2nd Elk trip in the books

[mplane72]

Our trip was cut short......and not for a good reason.

Not the best hunting conditions this year as far as the rain. I'm sure we're not the only ones dealing with it and I'm not going to complain about it. Living on the Mississippi I've seen my share of flooding. I feel for those who are really suffering the flooding. That being said the rain did seem to have the elk holed up and quite. The pressure from the first week helped with that also I'm sure. Of course we got the "should have been here last week they were going nuts" report from some of the guys we talked to. We did skip hunting one evening and the following morning due to the rain. We ran down to get cell service and that's when the wind started coming out of our sails. We learned that there was a death in one of my buddies families. Not close enough to warrant giving up all he had invested but it did give us an uneasy feeling thinking about difficulties at home.

This side of the mountain was closed last year for logging dead timber from the road sides. I checked with the local USFS over the summer to make sure everything was open and all work was done. They neglected to tell me that they "reclaiming" most of the old, long closed, roads. Turning roads that had been covered with 10' tall regrowth into soft dirt strewn with large rocks and trees that turned to mud. I can't say I understand the purpose for this. It was annoying. We did not let it keep us out of the deeper areas we always hunt. It just made getting there harder. More importantly I'm sure all the racket pushed some of the elk out of the area.

The only elk I ever actually laid eyes on was a dead cow we found. She could not have been more then a day old but was pretty ripe. She looked to be heart shot so I'm guessing the unlucky hunter lost blood in the rain.

On the 2nd morning we did get a bugle back to our calling. The bull was about 200 yards down the mountain and going. We tried to catch up and turn him but it sounded like he had cows and just wanted us to catch up, which we were not able to do. It looked like he was heading down into the same drainage our camp was on and we formed a plan to work up from camp the following morning and try to intercept him. That plan was delayed due to rain but 2 days later we tried it. It was tough getting up 2 miles through all the dead-fall but we did get one half hearted answer to a bugle. We went up after him but not a peep. 200 yards from our last setup, working our way back to camp we decided to take a little brake in the middle of a thick area. Not two minutes into it we heard a stick break very close. I was to far back to see it but a bull came in to 20 yards in the thick cover. He turned to circle a large dead tree that would have given my buddy a hole at 30 but of course he stopped a couple steps short. After a tense couple minutes he moved off, spooked but not out of his head. The wind was pretty swirly I'm sure he sniffed us.

After that we decided to return to camp for some grub and a nap. Things were looking up and the mood had brightened among us after the morning's events. We were just heating up the shower water when we heard a truck coming up the lain to camp. Got a little more interesting when we could see it was a sheriff's deputy. Things really started going when he asked for one of my buddies by name and said he needed to "get down to cell service and call home right now". To make a long story short my friends 6 year old daughter had been hospitalized with a 106 fever, her blood cell counts were all out of wack and the Drs. did not seem to confident in their diagnosis. At that moment in time his wife said she had it under control but she wanted him to check in the next day. Heading back up the Mt. I could tell things were weighing on his mind and any chance of enjoying the trip was gone for my bud I told him not to worry we needed to pack up and head home and that's what we did. It also would get my other friend home in time for the funeral.

Turns out his daughter had pneumonia in a lower lobe so no cough to prompt the chest xray. It was a pretty scary deal not knowing *** was going on for 3 days. The state cdc was even monitoring the case. Some pretty scary guesses were getting thrown around for a while. She should be out in a couple days.

Can't say enough about the Grand County deputy who found us. He put in the better part of the day visiting camps, going down to get service and talk to people at home for direction and then coming back up hunting for us. Next year when we get out there we're going to track that guy down and by him a couple beers.

By the way. This is my first thread here. I found this forum and joined not long after receiving my first order from Elknut. Can't thank all the guys here enough for there openness with the tips and techniques.