A few years ago I started scouting in the Weminuche, Colorado's biggest Wilderness area, with plans for a bull elk hunt. I was hesitant to hunt this huge country alone but could never find anybody willing to backpack hunt so deep into the Wilderness with me. So this year I finally decided to just go for it, and hunt it solo with a 1st season rifle bull tag I was lucky enough to draw.
I packed in Thursday before opening day, and the 11 mile hike through snow took a full 5 hours. I set up camp around 9000 feet in the valley floor, and the heavy snow in the big mountains above my camp had pushed a lot of elk down. Bulls were bugling all around me on Friday night. Opening morning I pushed a little too quickly at first light and bumped a bull and his herd. I got him to bugle back and forth with me a few times, but his cows just moved off and he followed. So I gained 900 feet of elevation and climbed out to a rock outcropping that gave me a fantastic vantage point to hopefully find some bulls moving in the valley floor below me.
Turns out that bull I bumped had climbed up the steep mountains exactly on the opposite side of the valley from me. I glassed the herd moving up around 7:45 am, and could tell one of the elk was a bull from body size and color, but my small 8x binocs couldn't see any antlers. So I set up my 15x56 Swaro's on my tripod, and could see antlers right as the herd bedded down around 8am. The bull bedded down with several trees completely covering his body. I ranged those trees at 1120 yards, got my rifle set up, and had plenty of time to open the AB app on my phone and input every variable and check everything over several times for accuracy.
After 5 long hours, the cows all started to feed up the hill and out of sight. The bull had to stand up and take a couple of steps to give me a clear shot. And that's exactly what he did. I let the first shot fly, and then quickly another. The shade from the trees on the steep hillside made the bullet trace disappear before it reached the bull, so I couldn't see the impact. He took a step quartered towards me, so I fired a 3rd shot holding hard on his shoulder. He took another few steps and now his body was totally covered by trees again, with only his neck visible and nearly facing directly towards me. I could now see the snow stained bright red where the bull was standing for the first two shots. with my crosshairs only inches from the tree covering his body, I touched off the 4th shot aiming directly at the neck where the dark hair transitions to light tan. Upon impact, the bull stumbled to the ground, and never stood back up.
Took me a while to get over to the bull, but he was dead only a handful of yards from where he was bedded for 5 hours. All 4 shots were perfect for windage and maybe 3-4 inches low. The bull was deeper under the trees that I could range, so the shot was closer to 1130 yards than the 1120 yards I had dialed for. My guess was 1127 yards, which would account for the slightly low impact. First two shots hit right behind the shoulder where I was aiming, the first shot exited, the 2nd shot stopped at the hide on the far side.
It took me the rest of the day Saturday to quarter and cape the bull, and all day Sunday to debone all of the meat and get it packed about a mile down the hillside to the trail near my camp. Then Monday through wedensday I took 4 full trips back to the truck with my gear, all of the meat and the head and hide. Just packing out took 85 miles of hiking, and for the entire hunt I was very close to 100 miles.
I started a thread about the bullet performance here:
https://longrangehunting.com/threads/338-270gr-eld-x.210267/
Here's some pics from the hunt.
The shot setup looking across the valley
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The bull was a nice little 6x6
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Looking back where I shot from
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Deboned quarters
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My rifle, Kifaru Mountain Warrior and head
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Everything hanging for the night
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The final load... head, hide and some meat
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Creek running through the valley
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Well done friend! I would be very proud of that kill. What a job that was packing out.
