Intothewindoutdoors
New member
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2011
- Messages
- 104
First, let me give you a little back story. Me, my business partner Eric, our pastor Brad (who had broken his hip only 2 months before we hit the back country) and friend Nathan had worked our buts off all archery season chasing elk for close to 25 days to only have me shoot this bull with two days left in the season while having the flu.
After watching the 2012 archery elk season come and go we welcomed a 15 day rest before the rifle season started on the 15th of October. Now the deer seasons around where we live are much shorter than the elk season so we decided to go to a place where we could elk and deer hunt and where we had a lot of success before while deer hunting.
October 15th finally got here and we headed for the mountains. We parked the truck at 6 am and headed up the mountain before dark. Eric, Brad and Nathan carrying rifles and me with our camera gear. Our goal was to get to the top of the mountain and a look out point before the sun came up and sit behind the binos until we find something.
We just made it to the ridge that we wanted to sit and glass from and I look up and see Eric and Nate signaling that they see something just below us! I quickly move up to where Eric is with the camera thinking that he sees a big mule deer and I tell Nathan and Brad to hang back. As I make it to Eric I look in the draw just below us and I see that he hadn't seen a big mule deer but about 50 head of elk! quickly motion Nathan and Brad down to us and we move into position. By this time the wind was blowing at least 30mph and gusting higher than that so we made sure we were close enough to make good ethical shots. As we get set up the herd start moving toward the private and out of range taking the bulls with them. Just as we were thinking we had missed out on a great opportunity I look down only 100 yards below us and I see that there are 5 or 6 cows that haven't left with the herd. I tell Eric and Brad who also have cow/calf tags and quickly get the camera on them. BOOM!! BOOM!! Eric shoots first and then Brad. I watch a cow go down in the viewfinder, they had shot the same cow!! In the crazy wind they couldn't comunicate with each other. The good news is that we had an animal down and it was only 715 am!!
After gutless quartering the cow Eric, Nathan and I head back to the truck and Brad stayed up on the mountain knowing that if he packed out with us then he wouldn't make it back up with his hip.
We get the cow back to the truck and head back up the mountain! When we reach the ridge where Brad had been waiting he is not there! I start looking around and see him in the creek bottom below us fist pumping and throwing his hands in the air giving the universal sign for BIG BULL DOWN!!!
Not ten minutes before we had gotten there a great 6x7 bull had come over the hill into the creek bottom below where Brad had been glassing and he made a great shot at 275 yards putting the bull down!!
It was just after 11am now and we had two elk down! We start gutless quartering the bull and my dad and two friends of ours head up to help us pack Bull out. With the troops on the way Eric, Nate and I start talking and we all have a gut feeling that we should stay for an evening hunt instead of heading home with the rest of the troops. We get Brads bull loaded up on packs and send Brad, my dad and two other friends on their way .75 mils back to the truck!
By this time it is just before 4 pm and Eric, Nate and I head deeper into the canyon. We round corner after corner looking over some of the best deer country I know of. We have a very close encounter with a doe that Eric had at 5 yards before spooking. It was one of those evenings where you had a feeling that things were just going to work out the way they were supposed to.
Not 5 minutes after the encounter with the doe I look up on the steep canyon wall and see two bucks standing only 100 yards from us!! I tell Eric and Nate to move up and get into position and I set the camera up. The deer start climbing the canyon wall 150 yards away, 200, 250, 300 I yell to Eric giving him a distance and then BOOM! The first buck goes down! Eric jumps into the air and lets out a yell! Which stops the second buck and Nate lets one fly! BOOM! The second buck goes down!!! The excitement that followed is something that I dont have words to explain. We had just killed 2 elk and 2 mule deer bucks in one day! All on public land! October 15th was one of those days where everything went perfectly and luck was on our side.
After we packed the deer back to the truck I had a voicemail from a friend of mine saying that his dad had just shot a great public land moose and he could use some help getting it out the next day! Even though we were exhausted we gladly helped.
