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Just about anyone who goes tromping around through the woods has names for unique geographic features, sometimes corresponding with the official Forest Service or BLM names indicated on the associated maps. Where we typically hunt near Craig, we have names such as “The Notch, Notch Hill, Bert’s Folly, Shelf Road, The Fingers, the Burn Area” etc. Our 4th season elk hunt includes some of these names… I will include our names for these places in the story, and give a brief description for everyone else who may not be familiar with these terms.
The 4th Season elk hunt typically is a low-success hunt. One of us may get an elk during the 4th season, depending on the year, and the temperature/precipitation. If it has been warm weather and little snow in the high country, it means that the elk herds haven’t moved to the lower elevation feeding grounds yet. If you’re hunting in a lower elevation area (i.e., your hunt code on your license restricts you to a certain geographic area where there is no high-elevation land), your hunt might be a little tough. Sometimes early snowstorms will push a few herds off of the higher elevation areas, but often the elk come down in elevation, wait for the melt, and then go back up, much to the chagrin of the hunters. Other times the herds are pushed down by the snow, and they will hang around in the warmer, grass-laden low country and take their chances with less cover. Additionally, there are what are termed ‘local herds’ – these are herds that hang around in a certain area and don’t follow the migration path as their cousins. They hang around all-year in the rich vegetation and find cover wherever they can. However, these ‘local’ herds are still wary and hang around in the thick junipers or scrub-oak.
For our 4th Season hunt in Unit 3/301, the boundaries are on the east side at Highway 13 north out of Craig, and on the west side by Highway 40 and 318. My dad (David) and Jack drove up on Monday morning. The season started on Wednesday, however, we needed to find a camping spot. David and Jack had licenses both for 3/301, and, licenses for a Ranching for Wildlife program called Deakins Ranch. The RFW programs allow hunters to hunt on private land, and in exchange, the Colorado Division of Wildlife gives the ranch owners extra tags to sell for $$$$. Each morning the hunters need to check in to the ranch house before hunting, with check-in times at 5:30. Because our typical camping spot is a lot further away from the check-in sight, they were looking for another spot to camp a little closer.
Monday afternoon they found a spot about a mile from a cement-capped Uranium mine. Uranium used to be present in the area, in the tufaceous fluvial sandstones of the Miocene Browns Park Formation. Ore was taken from numerous open-pit mines on both sides of US Highway 40 and heap-leached, and the eluate was trucked to Wyoming for uranium recovery. Some of the pits are still open, and some of the areas have a cap with 10-feet thick cement covering it. They stopped mining in 1981; however, I would have liked to have had a Geiger counter to see if I would be glowing on my trip back. David called me and told me the location of the camp site, and I passed along directions to my other hunting buddies, Matt, Blake, and Mike.
Matt and I have been hunting together for about 5 years now, and he has recruited Blake, a 19-year-old who is the son of one of his wife’s friends. Matt had taken Blake hunting earlier this year, and, borrowing my 30.06, he got his first deer. This would be his first time elk hunting. Mike and I have hunted together since 2000, and, he has taken several deer and elk. Jack and David have been hunting together for probably around 25-30 years. Jack and David were on the same hunting trip when I got my first deer at age 14.
Mike arrived in camp on Tuesday afternoon, driving his dodge van and pulling his ATV in a trailer. The van sleeps four, albeit a little tightly. The four chairs up front combine to create two sleeping surfaces, and the back has a flat area where two grown men, sleeping head to foot in sleeping bags, can sleep comfortably (especially if there is 4 inches of memory-foam). Wednesday morning we checked in at Deakins ranch, and there were a bunch of pissed-off hunters in the parking area. I could only guess one-thing, and my suspicions were soon confirmed: there were no elk on the ranch. The guy we checked in with, Jim, said that we could drive around and familiarize ourselves with the ranch, and that we could wait and watch and listen (listen for what? Elk mating season was over – the only elk you might hear would be the thunder of their hooves running away from you). So, we drove to an area that was walk-in only. Mike and Jack went up one side of a draw, David and I walked up another side, where we saw a bunch of antelope and deer, but as Jim said, there were no elk. After driving to another corner to confirm, we checked out and drove back to camp for lunch. Lunch consisted of Vienna sausages in biscuits with mustard (Jack had a PB&J sandwich) and Tostitos with Salsa. Discussing our evening hunt plans, it was decided; we were going to ‘The Notch.’
