By Larry Weishuhn
The opposite slope, three hundred yards distant was covered with elk! I quit counting at two hundred; cows, calves as well as spikes and a handful of small branch-antlered bulls. I quickly scanned the herd for a legal bull, one with at least five points on one side, the ranch’s rather than state requirement.
I spotted a monstrous bodied wapiti. The body appeared to be almost half again as big as all the other elk. Its head was obscured behind oak brush. I quickly adjusted my shooting stick, settled my .270 in its crux, found the elk in my scope, then waited for it to take a few steps forward to make certain it was a bull and he was indeed legal. I did not want to make a mistake!
It seemed to take forever for the elk to move a few steps forward. My variable scope was cranked up to its full nine-power. At hand was the moment I had been waiting for, for years, the taking my first elk! My breathing and heart rate increased as the elk started to move from behind the underbrush. I did my best to talk myself into being calm. But it did little good.
The elk finally cleared the oak brush. It indeed did have antlers, nearly four-feet long, extremely massive as in larger at the base than a basket ball, velvet covered spikes. I remembered one of the ranch cowboys telling me of a huge spike that had been seen on the ranch for the past eight years. I watched the “cactus bull” a full five minutes before again scanning the herd for a legal bull.
The rest of that day passed with seeing many more elk. I was hunting private land, outfitted by Richard Petrini with Tri-State Outfitting (now operated by Richard’s son, Bridger), which adjoined Colorado’s Rhoutt National Forest. When hunting pressure started on the National Forest, elk streamed onto the private land en masse. By night fall I had seen more elk than I have ever seen before in my life, including several ranch legal bulls. Unfortunately, all had been at a great distance within herds with too many eyes and noses to get within reasonable shooting distance.
That night around the campfire the other hunters in camp told of their day afield. Of the six hunters in camp, two had taken five by fives and one a small six by six. The other two, like me, had seen hundreds of elk, but had not gotten a shot.
My chance came four days into the hunt. I heard a bull bugle, then spotted what appeared to be an ancient five by five eight hundred yards away. He seemed to be content where he was. I took off at a run to cut the distance in half, and from there used every single bit of cover to get within two hundred yards. I slid in behind a rock which made a perfect rifle rest. There waited for the bull to turn broadside. When he did I let fly a 130-grain Hornady soft-point .270 Win. The bullet from my Remington Model 700 struck the elk precisely where I had aimed. The bull humped-up and stayed standing. I quickly put a second bullet into him a bit forward and below my first shot, creating a second wound channel. Before I could shoot him a third time he collapsed.
I could hardly believe it, I was now not only an elk hunter, I was a successful elk hunter!
At the bull’s side I said a prayer of thanks. Stood back to admire him, then took photos for the articles that had been assigned should I take my first bull elk. Photo done I gutted him and propped him open to cool. Marking a trail I headed back to camp for horses to pack him out.
That night I told my tale many times about the taking of my first elk. Although many years ago, the memories of that hunt flow back as if it happened this morning!
Over the years I have hunted elk many times with a variety of rifles and handguns (both single-shot and revolvers). That is where I usually started preparing my elk hunting strategy for the coming year, matching the proper round (caliber and Hornady bullet) to the gun I planned on using that particular year. I made certain I knew exactly where the bullet struck the target at varying distances and that its terminal performance was more than sufficient to bring down the biggest of elk, quickly and humanely.
About the same time, I began a training regimen that had me in at least decent shape to crawl up and down the elk mountains. For me that usually meant walking and carrying a pack starting out at twenty pounds. A month later I was packing at least a fifty-pounds. I not only walked flat land, but up and down bleachers at the local high school football stadium. Where I lived then and now only about four hundred feet above sea level on flat land, walking with a heavy pack seems to work best for me.
Getting in shape physically was and is possible, but getting in shape for higher elevations and the accompanying lack of oxygen was and is not. Years ago I consulted several physicians about what I could do to get in shape for the mountains. Heart and lung specialists explained no matter how good a physical shape I was in there was little I could do anything to get my lungs/circulatory system ready for the higher altitudes. “If you live only a bit above sea level, no matter what exercise you do, it’s still going to take a minimum of three to five days for your lungs and circulatory system to adapt to the lesser oxygen levels found at higher elevations. Only thing you can do, is arrive three to five days ahead of your hunt and get your body acclimated to the oxygen level where you’re going to be hunting!” Some times that was possible but most of the time it was not. So I learned to take it easy the first days of being at the higher elevations, and be sure to keep myself hydrated. I learned a valuable lesson early in my higher elevation hunting career, if you do not stay hydrated expect to have severe leg cramps. Too, I scheduled my hunts at the longest possible number of days.
Back when I first started elk hunting licenses and tags could be bought “across the counter”. These days, often prime areas for bigger bulls, you may have to apply for many years to draw a bull tag. But thankfully too, there are still units where you can simply buy an elk tag. Me, I have been really fortunate over the years to shoot some nice large antlered bulls with both rifle and handgun…I am not an archery hunter, but have nothing but respect for those who are. I love the aroma, nay perfume, of freshly burnt gunpowder shot at an animal!
As this fall approaches I am preparing for yet another elk hunt. I will have an opportunity to hunt elk, a management bull; meaning a mature bull with five points or less per side, or with misshaped rack on an Indian reservation in New Mexico.
My choice of firearms on this trip will be a Remington Model 700 in .300 Remington Ultra Mag, which I procured in 1998 while attending a Remington Writer Seminar back when I was on staff with “Shooting Times” as the Hunting Editor. During that fall, I used the rifle on an elk hunt in the Prophet/Muskwa region of British Columbia, Canada to take a really nice, a six by six bull elk. Four days later I shot a Rocky Mountain goat. These were the first animals taken with that caliber/round. I recently had a muzzlebrake installed on the rifle as well as replaced the factory trigger with a Timney trigger. It will be topped with a Trijicon AccuPoint 2.5x12.5X42 scope. For the hunt I will be shooting Hornady’s Precision Hunter 220-grain ELD-X. Two weeks before the hunt I will spend time on the famous FTW/SAAM www.ftwsaam.com rifle ranges with it. My hunt will be filmed by Safari Classics for an upcoming episode of “Trijicon’s World of Sports Afield” on Sportsmans Channel. I will also tell about it on my “DSC’s Campfires with Larry Weishuhn” (www.waypointtv.com/dscs-campfires).
What are you doing to get ready for elk season?
Now if you’ll excuse me I have got to do all in my power to try to get ready to walk the mountains!