So were in the shitbox and devils club again and you can’t see your nose and we decide to split up. I go left, Russ goes right. I get out of the thick stuff and now I’m in the old growth and I hear some commotion to my right so I run up this little knob and I look and there is Russ and the elk standing face to face at 5 feet! I can see Russ is in a what the hell do I do moment and I can’t shoot. Elk does a 180 and runs into the old growth and starts running right by me at about 30 yards. Cross hairs on him, I can barely see through my scope and I’m following him. BOOM. Elk down, he buckles from a full run. Russ catches up and we’re sitting there certain he’s done and it seems after a couple minutes he starts getting a bit more energy and posturing like he’s going to get up and go again. Russ and I look at each other in disbelief, so I chamber another round and plug him again while he is bedded. He gets hit with shot number 4 and 3rd one behind the shoulders, what does he do? Stands up and starts walking away like the last couple hours never happened. What the hell. I hit him again for a 5th shot, solid hit again and he keep walking away and eventually beds down and dies. I’ve never seen an animal so tough in my life. I was told by a few people afterwards that elk lungs are set lower down so I was probably shooting just high? I’m not sure. Not the first elk kill I’ve been apart of but the first one I’ve shot. I’d say not bad! All in all, finding him and not losing him was beyond relieving. We were both just dumbfounded by the size of him both body and horns. We tried not doing any exaggerated shots, he was absolutely enormous body wise we were in just complete disbelief. He dwarfed the two BIG cows and those two cows body wise were every bit as big as that big 7point. What a relief finding him though, Jesus. I’m telling you the worst goes through your head.
Once again bad with the camera and never got any as he lay pics.
So we do the picture things, hike back to where we dropped all our gear first thing that morning, then hike back to the quads and make our way back to the elk with our gear to start cutting him apart. He dropped about a km away from the road and we had to cross the Indian which was starting to get higher. Things went fairly smoothly a lot of laughs going over the days events. On the last trip out I had the cape and head in my pack, soaking wet it was easily the heaviest pack out I’ve ever experienced. All of a sudden Russ goes “Elk”…”where?” “Over there, holy shit look at the size of that bull you shot the wrong one!” “WHAT???Your joking”. Turns out he was joking, about the bull at least. A bunch of cows and I think a smaller bull came walking up to us at about 50 yards. We packed all the meat to the river and then the cape was the last to get to the river so I just went for it straight across the river and about half way across I slipped and fell and I’m up to my neck with my loaded pack on. Russ has to help me take the pack off and get the head and cape across the river. I was hoping for some pack out shots crossing the river but Russ figured it was too sketchy. We get everything to the other side of the river and hidden beside the road and quad back to camp to get changed and get the truck. By the time I got back to camp I think that was the coldest I’ve ever been, soaking wet on the quad and temps dropping down close to freezing. We get back and change and warm up and crack open a celebratory beer and wait for Joel and Russ’s hunting partner Mark to show up. We all hop in the truck and Joel drives us down to the elk, Russ and I are a few beers deep by this point. We get to the elk and more cheers are had when a couple of fresh sets of eyes see it.
We get back to camp unload everything, beers and more beers. We bring out the tape and Joel green scored it at 447”. Friday Russ and I take down camp, load up and go pick up my trail cams. I’m not sure if it was the funniest or worst camp take down, The night before Russ made this drunken assed Brussels sprout, old chili, 67lbs of garlic and possibly coffoatmeal Gulash. I’ve never heard or smelled things that came out of a human body like that until the next morning. Head down the mountain and find a cooler to hang the meat.
We get back to camp unload everything, beers and more beers. We bring out the tape and Joel green scored it at 447”. Friday Russ and I take down camp, load up and go pick up my trail cams. I’m not sure if it was the funniest or worst camp take down, The night before Russ made this drunken assed Brussels sprout, old chili, 67lbs of garlic and possibly coffoatmeal Gulash. I’ve never heard or smelled things that came out of a human body like that until the next morning. Head down the mountain and find a cooler to hang the meat. The Saturday I head to the interior to take horns and cape to the taxi. Which was quite the sight in itself. I had my neighbour help me load up the head and cape into the girlfriends little Subaru sideways, which I think was the last thing he expected to see and help with on a Saturday. we had quite the looks in our complex. Going down Highway 1 with me and the gf, dog in the back seat and elk antlers sticking out the window since that was the only way it could fit in. We got a lot of honks on the way out of town. I laugh at that little Subaru since seems to become the method of choice for delivering my game to the butcher and what not. We get to the taxidermist that evening and he measures it in the mid 440 inches but it was more of a quick rough measurement and Joel was a lot more thorough with his measurement. Taxidermist got a measurer there to measure him after the drying period but he got half way through and decided he wasn’t comfortable measuring it so stopped so he has yet to be officially scored yet.
And i’d just like to thank everyone that helped me with the hunt, the amount of private messages and helpful tips, texts and emails was unbelievable!
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