{Elk}

Back in December, Dean went elk hunting with his brother D2 and his cousin T. I asked Dean to write down his experience so that I could post it. When he finally emailed me his story it was 5 pages long!! So in a nutshell, it was really cold, luckily they were staying in a cabin, he got his elk, got it butchered, and now we have a freezer full of meat!

Here is the part where he actually gets the elk:

"We spotted elk early, but were too far away to do anything about it, so I decided to move locations to get a better view of the situation. We finally got to a new spotting location and quickly found the elk again. We decided to get closer to them and see if we could get a shot. Our hopes were quickly dashed when about 1000 yards out many shots were fired by different hunters, none of whom we could see. But the shooting did push the elk our direction and so we gave chase running parallel with them, when the elk turned in front of us about 500 yards out. I took 6 shots, but was horribly off. Darren took a couple of shots, but too seemed to be horribly off.

As we trudged back to the truck, a mounted cowboy stated that we must have hit one because it was trailing behind the others as they traveled back into the juniper. We all got back into the truck and started off in the direction of the herd when we happened upon the straggling wounded elk stuck in a fence. I turned the truck broad side and Darren got out and had one decent shot at about 75 yards, but over shot (still using his gun). Tyler and Darren gave chase for about 10 minutes, but returned tired and annoyed that Darren was unable to get one.

We decided that it was time to get lunch, so we packed up and headed toward town when only about a mile down the highway Tyler spotted the herd bedding down under some juniper about a quarter mile in. I turned the truck around and drove to a turn off and we sat and watched them for a minute and as they did not seem to be in a hurry to scatter we decided to go after the herd.

I parked the truck behind a hill a few hundred yards from where we were currently, loaded our guns, jumped the highway fence and started up over the top of the hill. We spotted them and they spotted us, but their movements were too skittish so we decided to turn and get in front of them to have better shots. Darren and I went one way while Tyler went another, but just as soon as we split up the herd got a little restless and started to move. I had a decent shot through the junipers so I steadied and fired and missed, but it caused the herd to be confused and they turned around running back toward us. I shot a second time and hit a cow, Darren shot and missed, and Tyler shot and hit a cow.

The elk Tyler shot took a few steps and crashed, dead on arrival, but the one I shot just stopped. She was bleeding bad and though still standing was not moving very fast. We let the air clear and checked around where we were shooting to make sure that Darren had not hit one that had fallen behind a tree or something, but no such luck. Finally, the elk I shot laid down under a tree and I ended up having to shoot her in the head to finally kill her.

Tyler showed me how to gut and skill an elk, as it was the first time I had ever participated in such an event. Then we did his, which I have to admit was better than mine as I had an idea of what I was doing at that point. While we were finishing up, I heard a rumbling behind me and as I looked up a stamped of cattle was running right for us! I was a bit concerned as the cattle didn't seem to be stopping, but when I yelled, "Hee-yaw" they came to a sudden stop! They lingered there for about 20 minutes then dispersed when they realized we were not there to feed them."

Dean continued on for 4 more pages, but I will skip to the pictures!









{The rest of the pictures were too gruesome and bloody for public viewing!}

My Grandpa Ron was a butcher and used to have a shop in his backyard where he had a side business and would cut up elk, deer, etc. during hunting seasons. I remember going in there when he was working and seeing the animals hanging, getting ready to be cut up. He would also share elk meat with us too. So when Dean took the elk to the butcher, I new exactly what I wanted: summer sausage and jerky! (the good stuff!). Dean also got breakfast sausage, hamburger, steaks, roasts, etc. This past weekend, we went to Phoenix to pick up all the meat. It was a lot more than I had imagined. THREE ice chests full! We ended up buying a chest freezer to hold it all! Now that's what I call food storage!