Oregon Hunt 2012
First posted November 19, 2012 Last edited November 30, 2012

The Just Deserts Bull

That is, Craig just deserted me with time left in the season.

 

We hunted the Ochoco National Forest in central Oregon, east of Prineville.

Bill's Story: Part 1

Mom's troubles got me to Prineville on the day before opening, two days behind schedule, so I was unable to help Craig buy supplies and find a camp spot, and unable to do the planned scouting. Craig was a busy boy, alone, claiming that he had to bounce between three different groceries to put our food together. (He got there in plenty of time, even after spending a couple of days fishing, with good success, a couple of new-to-him lakes in NE CA; and he made friends with another local rancher and was given an invitation for future squirrel/rabbit/coyoted hunts.)

Ed Y, our third, also a retired Gaming Commission fella and an avid hunter, and I rolled into town at about the same time. We divvied up Craig's collected food into the various coolers and then went to lunch. From Tastee Treat we drove to a gas station for topping off. There, I asked the boys if any of us had paid for lunch. Uhh... So I zipped back to TT, gave our apologies and a significant tip.

Craig had previously spoken by phone with the biologist for our area and been given a half-dozen suggestions as to where to hunt. He drove around the mountains some, chose for a camp zone something reasonably central to a few of those suggestions. We all agreed that an established campground in that zone would work just fine, as long as we wouldn't be among too many other camps. When we got there, we found two old guys fishing in the little pond that had once been a quarry; but they were camped elsewhere: we had the place to ourselves.

Setting up camp took the rest of the afternoon; we had no time to scout or to look over the lay of the land.

To dispense with Ed- he expected to leave on, perhaps, Wednesday. After hunting with Craig Saturday and Sunday, he made one hike alone Monday morning and then cleared out. It could have been out of frustration at seeing no elk, or it could have been a logical conclusion deduced from the beginning of the preceding sentence; you make the call.

He had trailered up his ATV, but we never used it. He brought and took away some camp gear that was nice to have, but we were already sufficiently supplied and didn't suffer from the loss.

Ed slept in my big tent (he didn't have the opportunity to use for the first time his own Cabela's Alaskan tent) and Craig crawled into the back of his pickup.

Ed was fine as a campmate, etc. But now he's gone.


Opening morning came along. I'd not had time to assemble my outfit, nor see the surroundings and consult my maps, so I slept in while they left together in the dark. If I'm to be on my own in a strange environment, I want to feel complete and comfortable in myself; I don't want to rush out helter-skelter, with real or imagined lackings in my gear or knowledge.


A map of most (all of any importance) of my wanderings is below:

Things to know-

The red square is our camp, at (unlabeled) Cottonwood Pit campground.
The nearby Cottonwood campground is in the upper-left corner.
The dark roads are main forest roads, and are almost the only ones not seasonally closed. The misc. dashed roads are A) all closed to vehicular traffic, B) mostly old logging roads, C) in various states of repair (trees fallen across, having blocking berms, trees growing within, perfectly functional and recently used, rough, etc.).
(Some closed roads are gated, some are signed; but others are simply left to the imagination: we visitors are expected to have the USFS closure map and the OR F&G map of additional closures.)
"Rock Creek" is the creek (labeled only 'Creek' on this scan) running from just right of top center down and to the right. Bear Creek flows into it from the SW, Fir Tree from the NE.
The white squares are where I parked the Bronco to begin my hikes.
The colored lines are my (approximate) hikes, in no sequence and with no meaning to each color.
The black circle is One Dead Elk, the black square is from where I shot.

This is a satellite view from MapQuest that covers the same area as Bill's topo map.
The camp is the yellow dot, the bull was seen at the red dot.

 

Here is the same area from Google Earth.

Craig and I had entirely different hunting experiences, because of where we chose to hunt. And I'll be the first to admit that his plans made more sense in terms of smart elk hunting.

