Had a family Christmas in big bear and then drove up to Colorado to fill my cow tag right after. Somehow I talked my wife into going with me and leaving the 3 and 1 year old with grandparents. Anyways we get to Colorado (north west part) late on the 28th and get up early the 29th to hunt. All roads I am use to taking were covered in 18”-24” of snow so it seemed liked a hiking only trip, and hiked directly from camp to the nearest hill. Within a minute or two (on the top) I spot elk in the open about a mile away. Story told short we got to about 400 yards and the wind shifted and they bolted before I could get a steady shot.
We went back to camp trudging through that deep snow, man that stuff takes a toll. We warm up and eat some soup, then I start glassing from camp. Boom, sure enough I see 6 more minutes elk about 2 miles away and my wife talks me into going for them. After we get close, they had moved on and I told my wife there was no way to we would pack out an elk in the snow that far unless we had fresh legs. By the time we got back to camp she was literally falling over from exhaustion. Walking through snow knee high or above is no joke. About 3 pm we decided to push my new truck (Ram Rebel) and see how it handled the deep snow.
To my pleasant surprise it treated that snow like a plow and drove back the “dirt” road a few miles until I spotted a few elk (about 900 yards away) near a corral on private land that I had permission to hunt. We got out and hiked in a ravine until we got about 200 yards where they were. As I popped up, I saw they moved another 400 yards away. Coming up to with a new strategy I kept and looking and sure enough a couple more elk walked out at 220 yards. It seemed like forever that their bodies were straight at me, but about 10 minutes before end of shooting light one turned broadside and BAAAMM. Bad shot, hit it high but a quick follow up hit both lungs.
Somehow it went down literally next to the corral and I was able to push through the snow to get close and use my head lights to cut it apart.
I almost felt like @HATCHET1 being able to go to my truck and warm my hands and feet. The packout doesn’t get much shorter! Lol the whole time I felt lucky and kept on saying, “so this is what it’s like”.
It was a crazy day, but since we got it early in the trip we decided to checkout Arches NP and visit some family in NV. My wife was on the fence about hunting but on the way home she was searching all the regs and was interested in hunting with me in AZ, so I say that is the real win.
Btw, I decided to butcher the elk myself...it is a LOT of work. Haha
Bullet is .308 Hornday GMX 165 grain
We went back to camp trudging through that deep snow, man that stuff takes a toll. We warm up and eat some soup, then I start glassing from camp. Boom, sure enough I see 6 more minutes elk about 2 miles away and my wife talks me into going for them. After we get close, they had moved on and I told my wife there was no way to we would pack out an elk in the snow that far unless we had fresh legs. By the time we got back to camp she was literally falling over from exhaustion. Walking through snow knee high or above is no joke. About 3 pm we decided to push my new truck (Ram Rebel) and see how it handled the deep snow.
To my pleasant surprise it treated that snow like a plow and drove back the “dirt” road a few miles until I spotted a few elk (about 900 yards away) near a corral on private land that I had permission to hunt. We got out and hiked in a ravine until we got about 200 yards where they were. As I popped up, I saw they moved another 400 yards away. Coming up to with a new strategy I kept and looking and sure enough a couple more elk walked out at 220 yards. It seemed like forever that their bodies were straight at me, but about 10 minutes before end of shooting light one turned broadside and BAAAMM. Bad shot, hit it high but a quick follow up hit both lungs.
Somehow it went down literally next to the corral and I was able to push through the snow to get close and use my head lights to cut it apart.
I almost felt like @HATCHET1 being able to go to my truck and warm my hands and feet. The packout doesn’t get much shorter! Lol the whole time I felt lucky and kept on saying, “so this is what it’s like”.
It was a crazy day, but since we got it early in the trip we decided to checkout Arches NP and visit some family in NV. My wife was on the fence about hunting but on the way home she was searching all the regs and was interested in hunting with me in AZ, so I say that is the real win.
Btw, I decided to butcher the elk myself...it is a LOT of work. Haha
Bullet is .308 Hornday GMX 165 grain
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