OUTDOOR

BY DAVE BECK

Last week I had a hard time condensing into one column the hiking, camping and sight-seeing from my Colorado trip._ This week I’m supposed to do the same with the hunting but the challenge will be more difficult in that we dealt with a lot of elk._Every day we were into elk and to prove that point, during the course of the eight-day hunt I had 12 bull elk within archery range. In terms of elk seen and heard, this was the best hunt I have ever been on.

The action started immediately on the first morning. In the first hour of the first hunt, I had a bull at 50 yards. If he would have been a little bigger and maybe a little closer, I would have given more thought to a shot. Because this was an area that I had waited 12 years to hunt, being done early was not something I was interested in doing._ I wanted to get my money’s worth._ The second day was even more exciting._When the day broke, I found myself surrounded by 100 or so elk. I couldn’t believe that they didn’t pick up my scent and blow off the mountain._The first bull that walked by me was a young legal bull._He was only 40 yards away and he was followed by three more bulls._They were also within archery range and they were all bigger than the first. It was easy to restrain myself from shooting because coming along on the same trail was the herd bull._ How big was he? He was so big that he would have fit right in with all of the huge elk mounts at Cabela’s.

I took stock of the situation and decided that my chances were less than 50/50 at getting a shot at the bruiser._I also figured that I would probably never be in the position again, in my lifetime, and it was worth the chance to get a shot at a world class bull._ When he briskly walked past me, he was absolutely covered up with cows._ He must have been surrounded by 20 cow elk._Even though I didn’t get the shot, I walked away with a smile having seen such a huge herd of elk from such close vantage point.

The action remained constant throughout the week and I had several showdowns with bulls but for one reason or another, I was just never able to close the deal. Normally I would have been a little frustrated by that but this year I wasn’t hunting where I had on previous hunts._I was hunting a trophy- managed area and I had waited 12 years for this chance._Even as I went out on the last afternoon on the last day of the hunt, I still had high hopes.

As the hunt dwindled down it was easy not to get disappointed because bulls were bugling close by when all of the sudden there he was._A bull walked out from behind a pine tree and stood 45 yards away._I waited patiently, knowing there was nothing I could do unless he turned away from me._ Wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what he did. For the briefest of moments everything was turning up DAVE. Well, it did, for a second. _As I drew my bow back, I alerted two cows that I never knew were behind me and in turn they caused the bull to bolt. That was that.

I thought my season was over when another bull bugled below me and he was close. The second last chance bull of the night came in downwind and got to 30 yards before the light breeze gave me up._I never even got to the point where I could draw my bow._He bolted, taking with him my dreams of bagging a bull on this trip.

As the last minutes of legal shooting were about to expire, I was convinced that my hunt was over when low and behold, a third last chance elk showed up. No, it wasn’t a trophy bull, it was a cow that was offering me a last second chance at tagging an elk and bringing home some meat._ I’ll say this about bagging a cow elk during the last minutes of the hunt: Neither my freezer nor my grill can tell the difference between a cow and a bull.

Photo by Dave Beck