A few days ago I received a license to hunt antlerless elk in the third regular season which begins Nov. 2.  Thinking about going hunting brought to mind one of the most fun elk hunts in my life.

This event took place in the middle of the summer of 1988 while I was employed by the Saguache Park Grazing Assn. My job was to keep the fences mended and the water lines running. This grazing allotment is divided into 3 separate pastures and the cattle are rotated periodically to prevent over grazing. As I was checking fences in pasture #4, I remembered that I hadn’t closed a certain gate on the north fence line. The wind was blowing hard out of the west as I drove my old 1950 Jeep up to the gate.

As I was heading back toward the cow camp I saw a cow elk in the scattered timber ahead. Since she had not seen me, I shut the motor off and was watching her when she suddenly layed down. I decided that it would be fun to see how close I could get to the old gal, ‘cause the wind was in my favor.

I started walking toward her, making sure to keep a small tree between us. I hadn’t gone far when she got up and started feeding. Whenever she was feeding away from me, I worked my way toward her making sure to have cover of some kind between us. Again she layed down - so I kept creeping up on her. By this time, I was down on my hands and knees and maybe within 40 yards. About that time, she got on her feet again and I just froze where I was. The cow took a few more steps away from me and then layed down again.

After a little while, I eased closer  in the tall grass I couldn’t see an elk, but I knew she had to be real near. While I was laying there wondering what to do next, a calf got up not more than 12 feet in front of me. While it stood there stretching, it looked right at me laying there on the ground. After a short while, the little guy decided to lay down again. Almost immediately another calf got up and did the same thing except this one didn’t look in my direction. Pretty soon he also layed down again, to get out of the wind.

At about this time, I began hearing grunting and moaning sounds all around me.

After what seemed like several minutes, I decided that if I let out a loud whistle, there would be an explosion of elk. So here goes and guess what? Elk just leisurely started getting up, all over the place. After they were all on their feet, I’m sure I saw 12 or 15 before they made it to the heavy timber. A spike in the velvet was the nearest to me and had been babysitting four calves. I didn’t have much time to look - but didn’t see any other bulls.

That was fun!