So much for "turkey shoot"

[SUAFOYT]

Went along for my first time with a friend who has an LEH tag for private land elk. Got the rancher list in advance and headed up on last Friday AM. Hit lousy weather just north of Grand Cache all the way to Grande Prairie. Got into DC around 9 pm, only -6, and set up a meet with my nephew to meet us in Tomslake around 6:30 next am. Fresh snow, and cooling off. Some fresh tracks in the area we went to but no sightings at all on the land we had permission on. Saw a real nice whitey buck and lots of does. Went to the first open bar and started calling as many on the list as possible. Everyone in the DC, Groundbirch, and Rolla areas said no elk yet. Went to Corlane's(beauty new store) and spoke to one of the staff. Real helpful, but same news. NO ELK. Started sounding like most of my fishing trips- you know the response, "they're not in yet." Got one guy who says elk in his area, but heading away for the weekend and didn't want us there if he wasn't. Were going to close the bar when one of the people that hadn't answered called me. Gave me the name of a guy who isn't on the list so gave him a call. Bingo! Said his neighbour has elk in his hay and wants one shot. Got up there and tracks everywhere. Set up for early Sunday, and looked long and hard at an area with a great view, but no elk on that morning. This is getting tougher all the time. I'd been told by so many how "easy" this would be. Went for a bit of a drive, and on the way back my partner says there's an elk. Right in the middle of the hay bales. Big cow. My partner didn't want to shoot from the road so decided to walk in the guy's driveway. I watched that elk for 5 minutes. I put my scope on her and had her in the crosshairs the whole time. 300 yds or so. Nothing behind her but hay bales. Aaaargh! My buddy had no shot. When she bailed, there were 7 more with her. Came back on Monday am early and this time set up on the owner's driveway with the truck, 100 yards to the bales, with a horse corral in between. At around 6:30 we saw a cow jump the fence and start at the bales. In 2 minutes there were 7. Too dark to shoot. The 8th one wouldn't jump the fence and the rest were real jumpy. The one in the rear took off for whatever reason and the rest followed. We stayed put and hoped. About an hour later they showed up again. We had decent light now but still not great. Once again they were all inside the fence but one. My partner decided to go for it. Got out of the truck and they didn't notice. I could see all of them with my binos. No shot. What the hell! The one outside of the fence started to get jumpy again and it started to bail. My buddy shot when the rest started to go. Never saw any flinch or stumble. Upshot is, no blood, no hair, nothing. Searched for hours. That shot probably could never be made again- shooting into a group of seven and no hit. Needless to say my partner wasn't great company on the trip home. Especially when I told him next time, use a real gun, like a 338 instead of that pussy 7mm. Even if you're close you'll knock it down. New experience for me and like most things hunting related not all that easy.

[boxhitch]

No reason to blame the gun for a poor shot.
Sounds like a good opportunity gone bad. Just like hunting , huh ?

[tomahawk]

Tough luck, hopefully hunting only gets better the rest of the year for you. 7mm is more than enough rifle when shot placement is where it should be.

[Mauser98]

Ya. Get a bigger gun. That's the answer.:rolleyes:

[GoatGuy]

Looks like three good opportunities - sounds like a successful hunt to me.

[Will]

Well that's hunting ! Thanks for the tale 8)

Plus I suspect from the ending I'm in before the lock........:lol:;)

[Gateholio]

Maybe your buddy needs a smaller cartridge that doesn't recoil as much, so he can aim better...

[SUAFOYT]

Ya. Get a bigger gun. That's the answer.:rolleyes:

Actually, the part about the guns was end of joke laugh here. He didn't think it was funny either.

[hotload]

Shooting into a group of seven????????
Geeeeeez with any luck if they were lined up right you could have knocked down 2 or 3. Nice hunting ethics!

[CoqTrophys]

give him an autoloader

[SUAFOYT]

Shooting into a group of seven????????
Geeeeeez with any luck if they were lined up right you could have knocked down 2 or 3. Nice hunting ethics!

Yes- there were seven, he lined up on one. I don't believe I saw you hiding in the bushes to pass judgement. If I didn't make it crystal clear in the post, my profound apologies.

[BCLongshot]

Some people think they're different than the rest of the world....You have to practice and be a good shot. You're not going to get some fairy/angel treatment.

Same people never studied for test either.

hahahahaha

[wolverine]

Flock shooting Elk.... what a concept!:roll:

[SUAFOYT]

Flock shooting Elk.... what a concept!:roll:

Before this gets too ridiculous, let's try and clarify. The shooter was focused on one animal, not lobbing into a group and hoping to maybe hit one. Have none of you ever had a bead and at the critical time the target moves so that the shot either misses or doesn't hit where you had aimed?My point in the post was that when he fired, those elk were breaking, and I was surprised that one of those animals were not hit. I don't expect to get treated with kid gloves either re the fact that he missed. I know the person I was with, no one else does so maybe a bit of a rush to judgement on what I thought was an interesting although elkless story. Geez Louise some of you out there, relax already.

[hunter1947]

A 7mm is more then enough to put any elk or any other big game animals ,its to bad your buddy dident get his cow ,but thats hunting..

[ruttinbuck]

Thanks for the detailed account of your hunt.Too bad you came home without.Great adventure though,always thought when I get up that way have to stop in at Corlanes.RB

[SUAFOYT]

Thanks for the detailed account of your hunt.Too bad you came home without.Great adventure though,always thought when I get up that way have to stop in at Corlanes.RB

Hey, that's the way it goes. With any luck we may get sick(cough cough) for a couple of days and get back there before the end of Feb. The Corlane's store is really nice, great layout and good staff.

[JoshLedoux]

everye rifle I point a nice whitetail buck seems to have a bullet trajectory that flies up two over 3 feet and back down another two and then continues its regular path. I know what you mean, goofy trajectories

[freeman6]

I can understand. My first elk bull had to be shot 3 times from about 30 feet with a 30-06. I was seeing the elk in the scope just fine as it ran by me. I wasn't seeing the lodgepole pine trees that were between us. Every bullet hit the elk in the right area, its just that after they went through a tree, there wasn't much energy left to penetrate into the vitals.

The excitement of the moment kept me from being able to focus properly on getting one clear shot, but I will take being lucky over being good whenever its offered. At least it sounds like you didn't leave a wounded one out there. That's gotta be way better than an unrecovered hit for the trip home.

I hope the elk start showing up soon or my tag's going to expire and they are way to hard to get in the first place.