Elk Spotted!
At 4:41, I spotted Larry's truck parked on a distant ridge, far to the northwest. At the same time, I spotted an elk feeding in the brush just short of the closer ridge. It had a light body and dark neck, which Larry had said was indicative of a bull, but had no antlers. I'm now satisfied it was a cow. It was 250 to 300 yards away, upwind.

It fed, not moving much, for quite a while. I briefly spotted another elk with a dark body above it in thicker brush, but that one took a step or two and disappeared forever.

Then the cow decided there was something to the west that it didn't like, and moved back up the slope and out of sight, twenty-seven minutes after I'd spotted it.

Heading Out

Not long after that, Larry's truck hove into view at 5:17 PM. His plan was to get us out of there before dark, to avoid pushing the elk off the property. So I packed up and got in the truck, and we headed on out to fetch Bill and head for the camp.

Meanwhile, Bill had spotted two groups of elk on distant mountainsides, and they'd been coming down. Larry said those elk were coming from public land, where hunting had pressured them and caused them to head our way. We hoped they were making for our area and would be there for the next day's hunt.

On the way back to camp, we saw hundreds of mule deer - and I do mean hundreds. They were mostly feeding in the many wide-open fields we passed. We didn't try to count them, but on the following evening, we stopped counting at 325 muleys - and there weren't nearly as many then as there were on Saturday.

Back at camp, my headache was soon eased by a Goody's powder and some supper, and I was in the sack a little after 10:00. Not a bad day's hunt for my first day pursuing elk - I'd seen four elk and uncountable deer, and had some excitement anyhow.

Sunday

On Sunday morning, I was up and at 'em by 4:42. By 5:15, breakfast was over with. A few minutes later, we were ready to go - but we didn't. Fifty minutes after breakfast, we finally steamed on out of camp. Seemed like I could have gotten another hour or so of sleep, which I needed... but, no worries.

Thirty minutes after loading into the old rattly Ford, Larry parked it where he'd parked the previous morning, just before we'd seen the spike bull. From there, I hiked in - past the stand I'd hunted on Saturday, to stand number two. I had been directed to hunt there for the duration of the day, or until I shot something.

Can do!

Petting a Dead Elk for Luck

Larry accompanied me part of the way. Our route led us past a carcass of a cow elk that had been taken the previous week. He mentioned that one of his earlier hunters had petted this cow's ear for luck the following morning, and then had gotten an elk of his own. So, what the heck? I petted the cow's ear as we passed by.

It didn't help.

The wind blasted me as I walked, and shifted so that no matter which direction I walked, the wind was at my back. I held little hope of seeing anything on my way to the stand. At 8:30, a little more than an hour after leaving the truck, I arrived at stand two. I'd seen some deer, but no elk. There'd been some brief light rain, too.

Hating a Stand

Here's what I wrote in my notes about stand two soon after climbing into it: "It sucks." This was an understatement, and in the long miserable hours that followed, my dislike grew into enmity, ripened into rancor, and finally shrivelled into a black, wizened, wrinkly ball of hatred.

This stand had been built by sadists, dwarfs, or both. Every window was too low, especially the two facing the most likely direction elk would travel, so there was no way I could sit in the chair and see anything through those windows... yet there was no way to sit on the floor and look that way, either.

These were not the only reasons I despised the stand, but let's not dwell on that. Instead, we'll consider the west wind that hammered it. The way the wind stabbed through cracks in the stand and chilled my ears until I had to don a ski mask, and how the too-tight mask gave me a headache. The way I kept nodding off after losing that hour of sleep. The barking pack of dogs I heard to the southwest. And the fact that all I'd seen since getting into the stand had been one lone mule deer, many hundreds of yards away.

I'd seen the deer at 9:11. After that we had some rain, some sleet, and some snow - but not very much of any of it. No, the only thing we had a lot of was wind.

Caution: Elk Crossing

At 4:28, a dark red-brown elk galloped past my stand, straight downhill of me. It was a spike bull, all by himself. Naturally, I got excited - especially since I could hear some elk talk going on - but nothing I did would bring them out into view, not even when I used the borrowed Primos "Hoochie Mama" call.

Radio, the Muley Doe

I started packing up at 5:05. Larry came to fetch me and we rode on around to get Bill. On the way, we saw some mule deer bucks and a doe with her fawn. The doe was wearing a white collar with a long antenna on it. She seemed to have a sense of resignation regarding the radio collar.

On the way back to camp, not only did we count more than 300 deer as I mentioned earlier, we saw a group of 20 elk much closer to camp. It snowed a little at camp soon after we got there, but it didn't last.

By 9:34, I was stretched out in my nice warm bed, looking forward to whatever Monday would bring.

Monday

On Monday morning, I was up at 5:08 AM. We left camp at 6:42, and by 7:30 we had dropped Bill off near his stand and parked the truck in the same old spot. Larry and I slipped quietly in to stand four. I climbed in while Larry headed north to look around a little, as I sat watching and reflecting.

More Activity

This was to be a day of more active hunting. We would move often in an attempt to catch some elk slipping around someplace.

During the ride to the stands, Bill had spotted an elk on the edge of some thick woods, but it left quickly, probably spooked at the sound of his voice telling Larry to stop the truck so he could climb out to try to ID the animal. We'd also encountered a skunk in the dirt road, which thankfully decided not to fire at us. We were happy to return the favor!