Despite the weather, I had a fantastic elk hunt.
I had backpacked in about four miles when I spotted a group of four bulls and two cows on a hillside. I was able to sneak within 460 yards, but couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted to shoot, and I also wasn't 100 percent sure that they were standing on the legal side of the hunting unit boundary.
I watched them the rest of that morning until they all fed into a thick stand of new aspens, where it looked like they were going to bed for the day. I then snuck within a couple hundred yards and using onX I was able to verify that they were on the legal side of the boundary. I then snuck back out of there without them detecting me. At that point I determined that I would try to take the biggest one if and when they came back out that evening.
I waited and watched all day, and right at sunset two of the smaller ones came back out, but not the one that I wanted. So I decided to set up my tent right there and wait until morning.
The next morning, only a few minutes before sunrise, I rolled out of bed, grabbed my rifle and binoculars, and started sneaking back towards where I'd last seen them the night before. I hadn't gone a hundred yards when I saw the first one at about 300 yards. I closed the distance another 50 to 70 yards and now I could see five bulls. I looked them all over very carefully, picked out the biggest, and dropped him.
I've been fortunate to work on a lot of big bulls over my lifetime, but the massive body size of this one shocked me a little bit when I walked up on him. I knew I was going to need some help. I sent out some texts and soon had a couple really good friends change their schedules that morning so they could come in and help me.
I then started working on the bull. Unfortunately, within the first minute or two of starting to skin it, my knife slipped and whacked me across the back of my left hand. I knew it probably was not good, but using some Leuko tape, I wrapped it up tight and got most of the bleeding to stop. Instead of immediately hiking out of there, I decided to keep working on the bull so that the meat would not spoil. This task took about three or four hours, but I was just finishing when my friends showed up and took over the task of hauling it out, while I took down my camp and then got myself to the closest Urgent Care in Los Alamos.
The Urgent Care folks took one look at my hand and said that I had cut a couple tendons and a knuckle that would require surgery and recommended that I go to an ER. So I drove the rest of the way home and my wife took me to our local ER. We were there from 7:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. After x-rays and some exploratory probing, yes, I'd cut completely through my ring finger tendon, and partially cut my middle finger tendon and bone. It's going to require surgery for which I'm scheduled this Monday. The ER doctors stitched me up and put a cast on me.
A third friend joined in the hauling out of my elk, and it took them until 1:00 a.m. to get it all out. Those are some really good friends...🙂