Tony is nearly dwarfed by his 2011 California black bear.

This is a special SWH edition because I was there when it happened!  Tony was introduced to me by our common friend Kirk Edgerton.  When Kirk and I planned a weekend bear hunt in the Sierras, he mentioned that Tony was coming along.  It was the second to last weekend of deer season, they both had deer and bear tags for the area, and I had a bear tag.

We split up in the morning at daylight and met up later at around noon.  Tony and Kirk had seen numerous deer but no legal bucks.  They also had spotted 3 bears across the canyon.  We decided that finding a vantage point to watch for the rest of the day was a good idea.  Tony and I went to the cliff over the canyon while Kirk went to find a buck napping along the ridge crest.

As the sun dropped and the shadows grew long, we heard, then saw a doe eighty yards below us on a trail.  We knew the critters would be moving more as the hot day cooled.  Soon Tony spotted three bears across the canyon.  600 yards straight line, but probably a mile through the canyon.  They were moving through brush and trees and the day was getting late, so we simply watched them disappear in the trees.

Shortly after we heard movement below us.  It sounded like a buck raking brush, but then changed to a steady walking gait of something BIG going through the manzanita.   We watched the mountainside below us for what seemed like hours when a black spot moved 150 yards below.

“Get above  it there so you can get a shot. ” whispered Tony

As I turned to get up, rocks rolled under my feet and I looked back to see Tony with his rifle at his shoulder and knew the bear was alerted.  I watched him fire and knew he had made a killing shot.  One more shot for insurance and the dust began to settle.  He apologized profusely but I was happy for my friend who was successful.  Now we had to get the sucker skinned and quartered and up out of the canyon, with less than an hour of daylight left.  It was fixing to be a late night.

From Left to Right, Tony Elwell, John C. Martin, and Kirk Edgerton. You can see the cliff above where Tony shot from.

When we got down to the bear, close inspection revealed a big, fat, old, sow with discolored and broken teeth, a jet black coat with two white chest patches , and probably a 300# carcass with a 4-6 inch layer of fat over her entire body.  Kirk arrived within minutes and we had a photo session after struggling to position the rolling body on the steep brushy hillside.  Between the three of us we had the bear skinned and  quartered in short time, with the meat and skull packed in our three backpacks. We hiked up out of the canyon and back the three miles to the pickup as darkness fell.

Headed back to the truck with packs full of bear meat

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilyi3UGDrqE

It was an epic hunt to be sure. More than words can express. I’ve put together a slide show with music by Dave Stamey to give an idea of what all went into this Adventure.

We had mild weather to start that changed to a nasty snowstorm that we had to pack camp out in. We were 11 miles from the ranch with 7 of us in camp.

DAY 1
We (Tony, Dad, Colby and I) packed in Camp on Five packhorses. 11 miles. Elk bugled us to sleep.

DAY 2
Colby and I rode out with the five horses to bring in the three Morris boys (Dee and Sons Matt and Jase- short for James Thomas) 11 miles.

DAY 3
Packed 3 horses and the Morris’s rode 3 into camp. 11 miles. The elk serenaded us again.

DAY 4
We hunted. Covered 15.25 miles on horseback.
Chased a bugling bull in the evening that another group of hunters bumped before I could get in sight of the bull and his cows.
Matt Morris killed a bull this night, a nice 5x6.

DAY 5
Went to the other side of the basin before daylight. Tied the horses and hiked in ½ mile where a cow elk barked at us. I answered with a cow call and hunkered down.
As shooting light came we could make out the cow who was boring holes in us with her eyes trying to see what we were. The bull stepped out of the rocks and trees at 30 yards. I saw branch antlers, put the crosshairs behind the shoulder and fired.
The muzzle flash blinded me. The bull was dead 150 yards away with a double lung shot from my .300 Win Mag.
Dad brought the saddle horses and we quartered and packed the bull back to camp before Colby and Tony got out to pack in Matt’s bull from the night before. We covered 5 miles that morning. We spent the midday Fishing.

I accompanied Dad and Colby on an evening hunt in the rain for another 4 miles. (9 for the day)
Jase shot a bull that night. Another 5x6.

