ELK DOWN!

It seems like a very long time ago since I was writing an entry for this blog, but it was actually less than a week.  That would be a week with a LOT of driving, like a couple thousand klicks I think.  And some brain cells have been declared MIA in that time frame, mostly somewhere in white-knuckle territory along some very hairy roads and goat-trails.

So if memory serves me, it was day three of our hunt and we got a good early start, leaving the camp in pre-dawn darkness with a very frosty windshield on the side-by-side ATV.  We had seen some elk sign the previous day up a mountain some ten or twelve hard kilometres distant from the camp, and so returned to that spot.  Don and Dan were glassing the deep valley below us and we were about to head out for greener pastures when Dan spotted a couple elk, and one of them had antlers!  We walked up a trail to a better vantage point, where Don and Dan again had a look at the elk.  After several minutes, Don decided it was a legal elk, in that he had at least six points on one side.  I had not seen the bull first nor last, but was offered the chance to take a shot at him.

This was the moment I had been hoping for since a long time ago.  I cranked the scope to its maximum magnification of eight power and peered down the mountain to sight the bull.  Nada.  “He’s below that,” said Dan and so I pointed my rifle just about straight down and finally found the bull in my crosshairs at about 250 yards.  I could see part of his right front quarter, certainly enough for a shot, so released the safety, took the suggested aim at the top of his back, and fired.

I missed.  I know very well that shooting downhill I should have aimed LOW, not high, but in the excitement I took the advice being offered, and for sure shot right over the bull’s back, and then he was gone.  It was not one of my happier hunting moments.  In the meantime, Dan had worked his way up the trail above me, and luckily the bull headed in that direction.  Dan got down on his belly, set up his bipod, and took three shots at the bull.  Fortunately, the last one connected and the bull went down.  I was assigned sentry duty to keep an eye on the bull and guide Dan up the trail until he was above the bull, and then down the mountain until he could see the bull himself.

So this was fairly early morning, perhaps 0730, and we had a very challenging retrieve ahead of us.  We put down a two hundred foot climbing rope in the general direction of the bull, sent Glenn down with his rifle as grizzly bear over-watch, and told Dan that Don and I would return to camp for equipment and the truck while he field-dressed the elk.  Glenn is a very accomplished mountain climber and later recounted how he had rappelled down the rope, and at the end was still well above the elk...........

Don and I returned to the camp, where we retrieved his heavy duty truck, a chainsaw winch with 150 feet of cable, more ropes, anchors, carabiners and other equipment, then returned to the mountain where we had left Glenn and Don some time before.  Dan climbed back up the mountain to fetch the winch cable, while Glenn rigged the elk carcass for winching.  Some time later Glenn got back up to the top, where he was very glad to be off that very nasty and debris-covered slope.  He estimated the grade at over seventy degrees, more like eighty in spots, basically straight uphill.

Now a chainsaw winch consists of a heavy duty power head with a winch attachment instead of a bar and chain.  One anchors the rig to a substantial object, fires up the motor, and in theory winches the load up the hill. 







Let’s just say that we had a LOT of equipment failures and issues, and by the time we finally had the carcass up to the trail it was late afternoon and there were flies on the meat.  This is officially called A Very Bad Thing since it is always the hope that one will EAT the elk meat, which is delicious!



 




 




 Hours later we had the four quarters skinned and hanging in Don’s home-made refrigeration unit, which is the front part of his twenty-foot trailer and which he had hauled in to camp when we arrived there several days before.  The cooling unit consists of a window-style air conditioner wired with a gizmo that tricks the AC unit into thinking it is much hotter than it is and so the AC unit runs full-time.  This of course takes power, and so we fired up the 6500 watt gasoline-powered generator to run the reefer.  As a very nice side effect, it also provided power so I could run an electric heater in my camper and ward off the night chill!

The next morning Dan and Glenn took it easy while Don and I departed in search of a second bull.  We did find one, a magnificent animal that was probably a 7 x 7, but across the valley on the opposite side of the river from us.  That afternoon, Don and Dan set off in pursuit of the bull, leaving Glenn and I to our own devices.  And for reasons that are now less than clear, I decided that we might make our way down to Cranbrook in my rig to buy some provisions and to give me a chance to meet a fellow firearms enthusiast.  So we shook and rattled our way down the mountain and out to civilization, did our re-provisioning, and I did finally meet Bruce aka HunterHenderson from Gun Nutz.  We had a lovely visit, then it was back up the mountain pitching and yawing like a boat tossed in heavy seas and back to camp.  Once there I noticed that one of the rear turnbuckles holding the camper to the truck was in danger of parting company with the rig, and thankfully was able to rectify this situation before the camper parted company with the rig.  That would also be A Very Bad Thing.

We had another day of hunting, during which Don and I stumbled into the path of a very large grizzly bear in country that would have favoured the attacker.  Fortunately we were able to make a tactical withdrawal, and in some haste I might add.  When we returned to the camp, the interior temperature in the refrigeration unit was edging up into meat spoilage territory, we were almost out of gas to run the generator, and I suggested we end the hunt a day early, and on a high note.  So it was that we broke camp the next morning and finally got back to Logan Lake sometime after supper.  That was several days ago, many kilometres ago, and this is enough typing for this entry.

Until next time, keep yer stick on the ice.  Whatever that means.

Doug