After receiving medical bad new's I decided to try one last elk hunt, so my buddy John, my wife and I headed to Glenwood Spring's Colorado for a 9 day elk/deer hunt. I rarely pay to hunt but I decided to get on a private ranch where our chance's of success would be better. The outfitter met us at the ranch friday , showed us around and asked us to keep in touch daily. I had gone all out for this hunt and had drawn a cow elk tag and a mule deer tag plus I bought an OTC bull tag figuring that I would have a better chance of putting some venison in the freezer, John also had a cow tag and a bull tag. So here we go with 5 tag's and great hope's.
opening morning
we're in the ladder tree stand and John is in a primo's ground bling about 500 yds away, we wait for daylight with great expectation and a body that feel's frozen (note to self, wear everything you brought tomorrow ), daylight come's and we hear lots of shot's from public land but nothing is moving on the ranch, We stay on watch until dark aprox 11 hour's and see absolutely nothing, now I'm discouraged but we'll try again tomorrow.
day 2
back on stand before light wearing all the insulated underwear that I brought plus thermal sock's, daylight comes... 7:00am ..8..9......10 nothing is moving, now I'm really discouraged figuring I had made a mistake paying to tresspass, around 11:00am I look up to see 8 cow elk running toward's my stand, they had just passed John's stand at about 60 yds and he didn't shoot(he later told me he was hoping there was a bull in the bunch and by the time he found out there wasn't it was to late to shoot), when they were about 75 yd's from me trotting I put the crosshair's on a nice mediem sized cow, pulled the trigger and down she went, John , my wife and I quartered her out and my wife and I headed to the butcher while John continued hunting, we dropped the cow off and was able to get back to the stand by 2:00pm and sat until dark without seeing anything else except a terribly emacheated calf/yearling that was having difficulty walking,We discussed putting her out of her misery but decided it was too risky and let her feed back into the bush.
day 3
wife decided it was just too cold for her so John and I headed out before light to our stand's,around 7:20 I see a cow feeding toward's John, John pull's the trigger and we're off again to the butcher, we were able to get back on our stand's by 11:30 am and sat all day seeing nothing else except the sick calf.
day 4
same drill, in before light and see nothing all day, just as we were losing shooting light I notice a herd of elk breaking over the hill about 230 yds away, there's 2 legal bull's ,2 spike's and about 15 cow's, my problem is that I'm buckled in a ladder stand facing east and the elk are on my south side, I'm right handed so it's impossible for me to turn 90 degrees to the right and shoot without getting busted by the herd, they are all fanned out staring in my direction and I figure I'll never be able to unbuckle my saftey stap ,slide down 2 step's and turn 90 degree's to my right to get into a position to shoot when suddenly they all calm down and begin to feed ???, (I later discovered that they were looking at my Montana decoy not me) I reposition myself and wait for them to get nearer to John so when I shoot they may give him a chance to take the second bull, for no apparent reason they begin to spook and I have no choice except to shoot now, I pull the trigger and hear the Barnes x 225 gr bt hit home, the bull lurches and starts running downhill, I hit him again and he turn's around and head's uphill like he's not hurt, I put another into him and he fold's, he's a huge 4x4 weighing almost 900 lb's so we call the outfitter to come and help us quarter him, off to the meat locker again.
day 5
John take's the tree stand and I decide to still hunt for a buck, we can't believe our luck 3 out of 5 tag's filled and 4 day's left to hunt. I found a meadow up on a mesa and sat for a while suddenly a huge buck appear's about 150 yds out trotting across the field, he'll be in my vision for at least 70 yd's so I carefully put the crosshair's on him and start to pull the trigger, something made me look up over the scope and I saw that where the bullet was going to go was into a dropoff area that I knew contained house's so I waited for him to get to the wood's before shooting him, as he reached that point I started to pull the trigger and I hear Hammering in the direction I'm going to shoot, ethiclly I can't shoot so I let him go. broken hearted I start to still hunt again hoping to find this buck, as I'm sneaking along I startle a huge bull elk that was sleeping about 40 yds from me, he had unusual horns palmated and wide like a longhorn steer, I can only watch him bound away, I find another spot to watch from and decide to dump out some old doe in heat urine onto a high stump, about 20 min later I see horn's coming thru the brush, it's not the big buck but you know the old adage of a bird in hand so I pop him and he take's one lunge forward and then collapses backward dead, I gut him and drag him about 1/3 mile down to the road and we head for the meat locker again. John had not seen anything all day.
day 6
back at it before light but we decide to still hunt for John's bull instead of stand hunting, at first light we find a spot to glass from and John moves off to look in another direction, I am unarmed and tagless so I'm just a spotter for John, as it become's light I notice what look's like blood under a large tree about 50 ft away, I investigate and see that it's the sickley calf that we've been seeing,it's obviously been killed by a mountain lion and we probably bumped him off the kill when we came in, I'm not afraid of much but I was nervous enough to get my hunting knife out of my pack in case the cat decided to defend his kill and I wouldn't be completely unarmed. we decided that the cat smell would probably scare off any elk so we moved to another location, we didn't see anything the rest of the day EXCEPT that huge buck from the day before herding doe's for at least an hour within gun range, around 3:00pm 3 bull's pop out of the dark timber about 280 yd's away, 2 shooter's and a non legal,John take's out the biggest of the 3 (5x5) and we're off to the meat locker again with all tag's filled, I wanted to close out my elk hunting career with a bang but this was beyond my wildest expectation's, Thank God and good luck to all,
Bill Goodson aka dirtpoor aka usahunter
opening morning
we're in the ladder tree stand and John is in a primo's ground bling about 500 yds away, we wait for daylight with great expectation and a body that feel's frozen (note to self, wear everything you brought tomorrow ), daylight come's and we hear lots of shot's from public land but nothing is moving on the ranch, We stay on watch until dark aprox 11 hour's and see absolutely nothing, now I'm discouraged but we'll try again tomorrow.
