It’s great to be home! It was my first large animal hunting trip and I knew I would learn a lot. It’s the amazing experiences and company that I will remember! I now also have a lot of things to do…
Mike and Tim were great. I appreciate you guys not treating me like the Elk Noob that I was!
Even though we did not return with an Elk, we saw many bulls. I have GPS coordinates on a few! My iPhone did fail me however in unlocking fast enough. The three of us had spread out and were walking up a hill with the wind in our face, it was blowing pretty good. As I topped the hill there was a large juniper tree that provided some shade and I paused for a moment to listen. As I quietly went around the juniper and looked forward 15 yards in front of me I saw a giant bull elk looking to the side. It was a 6 or 7. He was sitting under a juniper tree that he had cleared out. It looked like he was sitting on a throne.
The picture, had I been able to take it, would have won some awards! I slowly and deliberately reached down for my iPhone X and tried to get it to unlock. As I did this the bull turned and we locked eyes for what seemed an eternity. I doubt that he was as impressed by my countenance as I was by his.
Had he decided to charge there would have been nothing I could do. Instead however he quickly got up and bolted away. I radioed Tim as he was running in Tim’s direction. Tim confirmed that he had eyes on the bull and he was quickly leaving the area.
I stood there stunned for a bit but stayed quiet as I was hoping the bull had some of his female friends around whom we had been looking for. I called a couple of times and received another angry reply from what was either a another elk or the bull who had returned. His call rang loudly in my ears and is definitely different than the synthetic calls elk calls that we were using – it contained irregularities and the sound of spit and fury. It’s definitely an experience I won’t forget!
We walked at least 5 miles a day looking for the antler-less Elk for which we had tags. We saw a lot of mule deer, javalina, coyote and cattle, lots of cattle. Since we were hunting on and extremely large and extremely active cattle ranch, they were everywhere.
The airstream performed very well. There are however a couple of items that will need to be addressed. We need some way to better monitor the level of propane when we are dry camping and a duel fuel generator with remote start would be very nice. I was very jealous of Mike and Tim and their rented toy hauler as it had the capability to remote start their Onan generator. I however had to get up in 30° weather, go outside and try to pull start convince my Chinese construction generator to start. It did however perform the function and I would’ve been worse off without it.
I will also be addressing some issues with weight distribution and towing, as we have a bit of a sag that has developed since my last suspension change on the F250.
On the very last evening of our hunt we were sitting on a watering hole called “Little Bud” and Mike and I were within close proximity. As it got closer to evening and we had no activity Mike decided to start calling for the elk. He did so without letting me know in advance and scared the living crap out of me by. He did it on purpose you can tell by the funny look on his face. I have not forgotten that and a few other “bumps”. Payback will be planned and fun!
In the middle of the hunt, on the weekend, the families came up to visit. Linda and our three puppies, Stephanie (Mikes bride), Sarah and Lauren (their daughters) and Shelbie and Michael all came up and spent a couple of days with us. We even celebrated Stephanie’s 50th birthday! Great times had by all!
Here are some other pics. I may add commentary to these later.
