tired and annoyed of not drawing the elusive NM elk tag..we decide to give IDAHO OTC a try.
we invited a couple of guys to come along to have fun. one guy worked with a crew that was so negative towards him. "you'll never get an elk!" (stuff like that) "rookies never score". nicest guy in the world. i was pulling for my friend.
IDAHO is:
very far away
very beautiful
full of super friendly people (about half are cute, healthy females!..my single brother was in love)
full of expensive gas
full of hungry trout!
etc.
anyways. the area has lots of burned out areas trying to grow back. blown down timber? OMG! it was like God himself had a horrible JENGA game, threw a tantrum and refused to pick up the pieces.. it was awful...my legs are shredded! my year long bike riding paid off big time. i had strong legs and lungs. i was hiking side by side with my younger and healtyier (skinny) brother. i never let up and never did my body parts.
the elk were NOT vocal. at all. not a peep. we saw almost ZERO elk. the locals noted our long distant license plates and actually helped. one retired fireman offered us his secret spot. i had to 4x4 my truck onto the roughest road. we were rewarded with tons of elk sign. the area was more suited to rifle hunters and we were not successful. we did find a fantastic natural mineral area the elk were scrapping with their teeth. my truck is torn up, filthy. we hated idaho. we found no elk. every elk track seemed to have a wolf track following it.
in the end we decided to think outside the box. during some exploratory hiking we found a wet area with very promising sign. poop, tracks, chewed down plants. one plant was still oozing with sap..we JUST MISSED it. the last day, we slept in very late, cleaned up our campsite and packed up and decided to one last evening hunt. a last horrah.; we went back to the promising site. it was close to camp. at this point was havent seen or heard a bull yet.
we did however see up till now:
a bunch of orangey deer doe.
a moose
a fox
six wolves
we spread out over this small meadow. we had it covered. we put the rookie in the best spot. we called it the "ambush tree". as the sun set, my heart sank with it. 10 more minutes, and my IDAHO hunt was over. then i heard it..something moved in the distance. it was near the rook..then CRASHING!! he had shot!! i heard over the radio..a shaky voice, "i got him!"
we rallied and i got to the shot sight..ZERO BLOOD! the rookie told me it was a good shot. a mere 20 yards. i looked around and a blind man could see where a huge animal had blasted thru the bushes..i ran and found the bull dead about 70 yards from the shot. BULL DOWN AND FOUND..you should have heard me jumping up and down laughing.. we all hugged..high fives around..cheering.
elk hunting is truely a team sport. you SOLO guys are bad asses..kudos.
we took pics and the daunting task of meat handling began..the rook was lost and didnt know what to do. we sent him to get the truck closer..and we took that bull apart. it was many trips back and forth but we packed it out. my BADLAND 2800 us a meat hauling animal. did you know a hind quarter is very heavy? haha..we had to help each other up under the load..we took everything..i got the heart!
in the end we found a single elk..and got him. thanks for listening to my story.
we invited a couple of guys to come along to have fun. one guy worked with a crew that was so negative towards him. "you'll never get an elk!" (stuff like that) "rookies never score". nicest guy in the world. i was pulling for my friend.
IDAHO is:
very far away
very beautiful
full of super friendly people (about half are cute, healthy females!..my single brother was in love)
full of expensive gas
full of hungry trout!
etc.
anyways. the area has lots of burned out areas trying to grow back. blown down timber? OMG! it was like God himself had a horrible JENGA game, threw a tantrum and refused to pick up the pieces.. it was awful...my legs are shredded! my year long bike riding paid off big time. i had strong legs and lungs. i was hiking side by side with my younger and healtyier (skinny) brother. i never let up and never did my body parts.
the elk were NOT vocal. at all. not a peep. we saw almost ZERO elk. the locals noted our long distant license plates and actually helped. one retired fireman offered us his secret spot. i had to 4x4 my truck onto the roughest road. we were rewarded with tons of elk sign. the area was more suited to rifle hunters and we were not successful. we did find a fantastic natural mineral area the elk were scrapping with their teeth. my truck is torn up, filthy. we hated idaho. we found no elk. every elk track seemed to have a wolf track following it.
in the end we decided to think outside the box. during some exploratory hiking we found a wet area with very promising sign. poop, tracks, chewed down plants. one plant was still oozing with sap..we JUST MISSED it. the last day, we slept in very late, cleaned up our campsite and packed up and decided to one last evening hunt. a last horrah.; we went back to the promising site. it was close to camp. at this point was havent seen or heard a bull yet.
we did however see up till now:
a bunch of orangey deer doe.
a moose
a fox
six wolves
we spread out over this small meadow. we had it covered. we put the rookie in the best spot. we called it the "ambush tree". as the sun set, my heart sank with it. 10 more minutes, and my IDAHO hunt was over. then i heard it..something moved in the distance. it was near the rook..then CRASHING!! he had shot!! i heard over the radio..a shaky voice, "i got him!"
we rallied and i got to the shot sight..ZERO BLOOD! the rookie told me it was a good shot. a mere 20 yards. i looked around and a blind man could see where a huge animal had blasted thru the bushes..i ran and found the bull dead about 70 yards from the shot. BULL DOWN AND FOUND..you should have heard me jumping up and down laughing.. we all hugged..high fives around..cheering.
elk hunting is truely a team sport. you SOLO guys are bad asses..kudos.
we took pics and the daunting task of meat handling began..the rook was lost and didnt know what to do. we sent him to get the truck closer..and we took that bull apart. it was many trips back and forth but we packed it out. my BADLAND 2800 us a meat hauling animal. did you know a hind quarter is very heavy? haha..we had to help each other up under the load..we took everything..i got the heart!
in the end we found a single elk..and got him. thanks for listening to my story.