Our unit had seen various deer and elk seasons since late August, the last ending five days before ours began, so people had been out and about in the forest, scaring up the animals. With that in mind, Craig figured that the elk (at least those that hadn't sought safety on enclosed or surrounding private ranches) would have hunkered down in inaccessible holes. Some, at least, of the areas recommended by the biologist included, according to our maps, places that fit that description. So Craig hunted in spots (outside of my scan) that were off the beaten track and steeper.

Craig was trained at our Ranch; his preferred tactic is to find a watchable hillside, and sit and let the animals come to him. On this trip he never found such a situation. Trees blocked any potential views, hillsides were too far away, etc. Craig also likes finding little pockets to watch- he doesn't need an entire hillside -but those, too, were not to be found. So he was reduced to still-hunting through the forest; he can do that, but it's not the method he really wants.

It wasn't quite like that for me. I didn't want to waste all of opening day. After spending most of it organizing myself, putting up a rain tarp over a common area, collecting and cutting firewood, and otherwise refining camp, at 4:30 (with an hour and a half remaining before dark), I looked at my map and decided on some sort of walk I could do in the short time I had. That's the lone loop, blue, on the scan, that leads directly from camp. I liked what I saw. You can tell from the map that the terrain was very gentle- easy on my out-of-shape body. But I was walking through forest at times, and meadows and clearings- all with tufts of grass, both cured and green. It all looked like territory any elk might be content to visit.

 

 

But it had a problem: access potential. Nearby to both our campground and Cottonwood just a mile north, and the main road in general, and with so many little roads -officially closed, but an aid to walking- it should, in my guesstimation, have gotten, and perhaps would now again get, too much traffic, at least from gimps and folks like me who needed a short, nearby hunt; I didn't want to run into other hunters, and local elk had probably abandoned the area for the time being.

So, in planning the next day, my first of real hunting, I looked for terrain similar and nearby (to guarantee similar) but more remote. I found it in what I came to call Plan A Ridge: road #050, which dropped gently down a ridge straight north from the top of Bear Mountain. Its main contours were easy, but it had steep sides east to Rock Creek, one of the biologist's suggestions. The [outdated] map indicated areas of forest and areas of clearings. It was just on the other side of Bear Creek from the likable stuff I'd just walked. And it stretched away north and east away from areas with roads of any sort, and, somewhat unseen on the scan, there were no connections across Rock Creek, nor, for the most part, any roads on that section of Rock; lonely, indeed. I thought I'd try that area. If Craig's wanderings brought news of better grounds, I could easily switch. My Plan B area (the two circles north of Squaw Meadows), from which was named Plan A, was discovered as soon as Monday, on account of finding two trucks parked at the top of Plan A.

As it turned out, Craig never had news alluring enough to take me away from the good stuff I found. I had benches, both open and thick with blow-downs. I found huge, big, and small meadows. There were semi-open stretches, small pockets of hidden fodder, dark holes, grassy fields, barren ridgetops; forest old and open, and forest in stages of regrowth after logging, and the steeper, heavily forested side of Rock Creek. I had it all, and was expectant.

 

I had it all, that is, except for a hillside to sit and watch. I grew up on the Ranch, too, and so that's my style, but they were in short supply wherever we went. You might think, from looking at the scan, that I meandered over more 'overlapping' territory than needed; that I could have just sat in a few strategically chosen spots and watched all the same country, with less disturbance and effort. Not so. I walked parallel to myself by only a few hundred yards, it's true, but one hillside was not visible from another. The trees up there in Oregon are all opaque, it turned out. I could look over Rock Creek from both Plan A and Plan B, and they were pretty and expansive views that I enjoyed during lunches, but distances started at 600 yards and went to infinity, and, as mentioned, there were neither connections over Rock nor roads or trails once there, so I had no chance of action if a bull had been sighted. But. There was one single hillside with a discovered vantage. The northeast side of the ridge of road #051, where, coincidentally, I finally shot my bull, had been logged some eight inches of tree diameter ago, so was 'open', with a scattering of left-behind giants and a liberal sprinkling of regrowth. I found a log near the bottom of the side of Plan A Ridge (the black square) behind which I could hide and view most of the target ridge. And, as the overlapping treks on the scan indicate, I checked in there several times during the hunt. I think that that was the only sit-and-watch situation we found.

