Nissa's brother Erik was the first to get his elk this year. Shooting a nice spike opening morning in where we lovingly refer to as "Nasty Canyon" we knew our work was cut out for us. It was quite an effort but thank goodness Nissa has 5 older brothers, 3 of which were there that day to help drag it out whole. I was "lucky" enough to be the 4th man so I had my share of the excitement as well.

This is part of the fun we had dragging out his elk.

"They call this Nasty Canyon?"

Ya, I think so.

Here we are, from left to right, Erik, Curtiss, Mark, and Nissa.

We had hunted all day, this second day of the season. The rest of the crew decided to head back to the house for lunch and we opted to stay. We hiked around for a few hours and spotted this bull with 3 cows about 1/2 mile away across a canyon. After a quick glassing session we basically ran toward him and his harrem to get close enough for a shot. Had to hustle as it was only an hour before dark. Luck was with us that day as he didn't break as we got as close as we dared in the wide open sage area we hunt. Since Nissa had a cow tag that was good until the end of January I elected to take the bull. Nice, big 2x1 bull. He was really quite big. The shot was longer than I liked but thanks to the new Tikka rifle I bought this summer I felt comfortable taking the shot, even though it was over 300 yards away. Needless to say I got him! He didn't go more than about 30 yards before bedding down after the shot.

Below is the view of what my shot was like. The cliff and rocks is where he was when I shot. When I get a chance I'll use a laser range-finder to get the distance so I know for sure. He was standing in the small patch of yellow grass to the left of the rocky point.

Well, I finally got a rangefinder this fall (2005) and the bull was about 360 yards away when I shot him. He humped up at the first shot and I shot again. He turned away from me and just stood there with his butt toward me so I had no shot. Finally he started walking again up to the rock outcropping in the center of the picture and stood there. My 3rd shot with my 7mm Rem. Mag. finally convinced him to lay down but this tough bull wasn't done yet. I had to climb across the canyon and up past him before I could get another 2 shots into him to finish him off. Tough bugger!

Family friend Jon Strating also got his elk this season, in typical Jon fashion, waiting until the last day. With all the fresh snow on the groud the drive down was quite trecherous but all made it out safely and Elk #3 was carted home.

We are also calling this the year of the bird as we had quite a bit of fun with the scatterguns. With an elk under Erik's and my belts, we took up our trusty 870's and chased after the pen-raised pheasents they released one night. I also manage to get a grouse with my new rifle while out bear hunting alongside of Nissa during a hike down one of the canyons.