Don't post much (or at all) but I've been around for a while. Thought I'd share my most recent hunt:
The anticipation of hunting season had been building all summer and had me chomping at the bit. My wife and I had purchased our first wall tent and stove (no more borrowing tents and freezing evenings at camp!) and even though we didn’t draw the plethora of tags we had last year we each had an antelope, deer, elk, and wolf tag in our pocket. I was also itching to get some action with my new .243 and spend time in the field with my wife.
(Photo of our camp, we were breaking down in this pic so the stovepipe is already taken down)
The area we hunt has been very productive for us. Last year we each killed two antelope and two deer, and I have been shooting coyotes in the area for several years. Although we had elk tags we don’t really go “elk hunting”, we are what my wife calls opportunistic elk hunters (even though her dream hunt is to kill a big bull elk). I got burned out a few years ago on elk hunting after conflicts ranging from other hunters trying to steal my kill to constantly having hunts ruined by ATV riding “hunters”. I’ve never seen a wolf our hunting area but there are several cases of them killing livestock in the area over the years so I’m always vigilant in looking for that “really big looking coyote” in the distance.
I left a few days ahead of my wife to get camp set up and do a little scouting. I got to our traditional campsite and was relieved to see it empty. By the time I started to get the tent set up it was dark. Luckily, for as big a tent as it is, it was relatively easy to set up by myself… in the dark… for the first time. I got up the next morning and decided to make a quick coyote set before breakfast. I walked over the hill from camp maybe 200 yards and sat down and made my first series of rabbit distress screams. Three minutes into the set I had a coyote coming in hard at 50 yds (oops, evidently I wasn’t scanning well enough) through the sagebrush. It came in to about 10 yards and decided something wasn’t right and turned around and started trotting back out. It wasn’t spooked but wouldn’t stop and look at my “woofs” either so at about 100 yards I sent a 105 grain A-max and dropped it. First set and first coyote of the season and first blood with my new rifle! Scouting the rest of the day turned up a herd of antelope and a blown stalk on my part.
My wife arrived that night and we planned where we wanted to hunt. The next morning found us glassing a huge flat valley that has been the site of a few of our successful antelope hunts in the past. We picked a small herd and went for it. Being very late in the antelope season we were hoping the pressure would be waning and the antelope would be calming down. Not so. They were very skittish and we got busted a couple times before we finally made a successful stalk and were set up about 250 yards from four does. My wife took aim with her 25-06 on a bipod and fired… and missed! That’s all the signal the antelope needed and they immediately bolted, first running at us and then making a big circle around us. My wife took aim again, this time at a running antelope at 400 yds, and fired… and connected! A quick follow-up coup-de-grace and her antelope tag was punched.
The rest of the day was filled with sneaking, crawling, and glassing… and getting busted by antelope a couple more times.
The following day we were back in the same area to try and fill my antelope tag. The wind was uncharacteristically calm for the area and I was excited at the prospect of getting a longer shot at an antelope. We spotted a herd in an area that looked like we could make a stalk and dove in. The area the antelope were feeding was very flat for several hundred yards around them with just enough sagebrush and curvature that we had to belly crawl to within 200 yards before we could clearly see them. Having only my 9-13” bipod I couldn’t see over the sage and once again we were busted and the antelope started making their way to a nearby ridgeline, but this time they were just walking and not running 50 mph. We decided to try and “cut them off at the pass”, or get to the saddle they were aiming for before they got there. It took us about 30 minutes and when we got to our intended ambush site all but one of the antelope were already over the ridge and were gone. The one remaining antelope spotted something she didn’t like and started to move directly away from us but not knowing what she saw she kept stopping and trying to pin-point us. I got down on my bipod and ranged her at 690 yards. I plugged the range into my Shooter app on my iPhone and dialed up the indicated 14.5 MOA. As the antelope doe stood quartering away trying to spot us I sent a 105 gr. A-max from my .243 and hit her at the high rear corner of her shoulder and sent her to the dirt! After some whooping and hollering (on my part) we made our way over and got her packaged up for transport on our backs. Although, we both had either sex tags and could have killed a buck we took the first opportunity on antelope we had. Throughout the whole trip we only saw two bucks, but probably 200 does.
(View from behind the rifle. The antelope is about halfway up the fence-line on the opposite hillside.)
With both of our antelope tags filled we were excited to get out and look for a couple mule deer bucks that evening. Because of the heavy ATV activity near our camp we decided to try an area we’d never hunted. It was walk-in only BLM land that went from sagebrush flats and foothills up to doug-fir and aspen stands and mountains. We began picking our way up a finger ridge slowly glassing the drainages on either side for deer. After spotting a couple antelope bedded down I was confident nobody had hunted this area earlier in the day. As we neared the timber and dusk approached we glassed more intently hoping to pick out a mule deer.