The Notch is a road that was blasted out between a low point in a hill that ranges about three miles from north to south, and, maybe a half-mile wide at its widest point. The creation of the road, like the Panama Canal, allows traffic between a few key areas that one would otherwise have to travel a long way out of the way to access the surrounding country. We have successfully hunted elk here in times past, and it was our best shot that afternoon. We had heard reports that elk had crossed highway 13 in small herds earlier that week, but we would not have made it to that area long before nightfall. David and Jack hunted Notch Hill, and Mike and I took the Shelf Road over Bert’s Folly. The Notch road formation divides Notch Hill and the hill we call Bert’s Folly – where a fellow named Bert, about 10 years ago, had an opportunity to shoot an elk – all he had to do was wait for this string of 40-50 elk to walk right to him. David and I were watching from Notch Hill. Instead of waiting, in his nice rest in his ground blind to where the elk would have crossed at 50 yards, Bert stood up when the elk were 300 yards away and unloaded his magazine. No elk dropped, and they turned-tail and ran back the way they came. The Shelf Road cuts across Bert’s Folly, and in previous years, it was a scary road under perfect conditions (the road angled at a steep pitch, so that you were afraid the vehicle would just start rolling down the mountain). The forest service improved the road, so now it’s a ‘butt-clincher’ in perfect conditions, and scary when wet and snotty.
We happened upon a couple of guys on ATVs. I got out of the truck to talk with one of them, and he reported that there were elk in the area. There was a herd around his campsite the night before, and he had seen about 9 elk that day while driving around on his ATV. Good news! Mike and I thanked them and we continued up what seemed to be an ATV-only trail in my F150. There is nothing like going through low-hanging branches just waiting to reach out and scratch up the paint job. We pulled into a likely area, with a meadow and outlooks, and Mike took off to the north. I watched both sides of a ridge for elk movement until sundown. No elk were spotted, but, we were both hopeful. Not hearing any shots, we met David and Jack back at camp for chicken-and Rice-a-Roni dinner. Filled with good news, Mike, David, and Jack went to bed. I waited up for Matt and Blake to arrive. The lantern we set out in front of the camp is easily spotted going up the road to the camp, and it was the beacon that Mike, Matt, and I used to get us to camp in the dark. I told Matt and Blake the plan for the next day, and we went to sleep.
The next morning Mike woke up around 4:00 AM and started making bacon. He only brought 6 lbs worth, hardly enough... He made coffee, and then started cooking eggs. I contributed a bag of shredded-cheddar (I don’t really know what it was – it said ‘imitation cheddar’) and we pulled out of camp after getting our fill. Off to The Notch, Mike and Blake were going to start near the south end of Notch Hill and make their way to the top, and then come north. Matt and I drove to The Notch and parked, and walked south up the incline to the top. An ATV trail also goes across the top, and we followed it, stopping and looking down both sides where it was convenient. The land slopes away and provides excellent views. As Matt and I came around a bend in the trail, we see a bunch of hairy tan butts turn towards us and then the front ends ran down the hill. Elk! 30 feet away! And now they’re gone!
Matt and I race to where the herd ran down the hill. The junipers were thick – too thick to see through. We run further up the trail, with Matt in the lead. I come puffing up beside him. He says, ‘the elk are right down there, and you can hear them if you would quit breathing so hard!” I shut my trap and listened. Matt pointed, “There they are!” We saw two elk come out into a clearing. I said, “Let me get a range on them.” I pulled out my rangefinder, I was sure they were 300 – 400 yards away. I whisper to Matt, “228 yards” they were almost straight down hill. I had my Huskemaw optics set to 200 yards – I wasn’t going to mess with adjusting the drop-compensating turret the extra amount – it would only be a difference of about 1/8 of an inch, if that. In a kneeling position I lined up the crosshairs between the shoulder blades with my 7mm RUM Sendero. I waited about 1 second for Matt to shoot. No shot came, so I squeezed off a round using a 180 Grain Berger bullet.
KABOOM!
The shot pinned the elk to the ground, like how an entomologist would pin a butterfly to a foam board. Matt, recovering his senses after my 7mm Remington Ultra-Magnum went off next to his head, headed down the hill to try and find the other elk that was next to the one I shot. He told me he would meet me at my elk. I surveyed the area, looked for landmarks, and started down the hill. However, what I should have done is take a compass reading. The cover is so thick, and the topography so varied, that, you might start going down and think that you’re walking in the right direction, but it could lead you 100 yards or more to the left or right. Such was the case, and, I lost track of where I was and where the elk dropped. Matt and I maintained radio contact, and he found the field near where the elk was down, but, he couldn’t find the elk. As I was walking towards Matt (he blew his whistle a few times) I stumbled across my elk. I radioed him, and he found me. We then got in radio contact with Mike and Blake to let them know we had an elk down. They said they would go back to the truck to get the meat packs, and meet us at the animal. I checked the bottom of the animal – there was no exit wound. The bullet, based on the angle, went through the spine and shredded the heart and lungs.
