Late season cow elk hunt.

[H&Hhunter]

In the unit my wife and I drew elk tags the season goes from October until the end of January. We didn’t have a chance to hunt elk this year until after Christmas. The first day we hunted we got on a herd of about 60 cows and blew the stalk, spooking them out at long range. We were treated to many elk that day including this bachelor group of rag horn bulls.


The following week we loaded up the horses and headed back into our unit. Murphy was in full force and we blew a trailer tire on the way down. But a blown tire wasn’t enough for Murphy so he threw in a tire iron malfunction, the socket end actually broke in half when I went to loosen the first lug nut. I wound up using a ratchet with a home made handle extension to change out the tire. After finding another tire in a nearby town I had it mounted, threw it in the bed of the truck and proceeded to camp almost three hours later than desired.

At camp we chunked some stuff into our camper grabbed some rifles and hauled the horses out to a high spot to unload. I glassed for a bit and was treated to a small herd of elk below in the flats. We saddled up and started towards them.

Heading out to the elk.

 

[H&Hhunter]

We’d ridden about a mile and a half when I looked up ahead of me and there were four mature cows standing in the open looking at us. They were about 300 yards out, I stopped, dismounted, unlimbered my custom M-70 in .300 Dakota and handed the reins to my wife. Not believing that these cows were just standing there looking at us, I calmly walked to a small rise and snapped on my Javalin bipod and went prone. When I did that the cows started to trot off I whistled and the cows stopped once again, I quickly ranged them at 485 yards, spun the CDS dial on my Leupold VX5 3-15 to 480, picked out a cow and squeezed the trigger. At the shot the cow went down on her front end, reared once and fell over dead.

The 180 Gr Barnes TTSX had taken her clean through the heart. I walked over to her and checked her, punched my tag and called my wife over with the horses. I snapped a quick picture of the cow with my prized custom .300 Dakota.



I watched the remaining three cows as my wife was headed over. They were standing 700 yards away looking back where my cow had fallen. As soon as my wife arrived I remounted and told her that we should be able to fill her tag too. We watched as the cows ambled over a rise out of sight then trotted over to them and what should have been a quick stalk turned into multiple failed stalks and took us about three miles from the downed cow. The sun was low in the western sky when we called it off and returned to the dead cow. I had my wife take the horses back to the truck with the plan of driving the truck to come collect the elk as we weren’t far off a road.

I quietly quartered the cow in the now dark and cool night when it occurred to me that my wife should have been back by now. Long story short she got the truck hung up in deep draw that was filled like ten feet deep in tumble weeds. She’d unhooked the trailer as the road was bad and had left the horses tied. Realizing that the Mrs. was over due I loaded up my pack and started walking back to the truck I found her calmly dealing with the hung up truck after about a mile. We were able to unstick the truck and found an alternate route to the elk. We loaded her up drove back to the horses re trailered and headed into camp for the night.

My wife just got a new iPhone 13 and took some really cool full moon night pictures of camp.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Day two started off with some drama. I awoke at about 04:30 and everything was great the horses were peacefully feeding in their pen. I went back to sleep until 06:00 and when I looked outside the horses were gone. No big deal they’ve got plenty of graze in camp and are probably close by. WRONG!!!

My wife quickly dressed and headed out to look for them as I fumbled to tie my boots. This camp site is pretty close to a highway. The camper door was flung open and my wife reported “ there are emergency vehicle’s with lights on at the camp entrance!”…

Thoughts of dead horses and crashed vehicles and other carnage immediately flooded my mind as I quickly grabbed a jacket and headed outside at a run. I jogged down the gravel road towards the camp entrance when I was met by a heart warming sight, my wife leading our two horses back to the pen. I continued over to the state trooper who was sitting at the camp entrance with her lights on blocking it so the horses couldn’t get back on the road. She told me that she’d got the call at about 05:30 when a driver almost hit the horses who were standing on the road. Later a local cowboy had helped her herd the horses back into the campground entrance. Fortunately nobody was injured, and the horses were fine as well. A massive disaster was averted.

We watched a beautiful moon set as we loaded up the horse trailer for the days hunt.