That one sit aside, the method we had to use was the ol' pussy-foot. You might think, from looking at my treks on the scan, that I'm even more decrepit than I seem. Besides that some of the walks were short, afternoon ones, one doesn't cover much territory at a silent creep, peering behind every trunk for an antler or an eye.

Bill's Story: Part 2

So, the week went something like this:

Craig would arise first and get his tent warmed and the coffee heated. For whatever reason- a longer drive to his spot-of-the-day, a desire to hike somewhere in the dark, etc -he'd get up earlier than I needed (Plan A Ridge was only three miles from camp, and my hunting began with my second step away from the Bronco), so he'd shake my tent as he was about to leave. I'd work myself into getting up and dressed, during the cold days first heat up the tent with the Mr. Buddy heater, drink coffee and fill my daily coffee bottle, close down camp, and drive off.

We'd hunt our morning hunt, and arrive back at camp between noon and, say, three o'clock. For whatever reason, we made no, or almost no, all-day hunts. My biggest reason was that I had no good hillside to babysit. And there were no minor areas to sit on for an hour or two at a time. One can't hike dawn to dusk, there were no places to spend time, so a long tour and back to camp just fit.

We'd (not necessarily together; sometimes we'd cross paths for significant time, others not so much) eat lunch, perhaps nap, saw wood- in other words, diddle. And then, if our diddling hadn't turned into dawdling, we'd go out for a short hunt. Daylight Savings happened the second day of the season, so darkness fell at about five o'clock for most of it. If one didn't leave camp by about three, there was little sense to even trying. So we both missed a couple of evening hunts. And I stayed in that first morning and took another off to rest sore legs. Craig slept in at least one day. We hunted, we hunted the whole nine-day season, but intensity wasn't there. Perhaps a lack of elk gave us a fatalistic, manana, attitude.
For, of elk there were none. We found sign- tracks in the wet dirt, and droppings. But most of it was at least a week old. As mentioned, Ed left after 2.5 days- at least partially because of the lack of sightings.

Here's a pre-cap of the whole deal: on Tuesday, day 4, Craig heard a loud, crashing get-away that he supposes was an elk. Later on Tuesday, as I was walking up the road of Plan A Ridge in the dark, I heard, in the forest edge 50 yards away, wood-whacking as of hoofs escaping, and elk chirping (darn!- I almost left my sit ten minutes earlier; should have!). So now we at least had positive evidence that our quarry existed in this county. On Wednesday, Craig saw two elk!!! He was driving back to camp after his morning hunt, stopped where the road gave a good overlook of some old cut hillsides, noticed a cow and calf on the other side of Bear Creek (between my area and camp). That perked us up (a little). It wasn't until Friday evening that we had any more encouragement. Craig had made a strenuous morning hunt, so he besought his map for some light refreshment for a short evening jaunt. He went a bit north of Cottonwood campground, walked a closed logging road (just a mile NW of my farthest walk, so still in 'my' zone, part of my type of country). Looking through a hole in the trees he saw on an opposite hillside two bulls! One was a raghorn, one a decent 6x6. He debated with himself and, wisely, in my opinion and his, rejected the 437-yard opportunity.

So that's it: two noises, one road sighting of a stupid, lost, cow-calf pair, and one real-life, long-range bull encounter. Not an exciting pay-off for 10 Preference Points and the chance to hunt one of the best OR areas available to us. Oh, there was one more elk sighting- on the last evening, with 38 minutes to go in the season and less than that of light, I saw a herd of six cows and one bull. But that's a story for another Part...

Deer, on the other hand, were plentiful. I wouldn't be too afraid to claim that some were seen on every walk and every drive. Does with fawns, singles, groups of six, bucks; they were all over. At the start of the week, all was calm. By the end, the bucks were hard at it- nosing every gang of femmes. I saw only one decent buck, keeping an eye on a doe, while leaving the forest last Wednesday:

Mule deer bucks were all over

OR put out 3100 deer tags for the Ochoco unit, so I wasn't surprised at the prevalence of younger bucks. We heard that it's a zoo during deer season, which was held sometime before our elk season. Odd thing was, most of the deer, both bucks and does, seemed almost tame.

