My Elk Hunting Trip

I have returned from my grand hunting trip. My father took lots of video, my bothers and I took lots of snapshots.

We finally got on the road around 5:00 p.m. (Berg's aren't noted as early starters on trips.) We headed out in two cars: my brother Steve's (yet to be named, later this trip) GMC 4x4, and daddy's big comfy Lincoln. Dad was headed off to the Midwest after the hunting trip, so we needed two vehicles. Mark was planning to fly back, but we needed to bring a burly truck to haul home all the meat we were planning on.

The first problem of the trip occurred in Nevada, the first night. After we had finished dinner, Steve noticed that the interior lights on his truck were acting up. We fussed with them for a while, but had no luck fixing them. When started to head out, dad got on the CB (citizen's band radio) to let us know that we didn't have any rear lights. We certainly aren't going back to THAT restaurant. It's pretty obvious that they have people prowling around their parking lot to re-wire the light switches of GMC Stepside pickups. (At least it seemed pretty obvious at the time.) We drove that night with no taillights, with Mark and dad following.

The next day, we stopped at a shop to get the lights checked out. When Steve suggested the evil-vandal-rewiring-the truck's-lighting-system idea, she mentioned that they hadn't been having much of a problem with that. Steve was willing to concede that there might be some other explanation, so he checked with the shop mechanic. HE thought it was more likely that a fuse had blown, and that power was bleeding back to the interior truck lights. Sure enough! The vandals had taken the EASY route. (...or I suppose there may not have been a plot at all... it's so tough to be sure these days.)

At the Snake River in Idaho, we started getting out our toys. Mark was using his new laser range finder to check how far away everything was, and I was playing with my huge 60x binoculars. (There is an amazing amount of wiggle in your hands, if you're looking through binoculars at 60x magnification.)

The next day we made it to Yellowstone National Park. We all got out to walk around the geysers. We saw LOTS of trees growing back after the big fires they had there recently. Steve and I hiked on down to where you can see Yellowstone Falls too. Quite a hike, if you don't want to stop and rest. (Resting isn't allowed when you're hiking with your brother... it's a sign of weakness.)

The next day we arrived at the game ranch.

Since none of us is a particularly skilled hunter, it seemed best to go on a hunt where there would be guides to help us find the game animals. At the Judith River Ranch, they raise elk, and release them into a pen that covers several thousand acres.

The next morning we were up at around 5:30a.m. so we could get out hunting while it was still cold. By about 10:00 the animals apparently start looking for shade to lay down in. An elk is hard enough to find in the woods if he's standing up and moving around some. Laying down under a tree, they blend in that much better. When we got upstairs to where breakfast was getting ready, we got to see an elk bull OUTSIDE the pen trying to get INSIDE to breed with the does inside. Quite a show. Two 800- 1200 lb. animals with horns can make a mess of a fence.

We headed on out in ranch's Suburban and soon saw our first elk in the hunting part of the ranch. Each of the animals on the ranch had a price, and we had picked some animals with less spectacular antlers to help hold down the price of the hunt a little. We went a bit farther and saw a few more elk bulls. This was seeming pretty easy, but still not the animals we were after. A bit farther, and the guides thought they had spotted one of the animals we were after. We broke up the hunting party to see if we couldn't find the bull, and get close enough to get a shot at it. (Anyone who has done any shooting, can tell you that 200 yards is getting to be a pretty long shot.) We started hiking up a couple different ridges. Lynn (my guide at the time) spotted the elk we were following about 150 yards off in a small clearing. Not too bad a distance for a shot, but the elk was looking staight towards us, and wouldn't turn away from me to expose his shoulder. If I had taken the shot, I would have ruined a lot of meat. It was also quite a way from anywhere we could get the 4x4. We would have had to cut the animal into pieces to carry it out. Lynn decided to get the animal to move off, and we'd try to find it a bit later. The animal moved off toward Steve and Wayne (Steve's guide). This turned out to be a fatal mistake. The elk paused near the road. Steve went down to his knee to steady his shot, and the next thing you know, we're taking pictures of Steve's trophy.

Mark's elk was in another part of the ranch. Not quite as rugged, and with less terrain that couldn't be reach by 4x4. We got there after it had warmed up quite a bit. We saw the elk from about 250 yards off. It didn't seem too alarmed to see the ranch Suburban drive by, and just stayed in the shade to see what we'd do. After an extended break to get some pictures, Mark started moving up a ridge out of sight of the elk. The elk stayed focused on us about 250 yards away, and never saw Mark setting up a bipod about a hundred yards behind it. Two down.

We did quite a bit more hiking trying to find the other elk that we had come for. We were considering changing my hunt to get a yak, because the third elk was turning out to be a bit too elusive. Yaks are supposed to be quite tasty, but there aren't nearly as hard to track, as an elk. They really aren't much more tricky than cows, only a lot tougher to kill. (The guides said they've seen a yak take 4 shots from a .338 Winchester Magnum and still be standing for a while.) After quite a bit of fruitless hunting (It was starting to seem a lot more like the hunting that I'm used to. Lots of hiking carrying a gun, no shooting.), we came across four elk in a meadow. They were about 150 yards off we figured. There wasn't much light left. It was pushing on towards dusk. There wasn't any way to circle these elk. They were already up and milling around, trying to decide what to do about us. I decided to take the shot. I laid down in the road to take a shot from a prone position. I had my rifle zeroed for a 300 yard shot so I held low on the elk's shoulder and fired. He stumbled a bit, then came tumbling down the hill. He came to rest, upside down, with his antlers stuck in the ground like a tripod. When we gutted him, we found that I'd broken a rib on both sides of my elk, and torn open the heart. By the time we had him dressed out, packed him into town (where the meat was boned and wrapped), and got back to the ranch it was quite late.

The next couple days we spent fishing and target shooting. A twelve ounce soda can isn't safe at 400 yards if my brother Steve or I get a chance to set up a bipod rest for our .300 Weatherby Magnums. We got a chance to take Steve's truck out on the ranch, and checked the range on my shot. It turned out to be 260 yards! It's a good thing that a .300 Wby is a flat shooting cartridge. We sure had misjudged the range of my shot!

We packed the meat with dry ice, and headed home. The trip home was relatively uneventful, until we got to the CA border. At the California border, there is an agricultural check point.
"Do you have any fruits or vegetables?"
"No." we replied.
"Do you have any dead animals?"
"Yes!"
"Eeeeeew! Really?"
"Yep! Three dead elk."
"Eeeeeeeeeeew! Really? I was afraid you were going to say that! I'm a vegetarian. I HATE when these slaughter trucks come though."
...and that's how Steve's truck got named "The Slaughter Truck". :-)

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