Back in October I went on my first elk hunt. It was a guided hunt on private land in Colorado's first rifle season. We stayed in cabins on the property, there were three other hunters in camp. The property belongs to an oil company, so there were many two tracks to drive on across the property. On the first morning we spotted a couple of spike bulls. That afternoon we returned to the same area and glassed up a nice five by five bull with some cows, but my guide said we would find a bigger one. Around last light, we drove further down a two track past where we were glassing and found a herd of elk with two bulls and a lot of cows feeding just over on a different property. We couldn't make out their antlers but we decided we would head back in the morning for a better look.
The next morning we got a good look at the bulls through the spotting scope, they had stayed in the same spot and both were nice bulls. My guide tried to cow call to bring him over from the other property, but had no luck. That afternoon we hiked into a different spot. We spotted a couple of small bulls that afternoon.
We returned the next morning to the spot we spent the first day and second morning at. In the morning we were driving up the two track when the guide stopped the truck before the two track curves around the hill, and decided we should walk around the curve to glass a ridge near where the herd with two bulls was located the day before. We spotted a big bull skylined on top of the ridge, and made an approach. We hiked straight down the slope we were on, and hiked up towards the ridgeline where the bull stood. It took a while to relocate the bull after we got up there. Eventually we spotted him, trotting away at four hundred yards, heading up the slope we had initially glassed him from, we must have spooked him. We sat down and I rested my rifle on the tripod. The guide ranged him at 450 yards. I took a shot once he stopped and then took a second shot once he stopped a second time. The guide said I had hit him both times, and we watched him go over near ridge where the ridgeline forked, but he didn't go over the far ridge. My guide was confident in both shots and thought we’d find a dead elk, but looking back on my shots, the shots were too shaky and I should have tried to get more settled or let him go over the ridge. As we got close, the bull got up and trotted off about a hundred yards away, into some timber. We found blood where he had laid down, and followed his blood trail for a little ways until it stopped. We had no luck finding him, and by this time the three other guides headed over in their trucks since the three other hunters had tagged out the two previous days and had been watching all this go down through spotting scopes. In the area we were hunting, the mountains sloped down towards large cliffs. One of the guides decided he would head down towards the top of the cliffs, below where we’d last seen the bull. A while after we got a call on the radio that he found the blood trail and was following it along the top of the cliffs. We headed over to a glassing point that was ahead of the blood trail, hoping we would spot the bull making his way towards us. Eventually the bull's trail got so close to the cliff that it was too dangerous for the guide to keep following it; the cliffs were hundreds of feet tall.
An hour or so later, one of the other guides headed down towards the cliffs ahead of where the other guide had turned back. About an hour after that, we got a call on the radio that he had spotted the bull bedded down on the slope, and we headed down to meet him, so he could lead us to where the bull was bedded. We hiked down to about 300 yards from the bull before we got set up for a shot. This time I was able to shoot from the prone position. The guides instructed me to aim for the shoulder, since the cliff was not far below, and we did not want him to stand up. I was shooting my 300 win mag. My rest was solid and I hit him in the shoulder. This is where things got real bad! The bull did not get up, but he started to roll down the steep slope. He rolled faster and faster, and went over a small ten foot cliff before he continued to tumble down the slope, he tumbled into a large bush, which slowed him down momentarily, but he broke free of the bush and rolled off the big cliff, falling 700 feet to the bottom. The guides couldn't believe what they had witnessed. We drove back to camp for snacks before we drove down to the bottom of the cliff for the recovery.
After we parked below the cliff, we had to hike up a really steep slope between us and the base of the cliff. We hiked up and found the bull tangled in some oak brush. The impact destroyed his hind end, it looked like coyotes had been eating on it, his skull was broken about half way between the end of his nose and his eyes. His legs were broken as well. Incredibly, one antler was entirely intact except for a brow tine, the other antler was scattered across the slope. The guides were able to find most of the pieces. They were able to salvage the front portions of the backstrap and a front quarter. One of the guides is a taxidermist and he's going to put the antlers back together on a fake skull. By the time we got back down to the trucks the sun was down, it was an all-day event.
Later on I realized that we easily could have found another bull if I let mine go the day before. In the excitement I forgot to use good judgement and made a poor shot, I learned my lesson for the future. My guide had a good outlook, he said, "you can buy elk meat and you can buy a set of antlers but you can't buy a story like that!"
The "small" bull we spotted the first day
View attachment 47464
View attachment 47465
Some shots of the property
View attachment 47473View attachment 47474View attachment 47475
The slope my bull tumbled down
View attachment 47470
The spot I shot from
View attachment 47471
About where he was bedded when I shot, he was bedded just above the circle if I remember correctly
View attachment 47472
My bull
View attachment 47467
Where we parked, photographed from where my bull came to rest
View attachment 47468
The cliff, photographed from where my bull came to rest
View attachment 47479
The cliff, photographed from the road
View attachment 47483
My bull's antlers back at camp
View attachment 47484
a couple young mule bucks
View attachment 47480
Elk camp
View attachment 47481
My bull's ivories
View attachment 47466
