All the worry about long range and caliber selection was a moot point. The first day of hunting, I didn't see a single elk. The next morning it was suggested that I try an area where a fellow hunter with a cow tag had seen some bulls.
The second morning I was on a large rockpile with binocs, glassing a huge area of native grass when I spotted a buffalo about as far as I could see. Not sure how far they were. My rangefinder works out to 600 yards and it was drawing a blank. A few minutes later as the sun was coming up, I could see a couple bulls in the same area grazing, so I grabbed my gear, climbed off the rocks and started my stalk. I was able to crawl the last little bit and get into a small cedar/oak thicket in front of the elk without them seeing me. All I could do now was wait till they grazed closer. I was shooting the Winchester 70 that I'd practiced with all summer, in .270 Win. I picked out the best one of the group and waited until he was as close as he was going to get, turned out to be 135 yards. My nerves had mostly settled by this point, so I put the crosshairs where I thought they should be and squeezed off a round.
The one constant that people told me about elk was "Shoot until they're down or until you run out of bullets" I actually had this in mind when I squeezed off my first shot.
At the first shot, the bull went straight down like he was hit by lightening. For a split second, I thought "man this was easy.!", as I worked the bolt to clear the empty and chamber a fresh one. Not a second went by when I noticed the bull getting back up, that's when I started getting nervous. As quickly as I could I put the cross hairs on a spot on his neck and gave him a second bullet, this time he went down and didn't get back up. When I made it to him, he was still alive and moving his head a bit, so I gave him another to end the suffering.
It took a few minutes for everything to sink in, what a marvelous animal. I wasn't prepared for what I was feeling at taking such a fine animal. I just had to stand there for a while and soak it all in.
This is what he looked like where he fell, he was a 5x5.
One thing that you guys didn't prepare me for was the gut-pile.....
I couldn't believe the size of the gut-pile on these animals.
Luckily, I was in a good spot and the National Parks guys were able to drive pretty close. We were able to load the bull whole into their truck to take back to the check in station. We didn't have to cut it up and pack it out like I thought I'd have to. They aged him at 5.5 years old.
Once he was checked in, we got him strung up and my cousin and I commenced on our first attempt at elk skinning/quartering/processing. Another thing that everyone told me to do was get the hide off quick. Now I know why. That hide was like an electric blanket. There's no way that meat would have cooled with the hide on.
We continued processing and tried to take everything that was edible. We wanted to take everything we could and not leave a thing.
When we started cutting the meat off, it became apparent why the bull dropped so fast on the first shot. I made a rookie mistake that might have cost me the animal if I hadn't had the 2nd shot ready when the bull popped back up.
Somehow, I managed to send my first shot high and missed the vitals. The first bullet hit the top portion of the vertebra above the spine, which explains why he dropped so suddenly. You can see in the photo that the backbone makes sort of a dorsal fin on the top of the spinal cord. Well, I blew a hole thru that and made a probably less than lethal wound. The second shot went in the neck, taking out the lungs and out the ribcage. I am so glad I was able to place a proper second shot and can't believe I missed the first one so badly.
The 130 gr TSX that I used preformed just like it was supposed to. I found one while skinning him out. I don't think I could ask for better bullet performance.
Well that about wraps it up. He's processed and in the freezer and he'll feed us thru the remainder of the winter. It took me 19 years to get drawn, but was worth the wait.
Someday I hope to take a proper elk hunt with horses, tents and such. But until then, this one will do.
Just one of those things.
