2008 Elk Journal
8/30 Saturday
This year we had a full camp Drew, Big Ron, James, Kyle, Donovan and Caleb. It was a gorgeous day probably in the mid 70’s.
Woke up at 4:00 am, timing was just about right to make coffee and head down the hill to my favorite spot. I also had my climbing stand so I wanted to give myself plenty of time. Don’t think it was “plenty” but it was about right.
The morning started off pretty slow. Talked to the guys on the radio around 9:00-10:00 and nobody had seen anything, it wasn’t very encouraging. But by about 11:00 I had a cow, calf and a yearling come by, about 10-15 yrds.
Around 1:30 I saw a cow walking along the cliff line going away from me. I cow called a few times and remarkably she turned around and started angling back towards me. I cow called again right as she was coming out of the trees but a few steps before where I wanted her, I was also pulling my bow at this time. As luck would have it she stopped exactly where I wanted her and my arrow was on its way. I hit her exactly where I was aiming and it was a short and sweet tracking job.
From there the rest of the day was a lot of work. We got right to work and had everything skinned and hanging in the shade in an couple hours. About 4:00 I was headed out with a first load of meat, made it back to camp around 6:00. I took another trip and packed two quarters and it was brutal. The quarters weighed about 85 lbs, pack is around 7lbs, misc 5lbs. Pretty close to 100 lbs, ouch!
Great opening day.
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