We also saw a couple of snowshoe hares, mine not yet completely white. Saw a couple. But after the snow fell, the woods were overrun with their tracks; so I wasn't, evidently, nearly observant enough. Some squirrels. Not enough bird life, to my way of thinking, but I saw a pileated woodpecker, some other 'pecker, ravens (of course), Steller's and gray jays, and a couple of 'little brown bird' species. I called for coyotes once, without success, except a raven, a magpie, and two Steller's jays came in, and called to a coyote another time, also without final success. Saw one pile of bear poop. Perhaps I saw cougar tracks. The quarry pond by camp had been stocked. I'm thinking there were still three trout left, little 7-inchers. I caught a couple of flying ants and tossed them in. Within a minute a troutette had found them and sucked them both in.

Ponderosas, red firs, larches (called tamarack, another larch variety, by the locals)- a deciduous conifer that while we were there were yellow and dropping needles, junipers, some sage.

The weather started out comfortably cool. It was often overcast, and we had a couple of inconsequential sprinkles. It had snowed and quickly melted at the beginning of the previous week, and the ground was surprisingly wet. We felt the dampness in the air the first few nights, and had heavy dew, and in the mornings mists and fogs. In the beginning, nights didn't get down to freezing, but as the system from the Gulf of Alaska moved in we chilled down. Tuesday was the warmest, with the radio reporting Prineville (lower down) at 72 degrees. Most of Wednesday it stayed about 40 for us. Midday Thursday the snow began, and it snowed every day through the Tuesday after the season. It never snowed heavily, and there was no wind; there were short periods of sunlight and clear skies, even sun while snowing, but it was mainly light snow every day. And temps were cold during the day and very cold at night; the Mr. Buddy heater got a workout. Starting the last day of the season, temps rose a bit though the snow continued. The Tuesday after the season, although is snowed some, temps warmed up and all the snow melted off the trees. Then Wednesday dawned with sun and dried what was left, so I was able to pack up a relatively dry camp.

A couple of times I started a hunt but cancelled it, saying to myself that going out in the cold and snow just didn't sound like fun. The first freezing day, the wet ground became very crunchy. Investigating, I found that the water in the soil had frozen in 1 to 2-inch vertical crystals, raising the dirt that amount. So a step on what looked like dirt would crunch down an inch. The first couple of days after the snows came, the ground would still crunch, after the usual squeak of the snow. Later, the snow would sometimes make for a silent surface, but at other times the squeak would reverberate off the underlying duff and go out as a bass squeak.

Dinners were familiar- burgers, steaks, chicken breasts, skirt steak fajitas, chicken breasts, chili dogs, pork tenderloins, spaghetti, hot dogs, hot dogs, chunks of hot dogs in chili, and ramen; with Craig's common sides of salad and potatoes.

Camp was comfortable. Fairly flat, though I hope the FS runs a grader through it now and then. There was a picnic table that we used only to hold our cocktail makings. A two-sided firepit with a swing-off grill (we didn't use the grill); I rearranged the pit rocks to suit me. An old stump on which someone had nailed a square of plywood; above that I spread a tarp. And-- a FS outhouse, the best we've ever used. It was clean, supplied with six rolls of TP, sweet-smelling because of some de-odorizers stuck to the walls, and the little room warmed up nicely with a Mr. Buddy toted in. It was nice!

I collected two loads of branches that first day, sawed and stacked them. Then every time I went hunting I'd toss some wood into the back of the Bronco. Ed and Craig brought back a load, too. Good thing, too, that we loaded up before the constant snows came. I had a tarp to protect the pile. After the first couple of days, we used Craig's chainsaw to cut our branches.

By the way, did I mention that Craig deserted me with a day and a half left in the season?

