Ok, so far the elk have won but the war isn’t over. We had two days of intense hunting, up before sunrise each morning. We arrived Friday afternoon and set up camp in unusually warm weather which was not a good sign. Driving up into the mountains we were surrounded by lots of pick up trucks filled with orange clad hunters preparing for opening day of the 2nd rifle season on Saturday. We pulled into the ranch around 4pm and had the trailer set up along with the rest of camp by about 5. The misses sent along a big pot of chili for us to have for dinner. After a few glasses of wine and a whole bunch of chili, we hit the hay as 4am came early. We made some coffee, and I had some oatmeal and a quick yogurt before heading out the door in the dark around 5:30am. We walked a couple of miles up the mountain until we found a good place by some trees to settle in and wait for the sun to rise. About 45 minutes later the light peaked over the horizon and the hunt was on. I decided to position one guy at a spot where if anything was stirred up, it would go right by him. My other hunting partner headed up one side of the hill and I the other. Moving ever so quiet, I jumped a bunch of deer but all I had was an elk license. After about 3 hours of climbing up and down the hills and not finding any fresh sign of elk, we decided to knock off until evening.
We headed back to the trailer, changed clothes and grabbed a bunch of guns and jumped in the truck. After a 10 minute drive down the road we were on the other side of the ranch and grabbed some shotguns and 22’s with silencers (by hunting buddy is a Class 3 weapons dealer meaning he legally owns a bunch of machine guns and silencers) and decided to walk the woods to see if we could find any sage grouse. After a few minutes we didn’t find any grouse but did find a bunch of fresh claw marks on some aspen trees and then some fresh steamy bear dodo. We all looked at each other and pulled our 44 magnum revolvers and looked around. The bear couldn’t be far. Now we didn’t have a bear license either but we weren’t worried about that, we just didn’t want to be surprised by one. A couple of hours later we headed back to the main camp to get ready for the evening hunt. We still had a few hours to kill so we set up some beer cans 300 yards down the road to shoot at with 22 rifles. Now 300 yards is 3 football fields long and guess who was the only guy to hit the beer can with the 22. You guessed it, it was me and it was on my first shot. Now this is pretty surprising as one of my hunting partners is ranked 6th in the World in long range precision rifle shooting. He did blow the can to pieces on his first shot with a 308 (a much more powerful caliber) but only I hit it with the 22.
By sunset we were back in position, hopefully waiting for some elk to come out into the open at dusk. Once again we had deer walk right by us but no elk. You see, it just was not cold enough. You need pretty cold temperatures to drive them down to the lower elevations. We were at probably 9000 feet but they were probably at 11000 or higher. We couldn’t get up that high where we were and they were on the back side of the mountain as well. Even though we knew this we had to give it another try the next morning.
After a good meal of hamburgers, fried potato’s and veggies, we fell asleep around 8:30. The next morning we were up at 5:30 and out the door 30 minutes later. After checking the wind, which was cold, I decided to have one guy walk up one draw and took the other guy with me up the other side. Once again, no luck. Those deer sure are lucky we only had elk licenses. We were back at camp by 8:45 and decided to load up everything into the camper and leave it there and come back Tuesday night as the weatherman says it’s supposed to snow big time Wednesday morning. The high in Denver that day is going to be around 35 degrees so I imagine it’ll be around 10 up there. I need to rearrange a meeting and if I can, we’ll head back up. If so, we’ll have one last chance Wednesday morning and should be back in Denver by noon, unless were successful. You see if you get an elk, you can count on a good 6 hours chopping him up. I’ll know more later this morning so stay tuned.
When I arrived home, the boys were playing outside and the misses wasn’t feeling too well. I jumped into the shower to wash off two days of dirt and grime and took off for the grocery store. I hadn’t shaved for about 5 days and the boys and the misses pleaded with me to keep my scruff for one more day. It’s coming off this morning as it’s real itchy and makes me look older than I am. The boys think it’s soft and I think the misses thinks I look like the Old Spice man. I made it back to see the Broncos win the football game in overtime and then the neighbors had an impromptu party. We headed over for a couple of cocktails and then finally everyone was in bed by about 8.
I woke up at 4 and it’s now almost 5. I might head to the gym or might wait until tomorrow, I haven’t decided yet. Hope all’s well with everyone, take care and have a great day and we’ll see you tomorrow.