Why didn’t Matt shoot? He was waiting for the perfect shot opportunity – he was waiting for the elk to turn broadside. He was also waiting, controlling his breathing, choosing the right moment, taking his time, lining up the crosshairs. I had already made the decision that I was going to take a shot as soon as I was ready, when I could put a bullet on the vitals so that the animal’s transition would be quick and painless, maximizing the damage to the heart and lungs so that it would be instantaneous. Matt’s decision to take a little more time to shoot wasn’t a bad decision. However, we probably could have communicated about who was going to shoot which elk, etc. I was unwilling, though, to let this opportunity to pass by waiting to decide who was shooting what and when, and let the elk slip out of sight.
After taking pictures, Matt and I started quartering the animal. Matt asked if I wanted to gut and drag it. No way. Even though we could have drug it down hill, it’s a lot of work to drag an animal of this size. Quartering was the way to go. Here’s a quick primer on quartering game:
1. Unzip (cut a line in the hide using a Wyoming-knife) the hide down the spinal column from the neck to the tail.
2. Cut a line down each leg on one side and circle the hide at the knee or elbow.
3. Remove enough skin from the shoulder/leg to remove it / + flank steaks
4. Remove the backstrap (like the filet mignon) down from the neck along the spinal column to the hip joint.
5. Continue cutting past the hip joint to the tailbone. Carefully remove all hide (except where attaching evidence of sex) and separate the meat from the hip up to the ball joint. Cut tenderloin where it passes through the hip bone and separate the ball joint and remove all remaining connective tissues.
6. Cut a line along the underside of the spine between the hip and the short ribs, all the way up to the long ribs. Push gut sack down and remove the tenderloin.
7. Flip animal and repeat steps 1-6.
After some communication and directional issues, Blake and Mike found their way over to us. Matt and Mike went back to the truck while Blake held the 1 remaining quarter as I sliced and diced. Something he said reminded me that I needed to remove the tenderloins (I’d forgotten up to that point). I finished just as Matt and Mike made it up the hill (driving the vehicle closer to where we were). We packed up the animal in the packs (all except one front quarter, which we carried by itself) back to Matt’s truck. He drove down a steep embankment to get within 300 yards of where the elk was, and on the way out, everyone got out of the vehicle as Matt drove back up the hill and launched over the edge. I guess none of us wanted to be in his meat-wagon in case he pulled another “Dukes of Hazzard” on us.
A victory lunch in Maybell was in order, and I needed to get more ice for the coolers. After lunch, we went back out to Notch Hill to try our luck again. Although Matt and I had seen two of the herd, the rest of the herd (about 9) ran to the southwest side of the area. I wasn’t sure if this was a local herd, or one that had migrated into the area. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though. I was willing to go back in with them as they hunted, and Mike carried my rifle (just in case a 1000-yard shot presented itself) – I’m always up for more hunting, even if I’m not able to shoot. We walked up the trail and made our way to the opposite side of the hill, along the mile-or-so long stretch, stopping at every opportunity to glass an area. Towards the back (the south end of the ATV trail across the top), we split up. Mike and I took one finger, Matt went further down the trail on another finger, and Blake took a third finger. Each finger angled down from the top and eventually formed a ridge line with narrow valleys in between. Mike and I picked a point on the edge of a finger before it dropped completely down into the basin below, and we had a good vantage point to see any movement on both sides.
After we set up, about a half-hour later, Blake broke radio silence. He indicated that he spooked a herd. Apparently what happened is that he walked down to a finger and started meandering through the junipers. He couldn’t quite find the place where he wanted to stop and watch for the evening hunt. So, he went through a few openings and then the smell of elk hit him, like he ran into a wall. He knew that he had distinguished that unique fragrance earlier – and so he started looking around. Then he saw the elk 50 feet in front of him. The elk quickly moved away. He put the scope on them, but, he had a hard time distinguishing which one was a cow, which one was a bull, etc., and then they went up and over the ridgeline. We heard a shot. Mike and I got up and moved down the trail towards where we assumed the youngest member of our party was hunting. We met up with Matt and Blake, estimated where the elk may have gone, and determined that no one from our group made the shot. We decided that it would be quicker to go back to the vehicles and drive around to the south side of Notch hill to intercept the herd.