day 2
back on stand before light wearing all the insulated underwear that I brought plus thermal sock's, daylight comes... 7:00am ..8..9......10 nothing is moving, now I'm really discouraged figuring I had made a mistake paying to tresspass, around 11:00am I look up to see 8 cow elk running toward's my stand, they had just passed John's stand at about 60 yds and he didn't shoot(he later told me he was hoping there was a bull in the bunch and by the time he found out there wasn't it was to late to shoot), when they were about 75 yd's from me trotting I put the crosshair's on a nice mediem sized cow, pulled the trigger and down she went, John , my wife and I quartered her out and my wife and I headed to the butcher while John continued hunting, we dropped the cow off and was able to get back to the stand by 2:00pm and sat until dark without seeing anything else except a terribly emacheated calf/yearling that was having difficulty walking,We discussed putting her out of her misery but decided it was too risky and let her feed back into the bush.
day 3
wife decided it was just too cold for her so John and I headed out before light to our stand's,around 7:20 I see a cow feeding toward's John, John pull's the trigger and we're off again to the butcher, we were able to get back on our stand's by 11:30 am and sat all day seeing nothing else except the sick calf.
day 4
same drill, in before light and see nothing all day, just as we were losing shooting light I notice a herd of elk breaking over the hill about 230 yds away, there's 2 legal bull's ,2 spike's and about 15 cow's, my problem is that I'm buckled in a ladder stand facing east and the elk are on my south side, I'm right handed so it's impossible for me to turn 90 degrees to the right and shoot without getting busted by the herd, they are all fanned out staring in my direction and I figure I'll never be able to unbuckle my saftey stap ,slide down 2 step's and turn 90 degree's to my right to get into a position to shoot when suddenly they all calm down and begin to feed ???, (I later discovered that they were looking at my Montana decoy not me) I reposition myself and wait for them to get nearer to John so when I shoot they may give him a chance to take the second bull, for no apparent reason they begin to spook and I have no choice except to shoot now, I pull the trigger and hear the Barnes x 225 gr bt hit home, the bull lurches and starts running downhill, I hit him again and he turn's around and head's uphill like he's not hurt, I put another into him and he fold's, he's a huge 4x4 weighing almost 900 lb's so we call the outfitter to come and help us quarter him, off to the meat locker again.
day 5
John take's the tree stand and I decide to still hunt for a buck, we can't believe our luck 3 out of 5 tag's filled and 4 day's left to hunt. I found a meadow up on a mesa and sat for a while suddenly a huge buck appear's about 150 yds out trotting across the field, he'll be in my vision for at least 70 yd's so I carefully put the crosshair's on him and start to pull the trigger, something made me look up over the scope and I saw that where the bullet was going to go was into a dropoff area that I knew contained house's so I waited for him to get to the wood's before shooting him, as he reached that point I started to pull the trigger and I hear Hammering in the direction I'm going to shoot, ethiclly I can't shoot so I let him go. broken hearted I start to still hunt again hoping to find this buck, as I'm sneaking along I startle a huge bull elk that was sleeping about 40 yds from me, he had unusual horns palmated and wide like a longhorn steer, I can only watch him bound away, I find another spot to watch from and decide to dump out some old doe in heat urine onto a high stump, about 20 min later I see horn's coming thru the brush, it's not the big buck but you know the old adage of a bird in hand so I pop him and he take's one lunge forward and then collapses backward dead, I gut him and drag him about 1/3 mile down to the road and we head for the meat locker again. John had not seen anything all day.
day 6
back at it before light but we decide to still hunt for John's bull instead of stand hunting, at first light we find a spot to glass from and John moves off to look in another direction, I am unarmed and tagless so I'm just a spotter for John, as it become's light I notice what look's like blood under a large tree about 50 ft away, I investigate and see that it's the sickley calf that we've been seeing,it's obviously been killed by a mountain lion and we probably bumped him off the kill when we came in, I'm not afraid of much but I was nervous enough to get my hunting knife out of my pack in case the cat decided to defend his kill and I wouldn't be completely unarmed. we decided that the cat smell would probably scare off any elk so we moved to another location, we didn't see anything the rest of the day EXCEPT that huge buck from the day before herding doe's for at least an hour within gun range, around 3:00pm 3 bull's pop out of the dark timber about 280 yd's away, 2 shooter's and a non legal,John take's out the biggest of the 3 (5x5) and we're off to the meat locker again with all tag's filled, I wanted to close out my elk hunting career with a bang but this was beyond my wildest expectation's, Thank God and good luck to all,
Bill Goodson aka dirtpoor aka usahunter
The venison is on you!
