Back from the hunt
Our freezer will be full for the coming months, and it has been pretty bare this past year as my wife and I didn't draw any tags last year. My wife drew a doe tag for second season and was able to get a leftover buck tag for on top of the doe tag. She filled both tags opening morning, first the buck and about 30 minutes later the doe. The buck is what one would call a "meat" buck, decent body size but a smallish, kind of odd 4 point rack. The doe was a fairly big one, almost as big as the buck. Sorry, no pics as she said that neither was big enough to take a picture with. For those not used to how points are counted out west on mulies and elk, a 4 point means 4 points on each sides. Some folks count brow tines and some don't on mulies because not all mulies have brow tines. I don't count brow tines. The freezer now has 75 lbs of hot Italian deer sausage with the tender loins and back straps from both deer.
Move forward a couple of weeks and it was my turn. I had a buck and bull tags, plus one of my cousins was coming up from Louisiana for his first hunt out west with a buck tag. My first priority was for him to shoot a very nice buck, and second for me to get an elk. The first 6 hunts were strictly for deer, and we saw plenty of them critters but no bucks that he wanted to shoot. The seventh hunt we went after elk. Found two cows and two calves, and he was amazed at the size of the cows as he has only hunted whitetails down south.
He ended up leaving early and me left alone in camp. I hunted in the mornings for elk and evenings for deer, by myself. Not too bad to do for deer, but for elk I don't recommend it EVER! I did end up getting a 4 point scraggly horned bull, hunting up hill of course. Getting the elk down to a forest road was pretty easy. Snow on the ground and using a sled, though I did almost get ran over a few times. Getting the elk into the back of my Blazer was much different ordeal.
My Blazer has a small lift and stuffing an elk in the back is hard enough with four people. I cut the hind quarters off and manage to get them in. End up having to cut the shoulders off and cutting the neck and head off. Those elk are heavy!!! I went back to camp, grabbed a few things and headed home to put the elk in the garage as the weather was warming up a bit.
Everything was fine until I slid out of the driver's seat and almost collapsed to the ground. My back was screaming at me that it was too old to be handling an elk by myself. I came in and cried a little trying to get some sympathy from my wife, and it worked as she helped me get the elk into the garage. I decided two deer and one elk was good enough to call an end to the hunt right then and there. Problem was I had to go back to camp and pack everything into the camper and bring it all back to the house. I took the next day off as I could barely straighten up without a few tears rolling down my cheeks, and managed to skin, clean and get the parts into a couple of coolers the next day.
We'll cut it up into roasts, steaks, back strap, tender loin and grind the rest in a couple of days. I do believe after all the meat has been wrapped and labeled, it will be time for some back strap on the plate!
Sorry, no pics of the bull because, well, I was by myself, and I forgot the camera at the house, and I don't carry my phone when hunting, and it was just a scraggly horned 4 point, but he'll eat just fine!
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