Then the rain started and the sun went down. A hunter that had also heard the shot was driving just ahead of us, going exactly where we were going. I took a detour and we went down another road to get to the south edge of the hill. The wind started to blow hard, the rain came down harder, and visibility turned to just about 0 as the sky grew dark. That was it. No more hunting that day. We returned to camp and I heated up my elk green chili, made from my elk from last season. I gotta tell ya – I make some really good elk green chili. Or, should I say, the recipe followed when people make green chili with the elk that I shoot turns out really good. This particular batch I didn’t make myself – a couple of friends made it and I froze it. There was just enough for all of us, plus, Jack heated up some bratwurst. Jack’s stomach stages a revolt when it comes in contact with anything spicier than Lemon Pepper. The last time he ate my elk green chili, he ran out of Tums in the middle of the night. I didn’t take offense when he declined a bowl of green goodness.
The plan for the next day was to get up early and hit Notch Hill again. But, then, Matt had to go and check the weather report. *sigh* Winter Snow Storm Warning. Rain turning to Snow at Midnight. Accumulation 2-4 Inches. Snow throughout the day on Friday - 4-6 Inches. Snow throughout night until Saturday until noon – 4-6 Inches. A second Storm then comes in, around 6 PM Saturday night and snow continually until Monday. And sure enough, that night, around midnight, the rain turned to snow. Jack gout out of his tent to pee after he heard the rain stop hitting his tent, and promptly fell on his ass in the mud as snow came down upon him. The next morning Mike made some coffee in the van and then heated up water. He had originally tried to go over to the cook tent, but the zipper was stuck. I took the tea kettle over to the cook tent and poured the boiling water on the zipper to melt the ice, and unzipped it. I then fired up the coffee and beat the snow off of the roof of the tent, hearing it slide down the tent walls. The tent could have collapsed if much more snow accumulated on it. Cooking my antelope breakfast sausage, I could tell that because the antelope is so lean, the meat wouldn’t cook in its own heated fat content. So, I put in a quarter-pound of bacon to create a base. Then, after the sausages were done, I threw in another batch of bacon so I could cook the eggs. Matt took over the egg preparation and served it up.
During breakfast, based on the weather report, I told everyone my intention of leaving that day. It was easy for me to say – I already had my elk. I had to be back by Saturday night anyhow, for a commitment I had with Audrey on Sunday, and now I had to butcher an elk as well. Everyone else was scheduled to leave on Sunday. But, if it was going to snow as much as predicted, and our campsite was already being inundated with white flakes, it would be next to impossible to get to the areas where we like to hunt. The roads have a habit of turning to utter snot when wet. Plus, trying to get home going over either Rabbit Ears pass or Vail pass might be difficult. I’ve been stuck up there when they’ve closed both of those passes, and I had to get home via Tennessee pass through Leadville in thick falling snow. No thank you.
Everyone else decided that the best idea for them was to pack up camp and take off. I could see the disappointment in their faces. No hunter wants to admit defeat and go home early. Often I will hunt up to the last day, to the last hour, and drive home in the dark. Hunting season is a precious commodity. It is a limited time where hunters spend a lot of time and money preparing for those few days. We savor each little bit, each nuance. But, sometimes, we are defeated by conditions outside of our control. As it was, Mike’s van is 2-wheel drive, and he left first, with Matt following him in his black Dodge 2500 meat wagon. Getting down to the main road (US 40) wasn’t difficult, Matt said, but coming back up to camp, getting up those roads was a lesson in patience and being okay with having a loss of control. He slipped and slid back into camp. We packed up all the tents and equipment in about 2 hours, as the wet snow fell on and around us. We didn’t bother packing up everything neatly – just as long as everything got in the truck, or trailer, we were okay. It would be easier to sort it out later in the week when it was sunny outside.
Vail pass was another story – coming down from Craig to Meeker to Rifle. It took 2 hours to get over Vail pass – curiosity slowdown for three semi trucks that, even with chains, couldn’t get up the hill and were pulled off to the side. Eisenhower wasn’t bad. Going down the other side, though, I passed Mike. He was driving slow, taking it easy in his two-wheel drive van pulling his ATV – he didn’t take any chances. Mike had at least a two-hour head start on us – I’m glad he left as early as he did.
I hung the elk quarters in the garage, using a couple of gambrels. I’ve since deboned them and Matt and Mike came over to help butcher and package the meat. I had a total of around 90 lbs – but about 20 of that was grind/cat food (my parents know someone with a cat who can only eat wild game – all other food type is not digested and is thrown up). Portions of the meat will go to any member of the hunting party wanting some (Matt took about 20 lbs for him and Blake, Mike took about 13 lbs). I will divide it as equally as possible, and everyone gets backstrap, etc. I am elk hunting again in December and will need to save room in my two freezers for more elk, plus the bison meat from January. It’s a lucky thing that there is so many people who don’t mind helping me eat my elk meat!
Next hunt report: Late Season Elk 2009.
