longcruise
70 Cal.
It was a typical muzzle loading season so far. Bluebird days and cold cold nights. The quakies were putting on a fabulous fall display and the campfires were warm and friendly.
Only problem was, the country was full of hunters but not so full of elk! We had made many forays into the the hills and valleys around us and had some fine conversations with other ML hunters and the occasional bow hunter. All reported the same experience; no elk seen and no elk heard. We had not heard a single bull serenade during the night which was highly unusual for this valley. They just weren't talking. We wondered if it was the crowds that had caused them to move further back and clam up or maybe it was just not time yet.
Just the previous weekend, while poking around hunting deer with an archery tag, I had jumped a nice bull a few hundred yards from the spot we were now camped in. He was a pretty bull with a nice five by five rack so you can see why this area seemed so attractive for the elk season.
Whatever, we found entertainment in shooting the occasional grouse, cooking up some fine camp meals and one afternoon helped a friend who was camped further up the valley pack out a cow moose he had taken with his muzzle loader. It was only a few hundred yards off the road and we managed to finish the job the job in only a few hours.
It was decided between myself and my grandson Andy that we would make a deeper push into the side of the valley. The hills are not very steep and there are wide gently sloping ridges between the small creeks coming off the steeper ridge several miles back. We figured if we got far enough back and up into the rough stuff we might find the missing elk.
So we began. It was easy going straight up the ridge. We walked through tall grass in the aspen stands and through the occasional small stand of lodge poles. Every now and then a deer would get up out of the tall grass and skedaddle but there was no sign of elk. As we climbed higher, the lodge poles became more predominant and the slope a bit steeper. Through the thick stand of lodge poles we could see something that did not fit in. We moved in slowly and quietly! It soon became apparent that we were creeping up on the wreckage of a plane crash. It had been there for years based on the size of the trees that had grown up amidst the broken up pieces of what had been a very small plane. Ya see the darndest things when out hunting!
The slope became steeper and steeper. The lodge poles thicker and thicker. We reached a point where we decided the best strategy would be to side hill along the steep slope and do some calling. Andy's tag was for a cow and mine for a bull so we were ready for anything. We moved along slowly and stopped for five or ten minutes every hundred yards or so to do some cow calling. We had not gone very far when the cow calls were answered by and odd single note half yelp and have bugle of a bull. We looked at each other wondering if it was indeed an elk or some other bird or animal.
One thing I have learned about elk is they don't always sound like the elk in the videos and many of them could never even place in the local elk bugling contest. The answering calls seemed more and more like a small bull and seemed to be coming toward us. I repeated the lonesome cow calls that had first brought the response from the bull and then we decided to move forward a little bit. We went about 50 yards and came up on a deep narrow gully and decided to back up a bit and hopefully the bull would come up out of the gully in front of us. We waited about ten minutes but heard and saw nothing.
As I scanned the thick lodgepoles surrounding us I heard a strange hissing sound behind me. I turned to see Andy pointing his finger across his stomach to the left and casting his eyes in the same direction while he urgently hissed “he's right there, he's right there”. I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw nothing but lodgepole trunks. I said “I don't see anything”. He answered with even more urgency “he's right there!”. I stepped back in his direction about five feet and looked up the hill through a narrow gap in the trees. He was indeed “right there”. A massive 6X6. As big as I've ever seen while hunting and he was clearly looking right at us. While we may have never heard such an odd sounding bull, he undoubtedly thought he had never seen such dumb hunters.
I set the trigger, pulled back the hammer shouldered the rifle in one motion. The sights settled behind his shoulder and............ he bolted. Up the hill and into the thick stuff.
That was the last elk that we saw that season.
Only problem was, the country was full of hunters but not so full of elk! We had made many forays into the the hills and valleys around us and had some fine conversations with other ML hunters and the occasional bow hunter. All reported the same experience; no elk seen and no elk heard. We had not heard a single bull serenade during the night which was highly unusual for this valley. They just weren't talking. We wondered if it was the crowds that had caused them to move further back and clam up or maybe it was just not time yet.
Just the previous weekend, while poking around hunting deer with an archery tag, I had jumped a nice bull a few hundred yards from the spot we were now camped in. He was a pretty bull with a nice five by five rack so you can see why this area seemed so attractive for the elk season.
Whatever, we found entertainment in shooting the occasional grouse, cooking up some fine camp meals and one afternoon helped a friend who was camped further up the valley pack out a cow moose he had taken with his muzzle loader. It was only a few hundred yards off the road and we managed to finish the job the job in only a few hours.
It was decided between myself and my grandson Andy that we would make a deeper push into the side of the valley. The hills are not very steep and there are wide gently sloping ridges between the small creeks coming off the steeper ridge several miles back. We figured if we got far enough back and up into the rough stuff we might find the missing elk.
So we began. It was easy going straight up the ridge. We walked through tall grass in the aspen stands and through the occasional small stand of lodge poles. Every now and then a deer would get up out of the tall grass and skedaddle but there was no sign of elk. As we climbed higher, the lodge poles became more predominant and the slope a bit steeper. Through the thick stand of lodge poles we could see something that did not fit in. We moved in slowly and quietly! It soon became apparent that we were creeping up on the wreckage of a plane crash. It had been there for years based on the size of the trees that had grown up amidst the broken up pieces of what had been a very small plane. Ya see the darndest things when out hunting!
The slope became steeper and steeper. The lodge poles thicker and thicker. We reached a point where we decided the best strategy would be to side hill along the steep slope and do some calling. Andy's tag was for a cow and mine for a bull so we were ready for anything. We moved along slowly and stopped for five or ten minutes every hundred yards or so to do some cow calling. We had not gone very far when the cow calls were answered by and odd single note half yelp and have bugle of a bull. We looked at each other wondering if it was indeed an elk or some other bird or animal.
One thing I have learned about elk is they don't always sound like the elk in the videos and many of them could never even place in the local elk bugling contest. The answering calls seemed more and more like a small bull and seemed to be coming toward us. I repeated the lonesome cow calls that had first brought the response from the bull and then we decided to move forward a little bit. We went about 50 yards and came up on a deep narrow gully and decided to back up a bit and hopefully the bull would come up out of the gully in front of us. We waited about ten minutes but heard and saw nothing.
As I scanned the thick lodgepoles surrounding us I heard a strange hissing sound behind me. I turned to see Andy pointing his finger across his stomach to the left and casting his eyes in the same direction while he urgently hissed “he's right there, he's right there”. I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw nothing but lodgepole trunks. I said “I don't see anything”. He answered with even more urgency “he's right there!”. I stepped back in his direction about five feet and looked up the hill through a narrow gap in the trees. He was indeed “right there”. A massive 6X6. As big as I've ever seen while hunting and he was clearly looking right at us. While we may have never heard such an odd sounding bull, he undoubtedly thought he had never seen such dumb hunters.
I set the trigger, pulled back the hammer shouldered the rifle in one motion. The sights settled behind his shoulder and............ he bolted. Up the hill and into the thick stuff.
That was the last elk that we saw that season.