Bill's Story: Part 3

On Saturday morning, the second to last day of the season, Craig and I went on our first together hunt. He was keen to return to where he saw the bulls the previous night, and of course he wanted to expose me to an area that promised elk. I'm easy, so I drove us through the snow to a locked gate, we walked a ways down a logging road, and then split up at a fork in the road. Craig chose the fork he hadn't taken before, sent me up the one from which he'd seen the bulls.
After a half-mile of this fun I turned back. It was cold, snow was falling, my legs were sore, the week had been disappointing. The clouds were right down on us, couldn't see anywhere. They were so low that when I wanted a drink of water, I just reached up and grabbed one. I didn't really want to see a bull in the conditions, and really didn't want to dress one. And Craig intended to leave later that day, so I knew that, while he'd help do the recovery, he'd want to rush that recovery- and I just wasn't up to that. So I got back to the car at 8:10, ran the engine for the heater, ate some salame and a bagel, and listened to Willie & Waylon rotate on my tape deck, until Craig showed up a little after 10. The clouds had obscured his hunt also; neither of us saw a thing.

Back to camp. Broke down his half. Waved good-bye just before one o'clock.

So Craig deserted me with a day and a half left in the season. He just deserted me.

Snowing was light or non-existent during the pack-up, that was nice. But it picked up after he left, and so I stayed in and rested up for a final push on the last day.

Sunday I alarmed for 5:30. It was very cold. The sky was a mix of clear and cloud when I started my walk around Plan B. Not much crunch to the snow/ground, by now, but the dry squeak reverberated quite well. But all was frozen below; the ground there was extremely rocky in most places, so any walking, certainly attempted-quiet walking, was a laborious exercise.

I saw deer, of course, including six does being pestered by a buck across Rock Creek. I came across deer tracks constantly during the hunt. And rabbit tracks to beat the band. Anticipation was lifted by seeing several new elk tracks; and they were loners, which probably indicated bulls. Oddly, I saw more new elk sign on the southern, or road, side of my circle, not on the remote and steep Rock Creek side.

I had some snow fall, but it mainly just threatened.

Back to camp for a salame and ham sandwich. And I cut my left thumb wiping the knife after cutting the salame slices. I napped for 45 minutes in my chair, forced myself out for one last go at 3:00. Two hours left. Had time only for a sit off the side of Plan A Ridge, watching that cut-over ridge adjoining.

The road shoots straight down Plan A. At the end of the long, gentle, bare slope I could drop down through some trees until I reached an old log near the bottom of the hillside. From that sit I could see most of my target ridge. On the first day that I found that set-up, I scanned the whole view and pegged the farthest top at only 250 yards. Just for fun, though, since I was sitting there with nothing to do, I pulled out the rangefinder. 435 yards.

Back to the hunt: I parked the car and geared up. Before I even started down the closed road, I saw a line of elk tracks in the new snow! Not far along, what were probably from the same elk again crossed the road. Now, this was exciting. So I continued at an attentive creep, peering near and far for this or another elk. The skies were very dark with cloud, with the occasional light sifting of snow. The several inches of snow underfoot was usually gratifyingly quiet. Farther along, a single elk's marks entered the road and continued down it for over a hundred yards. Holy hoofprints, Batman! I was taut, and sneaking along very slowly.

Where the road hit the long, bare section, I moved off it to hike down the ridge's east edge. I didn't want to go down its open spine, often in view of parts of my target ridge; and at the edge of the slope I could look down into the forest to my right. So on I creeped; seeing no elk, though I crossed another track or two. Down near the end, I spooked a group of deer. I don't know where they were or what they were doing, and I was abashed that I had no clue of their presence before they trotted off to my right. Some 'attentive' I'd been! ( I also realized that, even though I knew that I might come across a lone bull, my mind was looking for 'a herd' of elk. I don't know that I would have twigged on a single neck in the woods or two to four legs poking down from branches. 'A group' was what I was actually looking for.) The wind was light, but variable in direction- worrisomely so; but there was nothing I could do about it- the plan was the plan, and I had neither time nor options.