I spotted an odd colored object in an aspen stand but after looking several times and seeing no movement decided it was probably nothing but I want a better look. As we worked our way another 100 yards up the ridge I got to a spot I could get my bipod down and check the out-of-place object that still hadn’t moved through my scope on 22x. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the object was the hind end of an elk, and a bull at that. And there was another bull further in the timber. We quickly backed off the ridgetop to the opposing side and hustled to close the 800-900 yard gap. We found a washout on the ridge that allowed us to get over the ridge and into a perfect shooting position 300 yards away while staying fully out of sight. Not willing to shoot an elk with my .243 shooting a very thin skinned bullet my wife was the only one that would be shooting. We could not see the elk but were sure they were still in the aspens we were scouring with our binoculars. My wife got her rifle setup and dialed her scope for 300 yards. Soon a bull came into sight through a gap in the trees and was feeding facing away from us. As my wife followed him in her scope he slowly turned as he fed and was standing broadside. With her heart racing I’m sure, my wife squeezed the trigger and sent a 115 gr. Nosler Partition downrange. The elk turned and ran towards us but was immediately obscured from our view by trees. We waited for him to come back into view… nothing. After about a minute we saw the other bull trot through the timber and disappear. I was watching the elk when she shot but couldn’t tell if she had hit him or not and with plenty of cover to slip away unseen we waited for a few minutes to see if he would show himself again. He did not so we made our way down to the aspen stand as the sun was beginning to set. I walked towards where he was standing at the shot and my wife was eagerly looking for blood in the direction he had run. When I was 20 yards from where he was standing at the shot I was startled to see him laying dead in the draw in front of me. He had run no more the 10 feet and died!
(Picture of him as he was laying when we found him)
I almost yelled “Over here!” to my wife but decided to let her find him on her own. I asked her to help me look for blood and as she walked past me she spotted him and froze. “He’s right there! He’s dead! I got him!” were the first words out of her mouth, followed by giggling and dancing. My wife had just accomplished one of her dreams. She had just killed a mature 6x6 bull elk, her aim had been true placing the bullet behind the shoulder and into his lungs from 310 yards. She was justifiably ecstatic.
(He’s a 6x6, but broke off the second point on his left side.)
(Can you tell she’s happy?)
The anticipation of hunting season had been building all summer and had me chomping at the bit. My wife and I had purchased our first wall tent and stove (no more borrowing tents and freezing evenings at camp!) and even though we didn’t draw the plethora of tags we had last year we each had an antelope, deer, elk, and wolf tag in our pocket. I was also itching to get some action with my new .243 and spend time in the field with my wife.
(Photo of our camp, we were breaking down in this pic so the stovepipe is already taken down)
The area we hunt has been very productive for us. Last year we each killed two antelope and two deer, and I have been shooting coyotes in the area for several years. Although we had elk tags we don’t really go “elk hunting”, we are what my wife calls opportunistic elk hunters (even though her dream hunt is to kill a big bull elk). I got burned out a few years ago on elk hunting after conflicts ranging from other hunters trying to steal my kill to constantly having hunts ruined by ATV riding “hunters”. I’ve never seen a wolf our hunting area but there are several cases of them killing livestock in the area over the years so I’m always vigilant in looking for that “really big looking coyote” in the distance.
I left a few days ahead of my wife to get camp set up and do a little scouting. I got to our traditional campsite and was relieved to see it empty. By the time I started to get the tent set up it was dark. Luckily, for as big a tent as it is, it was relatively easy to set up by myself… in the dark… for the first time. I got up the next morning and decided to make a quick coyote set before breakfast. I walked over the hill from camp maybe 200 yards and sat down and made my first series of rabbit distress screams. Three minutes into the set I had a coyote coming in hard at 50 yds (oops, evidently I wasn’t scanning well enough) through the sagebrush. It came in to about 10 yards and decided something wasn’t right and turned around and started trotting back out. It wasn’t spooked but wouldn’t stop and look at my “woofs” either so at about 100 yards I sent a 105 grain A-max and dropped it. First set and first coyote of the season and first blood with my new rifle! Scouting the rest of the day turned up a herd of antelope and a blown stalk on my part.
My wife arrived that night and we planned where we wanted to hunt. The next morning found us glassing a huge flat valley that has been the site of a few of our successful antelope hunts in the past. We picked a small herd and went for it. Being very late in the antelope season we were hoping the pressure would be waning and the antelope would be calming down. Not so. They were very skittish and we got busted a couple times before we finally made a successful stalk and were set up about 250 yards from four does. My wife took aim with her 25-06 on a bipod and fired… and missed! That’s all the signal the antelope needed and they immediately bolted, first running at us and then making a big circle around us. My wife took aim again, this time at a running antelope at 400 yds, and fired… and connected! A quick follow-up coup-de-grace and her antelope tag was punched.
