An Abundant Year

Finals are finally over. Before finals week began I (Chris) took a trip out to Duchesne area to do some Elk hunting. I applied for and drew out a cow elk tag. Kareena's brother Gregg, his wife Tiffany, and father Lon all drew tags too. So for the last two weekends we have been up in the mountains with the wind and snow.

The first weekend was not so successful. We enjoyed being out in the mountains but saw little fresh sign of elk. After a few tips from locals we headed out week 2. Gregg and I stayed over last Friday night and Lon met us up on the mountain Saturday early in the morning. That morning we finally started making some progress. We found some fresh tracks. We knew they were most likely around somewhere close. We chose to head down into a canyon close by where we saw a ton of fresh tracks. As we were driving Gregg and I decided to stop and take a look over the canyon side to see what it looked like.

The wind was blowing directly into our faces. It was about 24 degrees (not including wind chill) at around 9:30AM. As we peered over into the canyon it was still difficult to see. I fought with myself to go a little farther to the edge and down the canyon just to be sure. I knew that every step I took down into the canyon would make it twice as exhausting coming back up. The snow was about 8 inches deep so that didn't help the worry of having to climb back up. But i talked myself into "making sure" there was nothing deep in the canyon that was out of sight from the top.

After sitting there for a half a minute I thought I caught a glimpse of something moving through the pines and junipers below me. I reoriented myself to get a better look and sure enough, I saw a few elk walk down the canyon side. I was so excited I turned to look over to Gregg who was about 20 yards up from me. He was looking the other way so I started waving my hands a little trying to get his attention without being detected by the stealthy animals below. After trying for a few seconds to get him over without any luck I decided to just take the shot. I punched one into the chamber, waited for an antlerless head to come into the 6 foot opening in the trees...all the while trying ot calm my nerves through deep steady breathes. I gently squeezed the trigger and a shot lit off. I took a snapshot in my head of where I was aiming when the shot actually went off - high and behind the critical broadside area....shoot! All of the sudden what were just a few elk that I saw became more than that. The elk were originally headed down the canyon to where it was less steep having come out of the thick timber, but they all completely turned around and started headed into the deep timber again.

After I shot I looked up at Greg and pointed to where there were and where they were heading. He scrambled to see where they were. Meanwhile I headed down to the trail to the spot where I thought I had hit the elk. I wanted to make sure that I didn't see any blood before I let off another round. I had lost track of the elk that I had shot at so shooting at another one would mean I could potentially wound two different animals. As I approached the site of the shot I heard a shot from up behind me. "Gregg must have gotten a good shot off too! Great!" I thought to myself as I looked around for blood. Finally, I saw it...I had wounded her! There was a track of blood somewhat dispersed. I followed the trail for a 20 feet or so until I lost track of which tracks were of the wounded elk. Meanwhile I saw a part of the elk herd headed up the other side of the canyon in open range. It was a perfect shot...I could take one down now...but I already had a trail although it didn't look promising. Finally I heard Gregg yell to me. I debated going down to him as I watched the Elk scurry up the steep rocky canyon on the other side. I yelled, "Do you have one down?" He replied with what I thought was a, "Yes". "Do you see mine too?" I then couldn't understand anything so I gave up on taking the shot at the elk across the canyon and headed down to where I heard Gregg.

It got steeper as I went down! I kept having to go farther and farther too. I met up with Gregg and he pointed down a ravine where I saw a what looked to me like a sledding path and a blood trail there. I saw the Elk. Elk down. We didn't know who shot it. I told him where I had shot mine - high and a little behind... he wasn't sure if his was a hit. He only saw the one blood trail too. Sure enough, the shot was high and behind but it was a lung shot and the elk had no chance it turns out. Phew! Then we realized where we were...and that there was no road at the bottom...and that the only way back up was that steep rock face above us with a half of a foot of snow on it. We had a long day ahead of us.

7 hours later we arrived at the truck with the final quarter of the elk. It was just getting dark. Enough time to drive home after the hardest workout I have had in a long time.

The following pictures are from the memorable day. My first Elk!

This is the canyon where the Elk was headed...as you can see the terrain wasn't so bad that way. But they turned completely around back into this...

As you can see it gets steeper the farther left the herd went...

And here is the place where it took a slide...also the place where we tied rope to the quarters and drug them up...

What a spot to stop...you can see in the distance the bottom of the canyon...at least it stopped a little above the bottom :)
Here is the pose/field dressing shot...

My first deer and my first elk. A successful year of hunting! I love the outdoors!

Special note: Thanks to Kareena, Marie, and Lon for processing the meat this week. Due to my 18 credits worth of finals I was unable to contribute. They were amazing...processing the whole thing in three nights!