Sunday, October 29, 2006
Hunting Report
Back from a semi-successful antlered animal hunt--which is pretty hard work. We were getting up at 5:00 am, and going to bed exhausted at 8:00 pm. I shot a barely legal buck from about 150 yards, but the bullet hit about eight inches back from where I aimed, which means I gut shot it. It lay down, got up as we approached, and then ran off onto private land where we had to trespass to do the hunter's duty of putting a wounded animal out of its misery. We trapped it in a deep gully. I ran on to keep it from escaping. Gary, with whom I hunted, put it down with my beautiful rifle, but said the scope was off line; so we put that gun back in the hard case. I am always eager to blame my tools. Then, as it started to snow, we had to drag it up slope for about 1000 yards. I wish I had been working out harder. Gary did most of the work without complaint.
After the snow stopped falling the next day, everything but us took the day off. The next day Gary had a shot at a worthwhile buck at about 250 yards but tried to work in closer. The buck moved under the edge of the slope so that Gary couldn't see him and then escaped. We saw nothing worth shooting the rest of the day. So the lesson learned is always take the shot; you may not get another.
Then the real frustration hit. We got to our favorite ridge yesterday before sun up. Moved along it until we crested a hill at sunrise and saw three cow elk (we had extra tags for cow elk). In our excitement, we both missed our first two shots as the cow elk milled about. Before this, we had decided that, faced with this situation, Gary would shoot the one to the left and I would shoot the one to the right. It was a decision based on our political beliefs. Unfortunately, the ones on the end had their rear ends to us when they stopped moving; not the best shot to take. So almost simultaneously we shot the middle one, who was turned sideways to us and thus presented a good target. I had iron sites but it was only about 100 yards and elk are big. We heard the smacks of the rounds hitting. The cow toppled like a tree. Then the other ones presented and Gary, who had just reloaded his semi-auto Browning, aimed and click went the gun. He racked the next round in but by then the cows were over the top and gone. Fortunately, a group of deer with a nice 4 point buck was visible on the left, indeed, the buck turned sideways and stood still, and Gary steadied, aimed and again, click. Before he could rack another round in and re-aim, the buck was gone. I thought Gary's head was going to explode he was so angry. The bolt apparently was not closing. He WD-40ed the heck out of the action and took off to stalk the elk and I started cutting up the cow we had shot. One bullet had gone through the lungs and another had gut shot it. I know that I had iron sites and had gut shot the poor deer days before, but I will take to my grave the firm belief that I hit the cow in the chest, and killed it. And Gary will believe he killed it. We're splitting it, literally and figuratively.
We have cow tags for the entire month of December in another elk heaven area near New Mexico so I think we'll both get our own cow elk later.
After the snow stopped falling the next day, everything but us took the day off. The next day Gary had a shot at a worthwhile buck at about 250 yards but tried to work in closer. The buck moved under the edge of the slope so that Gary couldn't see him and then escaped. We saw nothing worth shooting the rest of the day. So the lesson learned is always take the shot; you may not get another.
Then the real frustration hit. We got to our favorite ridge yesterday before sun up. Moved along it until we crested a hill at sunrise and saw three cow elk (we had extra tags for cow elk). In our excitement, we both missed our first two shots as the cow elk milled about. Before this, we had decided that, faced with this situation, Gary would shoot the one to the left and I would shoot the one to the right. It was a decision based on our political beliefs. Unfortunately, the ones on the end had their rear ends to us when they stopped moving; not the best shot to take. So almost simultaneously we shot the middle one, who was turned sideways to us and thus presented a good target. I had iron sites but it was only about 100 yards and elk are big. We heard the smacks of the rounds hitting. The cow toppled like a tree. Then the other ones presented and Gary, who had just reloaded his semi-auto Browning, aimed and click went the gun. He racked the next round in but by then the cows were over the top and gone. Fortunately, a group of deer with a nice 4 point buck was visible on the left, indeed, the buck turned sideways and stood still, and Gary steadied, aimed and again, click. Before he could rack another round in and re-aim, the buck was gone. I thought Gary's head was going to explode he was so angry. The bolt apparently was not closing. He WD-40ed the heck out of the action and took off to stalk the elk and I started cutting up the cow we had shot. One bullet had gone through the lungs and another had gut shot it. I know that I had iron sites and had gut shot the poor deer days before, but I will take to my grave the firm belief that I hit the cow in the chest, and killed it. And Gary will believe he killed it. We're splitting it, literally and figuratively.
We have cow tags for the entire month of December in another elk heaven area near New Mexico so I think we'll both get our own cow elk later.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:10 AM 