The rest of the day was filled with sneaking, crawling, and glassing… and getting busted by antelope a couple more times.
The following day we were back in the same area to try and fill my antelope tag. The wind was uncharacteristically calm for the area and I was excited at the prospect of getting a longer shot at an antelope. We spotted a herd in an area that looked like we could make a stalk and dove in. The area the antelope were feeding was very flat for several hundred yards around them with just enough sagebrush and curvature that we had to belly crawl to within 200 yards before we could clearly see them. Having only my 9-13” bipod I couldn’t see over the sage and once again we were busted and the antelope started making their way to a nearby ridgeline, but this time they were just walking and not running 50 mph. We decided to try and “cut them off at the pass”, or get to the saddle they were aiming for before they got there. It took us about 30 minutes and when we got to our intended ambush site all but one of the antelope were already over the ridge and were gone. The one remaining antelope spotted something she didn’t like and started to move directly away from us but not knowing what she saw she kept stopping and trying to pin-point us. I got down on my bipod and ranged her at 690 yards. I plugged the range into my Shooter app on my iPhone and dialed up the indicated 14.5 MOA. As the antelope doe stood quartering away trying to spot us I sent a 105 gr. A-max from my .243 and hit her at the high rear corner of her shoulder and sent her to the dirt! After some whooping and hollering (on my part) we made our way over and got her packaged up for transport on our backs. Although, we both had either sex tags and could have killed a buck we took the first opportunity on antelope we had. Throughout the whole trip we only saw two bucks, but probably 200 does.
(View from behind the rifle. The antelope is about halfway up the fence-line on the opposite hillside.)
With both of our antelope tags filled we were excited to get out and look for a couple mule deer bucks that evening. Because of the heavy ATV activity near our camp we decided to try an area we’d never hunted. It was walk-in only BLM land that went from sagebrush flats and foothills up to doug-fir and aspen stands and mountains. We began picking our way up a finger ridge slowly glassing the drainages on either side for deer. After spotting a couple antelope bedded down I was confident nobody had hunted this area earlier in the day. As we neared the timber and dusk approached we glassed more intently hoping to pick out a mule deer.
I spotted an odd colored object in an aspen stand but after looking several times and seeing no movement decided it was probably nothing but I want a better look. As we worked our way another 100 yards up the ridge I got to a spot I could get my bipod down and check the out-of-place object that still hadn’t moved through my scope on 22x. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the object was the hind end of an elk, and a bull at that. And there was another bull further in the timber. We quickly backed off the ridgetop to the opposing side and hustled to close the 800-900 yard gap. We found a washout on the ridge that allowed us to get over the ridge and into a perfect shooting position 300 yards away while staying fully out of sight. Not willing to shoot an elk with my .243 shooting a very thin skinned bullet my wife was the only one that would be shooting. We could not see the elk but were sure they were still in the aspens we were scouring with our binoculars. My wife got her rifle setup and dialed her scope for 300 yards. Soon a bull came into sight through a gap in the trees and was feeding facing away from us. As my wife followed him in her scope he slowly turned as he fed and was standing broadside. With her heart racing I’m sure, my wife squeezed the trigger and sent a 115 gr. Nosler Partition downrange. The elk turned and ran towards us but was immediately obscured from our view by trees. We waited for him to come back into view… nothing. After about a minute we saw the other bull trot through the timber and disappear. I was watching the elk when she shot but couldn’t tell if she had hit him or not and with plenty of cover to slip away unseen we waited for a few minutes to see if he would show himself again. He did not so we made our way down to the aspen stand as the sun was beginning to set. I walked towards where he was standing at the shot and my wife was eagerly looking for blood in the direction he had run. When I was 20 yards from where he was standing at the shot I was startled to see him laying dead in the draw in front of me. He had run no more the 10 feet and died!
(Picture of him as he was laying when we found him)
I almost yelled “Over here!” to my wife but decided to let her find him on her own. I asked her to help me look for blood and as she walked past me she spotted him and froze. “He’s right there! He’s dead! I got him!” were the first words out of her mouth, followed by giggling and dancing. My wife had just accomplished one of her dreams. She had just killed a mature 6x6 bull elk, her aim had been true placing the bullet behind the shoulder and into his lungs from 310 yards. She was justifiably ecstatic.
(He’s a 6x6, but broke off the second point on his left side.)
(Can you tell she’s happy?)