I reached the end of the clear and cut across to the west side. Much of my target ridge was visible through gaps in the edging of forest, so I went hunched in a straight line, slowly. I regained the road, now dropping along the west side of Plan A Ridge to slope around its toe, and I cut down through the forest toward my log. A few deer trotted across my front- I hoped not scaring anything over on the ridge. By now I'd been sneaking along for over an hour, covering a measly 3/4 of an easy mile. My sit-and-watch had turned, at best, into a half-hour glance at my ridge, because I'd been pussy-footing along on account of the new tracks.

 

The view across the draw from my log; the elk was at the red dot

I reached my log, and as I was squatting into position elk came out of the trees at the lower right of the ridge! As I finished sitting, I saw that it was a small herd of cows- with one bull. The bull was prancing, head back, pushing the cows this way and that; including first pushing them back to the right and out of my sight. But they came back out (whew!). I couldn't tell what was going on- he would run through them, scattering them, then gather them; it was true sexual harassment. I didn't know if they were running from something or running to something, if they'd stay or leave. What I did know was that this was the last day, the light was failing, and I had a bull elk in front of me. And with the unpredictable antics going on, I had ought to try to get something killed toot-sweet. There were 38 minutes remaining of the season, and less than that of shooting light.

I unsnapped my daypack's breast strap, for a little more freedom of movement, started aiming in, then fumbled off my right glove. I might still have been on 3 power, from the walk. I was sitting Injun-style, with my gloved left hand supporting my .300FAT on the snow-covered log. The bull ran through the cows and then stopped on the left, facing left and slightly away, with his antlers held back over his withers. I held to put the bullet into the off shoulder, and fired. He turned around, trotted fifteen yards to the right, and stopped (red dot above). I fired, close into his shoulder, and he plopped into the snow. The cows then milled awhile before trotting up the ridge and over. The bull lay there, but occasionally his antlers would wave a bit. So I waited. After a bit, I leaned my rifle, bolt open, against the log and lit a butt. I watched him, sometimes through the binocs, waiting for the head movements to end. He was down, just not quite yet out. 4:28 PM.

I was almost done with my cigarette when he ... stood up! I guess he took a step forward, or some such, but he stood there with his front half hidden behind a Christmas tree-sized pine. His hind legs seemed to stretch back some, as if he were braced rather than simply standing. So, he rose and just stood; he wasn't acting like he intended to leave- he just stood there. With only his rear exposed. I grabbed my rifle (I'll let David raise the 'hunting lesson issue'), pulled a cartridge out of a pocket to top off the two remaining, and cranked the scope to 9x. Calculating where might be his chest behind the tree, I fired. No reaction. So I fired again. No reaction. So I ... pushed the 'pause' button. I didn't seem to be doing much good doing what I was doing, and the bull continued to just stand there. With only his rear exposed.

I was down to one round in the rifle, now. I flipped open my belt pouch, stuffed two into the magazine, grabbed another, and dropped it in the snow. I tried to wipe it dry and then reconsidered. I didn't need moisture in my chamber in freezing weather. So I pocketed it, slipped out another, and closed the bolt on it. I was looking through my scope, wondering what to do next. I recalculated, figuring where neck might be. And when he started to move, I fired. And he disappeared. I sat and scanned. It was open, or there were openings, up, down, and to the left, but to the right, the way he'd been facing, there were trees and then forest. There was only one small opening close ahead. I didn't notice him running anywhere, but I could be sure of nothing (see red dot above).

I watched and waited awhile, but dark was coming on fast and it was snowing- I figured that I'd better get over there and at least get a line on his trail while I could. Solid landmarks were rare, but I knew the ridge and finding the gaggle of prints the herd had made shouldn't be hard. I walked over, had to move uphill a bit, and found a doornail elk. No tracking needed.

I had my bull. At the proverbial 'last minute', after a discouraging nine-day hunt. The first elk I'd seen all week. And Craig just deserted me there at the end.

