Colorado Elk Hunt!
- Thread starter 180ls1
- Start date
He should drop a line every couple of hours. Tantalizing details and wait a few days to finished the story.
Just like Hatch, if you were female, we would call you a pecker teaser.
Congrats to you Adam! Elk is an achievement and well earned! ps I hope you didn't lose your knife with all the snow coming down.
Thursday AM we woke up to about 3" of snow. Perfect. It was time to get out and glass the hills up high for those post rut bulls. Well, sure enough we turned up a heard of about 50. I know that hill well as the elk were there 2 days ago and fed into private within 10 mins. This time they were moving a little slower. My odds still were not good as its about 600 vertical feet and were already at 10K elevation. I hesitated for a couple of mins knowing the chances were slim I could catch them in time but decided to give it hell anyways. You miss the shots you dont take right? Trekking poles out and off I went.
I made it about 3/4 of the way up and the elk were gone. On top of that the snow really started falling limiting my visibility. I decided to keep pushing further up (when in doubt, go higher). Wouldn't you know it, they hung up in the last patch of trees and started feeding out across the way. I immediately get down and start trying to setup a rest. My bi-pod was too low, pack wasn't steady enough but I did manage to find a fallen tree and get ready.
I grab my rangefinder... 16 yards, 20 yards, 17 yards, 24 yards. What the hell?! I realized it must have been hitting the snow. I took my best guess at range and dialed to 300. Nah, 350. Nah, 400 is more like it. Fine, 400 it is. The @JakeSCH 124 hammer hunters @ 3400 fps are flat shooting so I should be OK.
I settle behind the glass only to realize I cant distinguish a cow from a bull. They are feeding away and I wont have a shot within 5 mins because of the private they are heading towards. I pull out my spotter, no better. Finally my binos. They are on par with my scope so I keep looking from brown spot to brown spot trying to see something with horns. After about 3 mins of doing that while the snow is unrelenting I finally see something with a brown horn above its head. Good enough for me!
I get behind the rifle and let one fly. SMACK. However, I dont know what a bullet smacking frozen earth sounds like and that was a long shot at unknown range. The elk moved around just a bit after the shot. That was all it took to lose him as my visibility was severely limited and he was tucked in with the herd. Damn, always follow up with elk! All of a sudden some of the elk scatter from one of the other elk. I know what that means and can just barley see a brown spot not moving off with the herd. I close the distance. Just like that I punched my CO elk tag in the snow. What a dream!
When later quartering him out I was able to get a range. 431 yards. By far my longest shot. This PRC with those loads shoots unbelievable as I hit him about 40% of the way up and 3" back from the crease. He went 30 and was down in about 10 seconds.
Time to eat!
I made it about 3/4 of the way up and the elk were gone. On top of that the snow really started falling limiting my visibility. I decided to keep pushing further up (when in doubt, go higher). Wouldn't you know it, they hung up in the last patch of trees and started feeding out across the way. I immediately get down and start trying to setup a rest. My bi-pod was too low, pack wasn't steady enough but I did manage to find a fallen tree and get ready.
I grab my rangefinder... 16 yards, 20 yards, 17 yards, 24 yards. What the hell?! I realized it must have been hitting the snow. I took my best guess at range and dialed to 300. Nah, 350. Nah, 400 is more like it. Fine, 400 it is. The @JakeSCH 124 hammer hunters @ 3400 fps are flat shooting so I should be OK.
I settle behind the glass only to realize I cant distinguish a cow from a bull. They are feeding away and I wont have a shot within 5 mins because of the private they are heading towards. I pull out my spotter, no better. Finally my binos. They are on par with my scope so I keep looking from brown spot to brown spot trying to see something with horns. After about 3 mins of doing that while the snow is unrelenting I finally see something with a brown horn above its head. Good enough for me!
I get behind the rifle and let one fly. SMACK. However, I dont know what a bullet smacking frozen earth sounds like and that was a long shot at unknown range. The elk moved around just a bit after the shot. That was all it took to lose him as my visibility was severely limited and he was tucked in with the herd. Damn, always follow up with elk! All of a sudden some of the elk scatter from one of the other elk. I know what that means and can just barley see a brown spot not moving off with the herd. I close the distance. Just like that I punched my CO elk tag in the snow. What a dream!
When later quartering him out I was able to get a range. 431 yards. By far my longest shot. This PRC with those loads shoots unbelievable as I hit him about 40% of the way up and 3" back from the crease. He went 30 and was down in about 10 seconds.
Time to eat!
Awesome. Great story so far. Now tell us how the truck came and picked it up.
Congrats again!! Well earned…next year you can add the tricer bipod to your setup and use your trekking poles as a bipod and backpack as rear rest.
“Far” mode on range finders is a must have in fog and snow. Learned that in a very similar situation.
“Far” mode on range finders is a must have in fog and snow. Learned that in a very similar situation.