 

[H&Hhunter]

We went back to the area where we’d last seen the three cows the night before and did a five mile loop without any luck. We tied the horses had some lunch and decided to take a quick drive around before heading out in the horses again. It wasn’t long before we were looking at a massive herd of over 300 elk bedded in the midday heat. We watched them for a bit and decided to make a play. By this time they were up and headed into a nearby tree line. A quick look at OnX maps showed that in the next drainage over was a water hole and that they were probably headed there for a drink. We circled downwind and started angling towards to waterhole. After an hour or so we spotted a smaller group of elk in the trees at about 100 yards. By the time we got set up for the shot they had spooked and took off.

Knowing that chasing spooked elk never works out (see the above description of hunting spooked elk!) we left them and continued our walk towards the water. Another mile or so we were getting close and the hunting gods smiled upon us. We caught the elk filtering through the trees just getting ready to head to the water hole. We had the wind and they hadn’t seen us, they were about 200 yards away. Mrs. H&H rested her Steyr Scout on a set of standing sticks I was carrying and quickly sent a 165 Gr Nosler Accubond into a big cow.

The elk ambled off and went down in a short distance. We headed over and as we were approaching the cow jumped up and took off. The next time we saw her she was walking slowly away at 339yards out in the open flats. Mrs H&H went prone and knocked her down with the next shot. It took one more and the big cow was ready to be tagged and quartered.

Mrs. H&H with her cow.


As bonus it we were gifted with a spectacular moonrise on the drive home! 2021 season was in the bag and 2022 started off with a two elk in the freezer.

 

[Laphroaig]

Another great story. Thanks!

 

[e rex]

Great story and great hunt.

 

[Woodbridge]

Excellent write up. Glad to hear you'll have meat for the freezer!

 

[Robert]

Well done! You always have the best trips.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Well done! You always have the best trips.

Just the ones I write about.

 

[wvfarrier]

I drew a latw season cow tag in Pennsylvania but my wifes vacation got crapped on due to covid so poof.....there went all my points

 

[H&Hhunter]

I drew a latw season cow tag in Pennsylvania but my wifes vacation got crapped on due to covid so poof.....there went all my points

That’s awful!

 

[LoonWulf]

I drew a latw season cow tag in Pennsylvania but my wifes vacation got crapped on due to covid so poof.....there went all my points

thats a major bummer!


Thanks for sharing H&H, love those stories!

 

[Armored farmer]

Congrats Mr and Mrs H&H.
I'm glad the missing horses didn't become hood ornaments.
I truly enjoyed your post, as always.

 

[buck460XVR]

Congrats! Someone will be eating elk this winter!

 

[Larry in wyoming]

Great hunt and well written. I'm wondering if you feel the accubonds failed in any way?

 

[Robert]

Just the ones I write about.

Oof...

 

[md7]

Congrats on taking taking the game, and thank you for sharing your story. That’s a way of life and style of hunting I know so little about in the heavily wooded, and hilly, region of south Mississippi.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Great hunt and well written. I'm wondering if you feel the accubonds failed in any way?

Not in the slightest. The Mrs. first shot was hard quartering to us. She hit the cow just behind the shoulder and at that angle she only got one lung and the Accubond exited just forward of the off hip. The cow would have died right there if we would have backed off. But we rushed the situation and jumped her.

 

[jmr40]

Other than the horses getting out you make elk hunting look easy.

And the weather seems unseasonably warm for Colorado this time of year.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Other than the horses getting out you make elk hunting look easy.

And the weather seems unseasonably warm for Colorado this time of year.

I wish all elk hunts went as smooth and easy as this one did. And yes it’s incredibly warm and dry for this time of the year in Colorado. It was over 60 degrees during the day which is pretty much unheard of in January.

 

[Captcurt]

Kinda spooky when the horses stray. I have a friend who hunts the Raggeds Wilderness and packs in on mules. They left one mule, Becky, in camp and took the others to pack out an elk. Becky didn't like being alone so she got out of the corral and went 6 miles back to the truck. Noone at the truck, so she went out to the highway. Ron had to look 2 days and finally called the sheriff's offices in 2 counties. Someone had caught Becky, notified the sheriff's office, and had taken care of her.