David's guess where Bill's log is (blue) and the elk (red)

Bill's Story: Part 4

...I had my bull. At the proverbial 'last minute', after a discouraging nine-day hunt. The first elk I'd seen all week. And Craig just deserted me there at the end.

I couldn't believe that that darn thing would, could, stand back up. I was confident in two good hits, the second of which dropped him smack down. And then to lie there for several minutes, just able to roll his head around. It's like he was just taking a break, himself, and smoking his own cigarette. I'm thinking, considering how 'hopped up' he was acting, chousing around the cows, that he had a system full of go-juice and just wasn't getting his body's messages.

But he wasn't going to get up again, and now I had a job ahead of me. I dug in at five o'clock, now dark. I was ready to stick my flashlight in my mouth and begin, when I remembered that I had my headlamp in the daypack. Out it came, and so did the large Buck Stockman knife that I've got to think Dad had hoped to use someday on an elk. I put my parka on my daypack, did the work in my vest. And, cold as it'd been, for the first time during the week I rolled down my shirtsleeves.

My boy had fallen in a perfect position to be stripped. Not a budge did I wish to budge him. Not that I could have. I did his first half by 6:30, with a front and a hind each in a [tight & short] deer bag, and the backstrap, neck meat, and tenderloin (mangled) in another. I put the legs on a handy stump and the other bag in my daypack. During the operation I lost the bandaid covering the cut on my thumb; the cut reopened and the elk and I became blood brothers. We did not become fat filials, as there wasn't very much on him.

The first bullet, fired at a slight angle forward, had, for whatever reason- bad aim, bad shot, elk moved -had gone in a little farther back than desired, and exited perhaps six inches behind the off shoulder. So it probably got liver, maybe a little gut, perhaps some lung. I recovered that 165-gr Partition; it now weighed 123 and was well mushroomed. The second shot, and I'm a bit confused by comparing what I saw at the time with what I saw this week during butchering, smashed a shoulder and got boiler room. The finisher solidly nailed him in the neckal spine, ruining some backstrap. I'll take them all, especially that guesstimate neck shot. The other shots through the Christmas tree (don't tell Santa), well, ...

And from now on, I'll carry two elk bags and one deer bag when I'm hunting elk, accepting the additional bulk. Those little deer bags just don't give coverage.

I tipped the now lighter carcass over once, so that the other side's meat wouldn't be cloistered between ground and guts, but might chill out overnight.

I was glad to consign my binocs to the daypack; my neck and shoulders had become sore early in the week from them and the daypack. I knew the area and hill well, by now, so I didn't need to consult map or GPS. I just started up the hill, using the headlamp for footing and a flashlight for ahead-picking, walked the spine to the road, followed the road to the car. It took me 1.25 hours. It had taken me about 50 minutes a few nights ago, unloaded. Halfway to the Bronco, and the rest of the night, my shoulders were sore. I weighed my little daypack when I got back- 37#. Snowing had been light during the quartering; it fell thicker, and with an increased wind, while hiking out.

I got up at 9 the next day. It was above freezing in the tent, a nice developement. But it was snowing heavily outside. I sharpened my knife, readied my real pack, put on gaiters, and attached the hood to my raincoat. The snow stopped, having left two more inches on the ground, and fog moved in by the time I left camp.

I stopped by my log and memorized some landmarks on the other ridge. The tree that had seemed to swallow whole my blind shots showed no sign of a bullet hit. But behind it was an old stump, and it looked like it had a [close] pair of fresh wood scars. I dug around in it, looking for bullets or bullet holes, but came to no decision. So those two shots could have been misses plunking into snow, could have hit the Christmas tree and I missed seeing their marks, or they could have burrowed into the stump. You decide; I've given up. I ranged back to my log, got 300 yards, give or take one or two; a bit farther than I'd thought.

This is the view back to my log

I spent another hour and a half cutting out the other side, and an additional fifteen minutes sawing off the antlers. (The X-Large Wyoming saw is the ooonnnly way to fly!) It'd been snowing the entire time. I added two more legs to the stump pile, loaded the other meat into my pack, tied on the antlers, and started out.

