This will surely go down as one of my most memorable hunt, you'll see why in a minute.
My partner and I met at our usual spot to unload and saddle up the horses. We had decided to not bring a pack horse or even a lunch for that matter. After all, we were only going after a WT buck. We were on the trail late, 7:00am, we like to hit the trail in the dark, but had gotten a bit lazy lately. By 8:00am we were on a high ridge dodging a stupidly crazy wind. The weatherman had warned that this would persist all day. After glassing for a couple of minutes, we spot two separate herds on adjoining slopes about 2.5 miles away. We estimate 60 in one herd and 40 in the other.
Forgetting to process any sensible thaught about our prepardness, or lack of it, we decide to high tail it into the high country and at least check out the herds. It took an hour and a half to get within 1/4 mile of them. We travelled low country, crossing frozen creeks, staying out of sight catching the odd glimpse just to make sure they hadn't travelled westward as elk usually do. Bonus, now the majority are no longer feeding but have bedded down.
We had to find a safe spot to tie the horses up, the wind was bucking huge pines so hard that the ground was heaving upward. After safely tying up, we made our stock, circling around to keep the wind to our face. As we came to the edge of the aspens that surround the clearing in which they were bedded, we could see them in plain view. We got down on all four and closed the gap another 50 yards. We then crawled another 30 or so on our bellies to spot and count spikes. To our amazement, we weren't just looking at elk in front of us, we had unknownst to us - crawled INSIDE the bedded down herd.
I wanted a bigger bull, but we were trapped and could not move to the other slope to check it for a bigger bull. A guard cow had spotted us, remained calm but nevertheless would have sounded the alarm. This was the first kill for my new Marlin .444 - a 63 yard shot through the neck completed severed his spine. I've never shot an animal that literally appeared to flip over on it back and end up with four legs pointing skyward.
We then walked back to our horses, both were sound asleep. Brought them to the kill site and got to doing the dirty work. We had spotted the herds at 8:00am, tied up the horses at 10:00 am, made the kill at 11:10am and were back at the trucks by 4:30pm. Being that there were no pack horses, we hiked the 4.5 miles back to the trucks with our ponies in tow.
My partner and I met at our usual spot to unload and saddle up the horses. We had decided to not bring a pack horse or even a lunch for that matter. After all, we were only going after a WT buck. We were on the trail late, 7:00am, we like to hit the trail in the dark, but had gotten a bit lazy lately. By 8:00am we were on a high ridge dodging a stupidly crazy wind. The weatherman had warned that this would persist all day. After glassing for a couple of minutes, we spot two separate herds on adjoining slopes about 2.5 miles away. We estimate 60 in one herd and 40 in the other.
Forgetting to process any sensible thaught about our prepardness, or lack of it, we decide to high tail it into the high country and at least check out the herds. It took an hour and a half to get within 1/4 mile of them. We travelled low country, crossing frozen creeks, staying out of sight catching the odd glimpse just to make sure they hadn't travelled westward as elk usually do. Bonus, now the majority are no longer feeding but have bedded down.
We had to find a safe spot to tie the horses up, the wind was bucking huge pines so hard that the ground was heaving upward. After safely tying up, we made our stock, circling around to keep the wind to our face. As we came to the edge of the aspens that surround the clearing in which they were bedded, we could see them in plain view. We got down on all four and closed the gap another 50 yards. We then crawled another 30 or so on our bellies to spot and count spikes. To our amazement, we weren't just looking at elk in front of us, we had unknownst to us - crawled INSIDE the bedded down herd.
I wanted a bigger bull, but we were trapped and could not move to the other slope to check it for a bigger bull. A guard cow had spotted us, remained calm but nevertheless would have sounded the alarm. This was the first kill for my new Marlin .444 - a 63 yard shot through the neck completed severed his spine. I've never shot an animal that literally appeared to flip over on it back and end up with four legs pointing skyward.
We then walked back to our horses, both were sound asleep. Brought them to the kill site and got to doing the dirty work. We had spotted the herds at 8:00am, tied up the horses at 10:00 am, made the kill at 11:10am and were back at the trucks by 4:30pm. Being that there were no pack horses, we hiked the 4.5 miles back to the trucks with our ponies in tow.
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. That's the problem when you have several rifles to pick from. I really like the .444 as a saddle carbine. Being that the .375 you sold me is so pretty, I'm a bit hesitant to put it in the scabbard. But what the hay, it's turn is coming...maybe the WT 
