With my whitetail tag filled, it was time to switch over to trying to get an elk.
I called up a buddy, and asked if it was ok if I headed his way to try and get an elk. Of course he was gracious enough to say yes.
I had some family matters to tend to on the long weekend, so it was decided I’d head to his place on Tuesday.
Wouldn’t you know it he texts me Monday morning saying he saw 4 legal bills in a herd right by his house....... why does this always happen?
So suddenly I had a tire pressure sensor quit working on the truck mid day Monday, and of course the tire shop was closed in lieu of Rememberence Day.
So I take the truck in first thing Tuesday morning, and it takes about an hour for them to get to re learning the sensors to my truck. So I get back home finish packing up, and leave home darn near spot on at 10:00AM.
I arrived at my buddies yard within minutes of 3:00PM, and I get dressed and head over to the 6x6 blind. I’m all set up in the blind by 3:25PM.
There’s lots of deer activity, both mulies and whitetails, I watched a few whitetail bucks work a scrape on the tree line. And really, they pretty much left the girls alone, so I’d say the “Hunters Rut” sucks up here, right now.
And wouldn’t ya know it the elk never showed up!
I waited till 10 mins past legal light and I climbed outta the blind.
I begin heading diagonally across the oat field(with bales), when I’m about 100 yds from the blind, the elk are strug out across the 300 yards of hay to my north heading straight for the oats.
I hunker down behind a bale, and watch as the first 9 elk go into the bales and begin chowing down. The second group is just starting across the hay, so I sneak back to the east fence line, and get on the other side of the windrow of trees, and start sneaking my way to the south fence a 1/2 mile to the south, I then turn west and sneak down the south fence to the road. The elk could still be seen in the bales, so I was confident I never blew them outta the field.
I arrive back at my buddies house pretty sweated up and worn out, supper is waiting and so is a whiskey
So this morning I get dressed and head over to glass last nights field about 20 mins before legal light, and wouldn’t you know it there’s nothing out there but 3 mule deer.
I hoof it back to my friends house, and we jump in his truck to take a drive.
We drive on over to his wife’s uncles property, and voila, there’s about 30 head of elk, with a legal bull bringing up the rear. It’s within minutes of legal light so we simply drive down to an oil lease park the truck, use the lease site equipment for cover, and sneak around the outside of the fence, and there the elk are, with the bull only 250ish yards away(lasered afterwards)
I sent a 150 grain Nosler Partition behind the bulls near side shoulder from my .280AI. The bull immediately did a hard left and disappeared behind a willow clump, right next to a couple old grain bins. My buddy said let’s go back to the truck and we will go back to the road and come in on the old driveway to the abandoned homestead.
So we get back to the truck and wheel around to the old drive way, as we pull up to where the bull disappeared, he’s laying right next to the driveway, having gone only 40 yards.
I slap my tag on him, we go back to my buddies place grab his flat deck trailer and the quad, drive right up to my bull, do the “deed”, tie him up to the quad, and drive the quad and elk onto the trailer, tie things down, head over to my buddies Father in Laws place, string the elk up in his equipment shop with a chain fall, skin him out, and here I am.......
From leaving home to putting an elk on the ground it was pretty much 22 hours!