The small Wyoming saw has an 11" blade, the large has an 18" blade, 16 oz. vs 23 oz.

This time, instead of going up the elk's ridge I followed the old logging road to the bottom of the gully, discovered that it didn't end, as the map indicated, and that a fork of it went towards my log. The snow on the ground covered up all the little distractions and then its smoothness revealed the true underlying features of the ground. The old skid road appeared, went right up my hill to the road.

My intention, through last night, was to muscle the elk to the car myself. But this walk, relatively lightly loaded, and which took me perhaps 1.75 hours, persuaded me otherwise. The first uphill stretch to the road, short as is was, with a full hind on my back, didn't feel like it'd be much fun. And then trudging through snow uphill for another 3/4 mile... I'm just not what I once thought I was. So aid was in order.

When I got back to camp and had hung my stuff up to dry I opened up the bottle of Sam Adams I'd brought in case cause for a celebration ocurred during this trip. Since the weather was cold, I toasted myself.

That evening I totted. Came up with a rough score of 267 gross, 260 net. The only breakage that mattered was 2.5 off a brow tine. On the small side, but it's well formed, symmetrical, and pretty. I'm pleased as punch.


When I got up at 7:45 on Tuesday, the tent was almost 40 degrees. Getting better! It was foggy outside and not snowing, and little had fallen overnight.

Off I drove for the townlet of Mitchell, some 28 miles away, half of it on forest roads. I stopped at the pumps (it can't be called a gas station) and wondered where the elderly woman attendant might be. I checked at the feed store next door, the nearest building, but found it closed. I walked over to the grocery across the street, met a fella on the sidewalk. I told him who I was looking for and he said that she was probably in the cafe across the cross street there. I also told him that I was looking for someone to help me recover some elk up in the forest. He thought a moment and then said that maybe Mike might be my man. Mike was in town to work on his transmission with my converser, the town mechanic. Mike was in the cafe. We chatted a bit and then I walked over to the cafe.

I asked the cook if there was a Mike in the house and she pointed out the guy in the ballcap. One thing and another, and he agreed to help me for $200. Two things and anothers, including getting gassed up, and I was soon following Mike's Grandad's truck down the highway. In his cab he had a helper, Rick; also a dog and a varmint rifle. In the bed of the truck was an ATV.

Next thing you know, we're parked at the closed road down Plan A Ridge. Off came the ATV, on climbed Rick and I on the back racks. Mike drove, the gravid dog trotted behind, and we followed my spoor from the previous day. Where my prints left the road for the hidden skid road down the hillside, Mike didn't even pause to scout or consider. Down we went! During the day's ride Rick and I hopped off a few times for safety, to let Mike skid around logs or bump over the gully, etc. It was fun to watch, and the thing made it every time.

So we reached the old logging road 20 yards below the elk. We walked up, and Mike started cogitating how best to get the carcass towed up. I said, no. He stays, these bags go. Oh. Ok. So we strapped them fore and aft, and continued up that road, around that ridge's toe, up to the A road, and on to the cars. Zip, zap, zoop. No sweat.
I tipped him $40, was back at camp by 1:00.

The temp stayed relatively warm, melting the snow off the trees that day (and pelting my tent ceaselessly with water). Later it rained a bit.

Meat In Camp!

 

So when Wednesday dawned with a real, live sun, all that was needed was to dry the water, not melt the snow- and I could pack up a camp not completely wet. That's what I did.
I took the space-using ice out of my two coolers, stuffed in the fronts and the misc. meats. The hinds I sandwiched between my back seat cushion and some soft goods. Managed to fit in the antlers. Wrote a thank-you note to whoever manages the camp potty. And made my way home, a successful hunter with my just deserts.

Alone, because Craig just deserted me.

Road Home

Mt Shasta on the way home. Note the orographic clouds at the summit.

 

If you now want to read the REAL story, click on the Wyoming Funnies 39, 40, 41, and 42.