain with no backup so I packed up after the tire change and the sun came up. I gave our camping neighbor 1 decent 6 point shed I picked up and left some others on the mountain for others to find.
So this is the only bone I brought home from the hunt. Except of course that I hadn't seen my wife for 6 days
The same set dwarfing my Eberlestock Dragonfly pack. To give you some idea of scale, I'm 6'1" and these sheds reached from the top of my pack to below my calves. Haven't put the tape to them yet but for that area, he's a pretty great bull.
I found plenty of other sheds, mostly busted ones, but this set belonged to a bull I got a glimpse of Friday from this hill. He was 800-900 yards away at sunset. After a Lawnboy-inspired sprint off the hill I was on, across a small flat and up the hill he was feeding out toward, I found myself slightly out of breath and within 30 yards of frantic hoofbeats. I had left my cow call in my pack so I used a half-assed whitetail grunt to slow them up.
I caught glimpses of him, a smaller bull and a cow (all legal on my tag) through the thick juniper. We bobbed and weaved through the trees in the failing light--the hunter/hunted dance for the last 8-10 minutes of light. I passed on an iffy shot on the big guy--only a bit of neck exposed through a dead, twisted juniper--and the cow who walked directly away from me, showing only butt.
The smaller bull burst into the open and just as I squeezed the trigger, he turned 90 degrees out of my crosshairs. Sixth sense saving him for another day and keeping me elkless.
By Sunday night, my dad was hurting (back and sciatic nerve issues) so I told him I'd hunt early morning Monday and then break camp. Unfortunately, I woke to a 4am flat tire and didn't want to risk taking the truck up the mountain with no backup so I packed up after the tire change and the sun came up. I gave our camping neighbor 1 decent 6 point shed I picked up and left some others on the mountain for others to find.
So this is the only bone I brought home from the hunt. Except of course that I hadn't seen my wife for 6 days
