Elk 2007

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    Here are some photos of the cow elk I killed on October 26, 2007.
    As the photos show, she was in the timber. Shot her at 10:30 and had her quartered and packed to the truck and loaded by 3:30.
    I was still-hunting through dense lodgepole pines. I spotted the butt of an elk with the binoculars through the trees at what I would guess was about 50 yards away. She was broadside to me, facing to my left. I tried to move left to see the front half -- but was only able to see the head through a small opening, she was standing perfectly still. Worried that if I could see her head, she could see me, I waited for her to move but I think she knew something was up -- but she clearly did not see me. She remained still as a statue. I really could only figure out what parts were what by using the binoculars. Seeing the head, I realised she was a cow, and then I was worried that others with her that I did not see might wind me or see me. Based on this, I moved back right so I could not see ehr head, and finially, I had a view of her front quarter through a very small opening in the trees. It was a tight shot through a 3" opening right by her. I settled the rifle onto the shooting sticks and squeezed the trigger. After being hit, head down, she slowly walked about 15 ft, then fell down and died. I was shooting the .270 caliber 140 Gr. Barnes X bullet handloads in a Winchester Model 70 rifle.
    The photos show the aftermath of the shot, the point in an elk hunt when the real work begins. I had a pair of pullies with me and some rope. But, as you can see from the photos, lodgepole pines have no branches. To get the pulley rigged up in the trees, I lashed a pole between two trees head-high and then climbed on top of that reachign up to lash the pully to the tree about nine feet up. Two pullies only gave me a 2:1 advantage and I still could not lift her. I had to skin her as I went. An elk hide probably weighs fourty or fifty pounds and I was able to lift each half and to separate the quarters and tie them to the cross bar I'd used to tie the pulley up high.
    The truck was less than half a mile away. In seperate trips I packed out the backstrap, tenderloins and heart -- each of the hind-quarters and then the two shoulders together. In this kind of dense timber, a GPS saves time in allowing you to walk straight to the vechicle without wandering around too much.
    See if you can find the Gray Jays phots 13, 14, 15 and 16. They showed up pretty quickly and enjoyed feasting on elk fat.

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