For more pictures and videos from this hunt and our other hunts please feel free to check out our facebook page at www.facebook.com/IntoTheWindOutdoors
After watching the 2012 archery elk season come and go we welcomed a 15 day rest before the rifle season started on the 15th of October. Now the deer seasons around where we live are much shorter than the elk season so we decided to go to a place where we could elk and deer hunt and where we had a lot of success before while deer hunting.
October 15th finally got here and we headed for the mountains. We parked the truck at 6 am and headed up the mountain before dark. Eric, Brad and Nathan carrying rifles and me with our camera gear. Our goal was to get to the top of the mountain and a look out point before the sun came up and sit behind the binos until we find something.
We just made it to the ridge that we wanted to sit and glass from and I look up and see Eric and Nate signaling that they see something just below us! I quickly move up to where Eric is with the camera thinking that he sees a big mule deer and I tell Nathan and Brad to hang back. As I make it to Eric I look in the draw just below us and I see that he hadn't seen a big mule deer but about 50 head of elk! quickly motion Nathan and Brad down to us and we move into position. By this time the wind was blowing at least 30mph and gusting higher than that so we made sure we were close enough to make good ethical shots. As we get set up the herd start moving toward the private and out of range taking the bulls with them. Just as we were thinking we had missed out on a great opportunity I look down only 100 yards below us and I see that there are 5 or 6 cows that haven't left with the herd. I tell Eric and Brad who also have cow/calf tags and quickly get the camera on them. BOOM!! BOOM!! Eric shoots first and then Brad. I watch a cow go down in the viewfinder, they had shot the same cow!! In the crazy wind they couldn't comunicate with each other. The good news is that we had an animal down and it was only 715 am!!
After gutless quartering the cow Eric, Nathan and I head back to the truck and Brad stayed up on the mountain knowing that if he packed out with us then he wouldn't make it back up with his hip.
We get the cow back to the truck and head back up the mountain! When we reach the ridge where Brad had been waiting he is not there! I start looking around and see him in the creek bottom below us fist pumping and throwing his hands in the air giving the universal sign for BIG BULL DOWN!!!
Not ten minutes before we had gotten there a great 6x7 bull had come over the hill into the creek bottom below where Brad had been glassing and he made a great shot at 275 yards putting the bull down!!
It was just after 11am now and we had two elk down! We start gutless quartering the bull and my dad and two friends of ours head up to help us pack Bull out. With the troops on the way Eric, Nate and I start talking and we all have a gut feeling that we should stay for an evening hunt instead of heading home with the rest of the troops. We get Brads bull loaded up on packs and send Brad, my dad and two other friends on their way .75 mils back to the truck!
By this time it is just before 4 pm and Eric, Nate and I head deeper into the canyon. We round corner after corner looking over some of the best deer country I know of. We have a very close encounter with a doe that Eric had at 5 yards before spooking. It was one of those evenings where you had a feeling that things were just going to work out the way they were supposed to.
Not 5 minutes after the encounter with the doe I look up on the steep canyon wall and see two bucks standing only 100 yards from us!! I tell Eric and Nate to move up and get into position and I set the camera up. The deer start climbing the canyon wall 150 yards away, 200, 250, 300 I yell to Eric giving him a distance and then BOOM! The first buck goes down! Eric jumps into the air and lets out a yell! Which stops the second buck and Nate lets one fly! BOOM! The second buck goes down!!! The excitement that followed is something that I dont have words to explain. We had just killed 2 elk and 2 mule deer bucks in one day! All on public land! October 15th was one of those days where everything went perfectly and luck was on our side.
After we packed the deer back to the truck I had a voicemail from a friend of mine saying that his dad had just shot a great public land moose and he could use some help getting it out the next day! Even though we were exhausted we gladly helped.
For more pictures and videos from this hunt and our other hunts please feel free to check out our facebook page at www.facebook.com/IntoTheWindOutdoors
