Justin
Moderator Emeritus
The location for the hunt was down around the Great Sand Dune National Park here in Colorado.
Without a doubt, some of the prettiest country I've ever seen in a whole state full of places that make anyone with an instamatic want to be Ansel Adams.
Day 1:
We hauled out to a nearby area where the ground was predominantly sand and giant rocks, and was a transitional area from prairie grassland to gorgeous forests of pinon pines. Within ten minutes of leaving the truck, I found out that Gore Tex pants and jackets make a ridiculous amount of sound. I was taught the basics of tracking; look for footprints and fresh poop. Footprints of all sorts criss-crossed this area. Elk, deer, birds, and even some cats that I would describe as QUITE LARGE. Still, we didn't see anything. And my loud pants would have scared them off anyway.
Day 2:
We head out to another area. It turns out that the place has a bunch of hunters already in there, but no worries. We split up into small groups, drive until the dirt roads turn into off-road Jeep trails, and stop when they peter out into unpassable piles of rock and timber. The girl and I hike way back into the woods, looking for fresh signs of elk. We cross over a bunch of giant hills, out to where there is basically no sign of human life. Very peaceful and beautiful. I snapped a few pictures. On the way back, the girl swears up and down she can smell an elk nearby. Doing my best impersonation of Daniel Boone, I sneak around for a bit and see nothing. We head back to camp and hang out.
After lunch, etc. we head out (over the rockiest frickin' "road" I've ever ridden on) to another area where the hunt involves each of us sitting on our own outcrop of rock on the side of a mountain. Oddly enough, you spend enough time sitting there, and you start to be able to differentiate various areas from one another. Stands of trees make their mark. Rock outcroppings. Oddly-shaped areas of grass. Oh, and while sitting on the side of a mountain, you just can't beat the sunsets. God, it's like having your optic nerve scrambled with an egg beater of sheer beauty. Still. No elk.
Upon returning to camp, we learn that not only are we not the only predator on the mountain, but we're not likely to be the apex predator. One of our party came over a hill only to run face-to-snout into a mountain lion. Evidently there was surprise on both ends, and they parted ways at maximum speed.
Back to camp for dinner, fire, smoke, and hanging out.
Day 3:
Back to the forest of pinon pines. It turns out that the property adjacent to the public land we're hunting on is a huge privately owned area. Of course, scanning this property from the road shows that there are huge herds (200+) of elk hanging out on it. This leads to the following lines of thought:
1) Elk have an uncanny ability to understand property rights, and know that they're generally safer on private land.
2) Elk have the ability to cloak themselves, much like a Romulan Bird of Prey, and opt to do so when traversing public lands.
Go figure, right?
Still. We see no elk on public land. At least we've established that elk are not in the same category one would place unicorns, The Loch Ness Monster, or El Tejon's AUG-toting PumaBears.
We head back for lunch.
After lunch, we head back to sit on the side of the mountain again. Lots of sitting. Evidently hunting generally consists of going outside somewhere, sitting down, and waiting for Mother Nature to roll a 20 sided die to determine what, if any, random encounter you will have. Usually none. I suspect that's how nature works: bore some poor creature almost to death, and then send a predator to go pounce on it and finish the game.
Day 4 (This morning):
By this point we're just kind of going through the motions. We were all pretty sure we'd be skunked. Regardless, we get up and head out anyway. (I scored what I hope will turn out to be some excellent photos of the mountains just before the sun rose behind them.) Our group splits up, with four in one, and three in the other (this was the group I was in.) Shortly after pulling into the hunting area, we saw a herd of about thirty elk. On public land.
HOLY COW.
Two of us sneak out of the Jeep and move forward about four hundred yards, getting within about 250 yards of the herd. The other guy, who's an experienced hunter, was excellent enough to give me the first shot. I lined up the shot, and really, after settling the crosshairs on the broadside of one of the animals, everything was pretty much a blank up to the point where I went running off to gather up the rest of the group. However, the other guy with me also got one.
When all was said and done, we'd gotten two of them, both clean shots with a minimum of suffering. (This had been my biggest fear from the start.)
The elk were field dressed, and loaded on a truck to be taken back for processing by one of our party who had formerly worked in a slaughterhouse.
I won't lie: After the shooting ended, what was left was pretty unpleasant. Certainly not for the squeamish. However, it was a blunt object lesson in demonstrating that meat doesn't come from a little styrofoam container. But I can't help but take a certain amount of pride in the fact that I was able to take such a hands-on experience in what will no doubt be a large number of the meals I'll be eating in the next year.
The two elk will be evenly split, and I think this will work out to somewhere just shy of a hundred pounds of meat per person. Until I was within touching distance of one, I had no idea how HUGE these animals are. They're the size of a horse. What's all the more amazing is just how silently they can move and how quickly they can just sort of up and vanish.
I am grateful to those of you who inspired me to undertake this venture, and those who's advice has been indispensable, including Art Eatman, Larry Ashcraft, H&H Hunter, and others who I cannot name right at the moment, but who's contributions here were very helpful in selecting gear and preparing for this trip.
*I should mention at this point that even though I'm a city-dwelling artsy type, I count among my friends more than a few rednecks. Who needs aspirations of urbane pretension when you actually know how to do useful and manly stuff like run a TIG welder or replace a transmission?