DAY 6
Matt and I packed out our bulls with 4 pack horses to the ranch 11 miles.

DAY 7
Matt and I packed feed back into camp on 3 pack horses. 11 miles .

DAY 8
We packed the Morris’s and Tony out to the ranch along with Jases bull. 11 miles. Weather was getting colder and the clouds were stacking up. Dad Missed a bull that morning.

DAY 9
We (Colby Dad and I) rode back into camp with 6 empty horses as the rain became snow. 11 miles

DAY 10
Woke up to 18 inches of snow in camp. Collapsed Tony’s tent and the canopy over the kitchen area. We packed all of camp onto 5 horses and put an extra riding saddle on horse #6. Left Camp at 11:30 am and arrived back at the Ranch around 3:00 pm to everyone’s relief.

Total Mileage for the 10 days…112.25 miles

As daylight spread across the landscape, we worked our way along the ridges and fingers looking for elk. on our third ridge Brendan hissed “ELK”, and pointed at a tan blotch a half mile away. One ridge closer we determined it was a bull with a cow feeding near by. 

We worked our way closer and tied the horses in a patch of trees.It was over 400 yards from there.  The last piece of cover was an old knarled pine tree that we worked our way down to.  The feeding bull was 344 yards away so I settled in to make the shot.  My pack was too low to use as a rest on the steep hillside, so I put my elbows on my knees and tried to get my breathing under control. 

My first shot missed.  My second shot hit but he was still moving.  My third shot knocked him down.  He fell just inside the trees, but didn’t look quite right.  After a few insurance shots that missed the mark he got to his feet and staggered into the trees and disappeared.

I was heartsick.  I grabbed the horses as Brendan ran down on foot.  By the Time I got there the bull had left a bloodtrail.  Brendan took up the trail as I stood ready to jump the wounded bull.  We leapfrogged our way through deadfalls and timber for an hour and a half.  The trail would switch direction frequentlyand peter out but we would usually pick up blood again on a down log.  The blood trail got better, but continued to go UP the ridge.  Not a good sign when following a wounded critter.

After .61 miles according to the GPS, we were coming to the edge of the trees, leading to a saddle on the edge of an open valley.  I spotted the bull bedded in the sage looking back on his backtrail.  One shot through the neck from 150 yards put him down for good. 

Upon inspection I found my first shot hit the leg high above the knee, which made the blood trail we had followed.  The third shot hit behind the shoulderblade and passed between the ribcage and shoulder and settled in the brisket.  It generated enough shock though to knock the bull off his feet. 

The bull was a young 4×5 .  After pictures I gutted him while Brendan went back for pack horses.  Brendan and Mike the guide quartered him with an axe and loaded the pack horses.  back at the barn, I jotted down the 11 mile round trip, and tallied my mileage for the past five days.  I had covered over 90 miles on horseback and on foot. 

We made it back to the ranch in time to meet up with Colby and Gene who had run on to a grizzly that morning after hearing our shots.  At that point Colby had enough excitement for one day and he accompanied Gene in another direction to hunt the evening where Mike had killed his bull.  They had no elk sighted, but brought back a number of shed antlers they had collected throughout the week.

We cleaned up our meat and skulls for the trip home and the next morning after getting some group pictures, we began our 1000 mile journey back to our careers and families. 

When we spotted Gene and Colby on the horizon an hour after sun-up we rode over to find out what was up.  They had spotted 11 cow elk and a spike feeding into the timber below.  Gene spread us hunters around the patch of trees as he, and an assistant guide (also named Mike) prepared to ride down through the timber  to push the elk out in our direction.

I first heard branches breaking and then the thunder of hooves as the herd broke out in the open at a dead run.  There was no need for stealth as Dad and I called out the sex of the elk that streamed by 100 yards away.

“Cow, cow, SPIKE, six cows…..The bull is second from last!  GOOD Bull!”

“BANG!” Dad’s rifle goes off.  The elk keeps running

“BOOM!” I shoot, and the elk keeps running.

“BANG!” goes Dad’s .264 Win Mag for his second shot off of his shooting sticks as the bull continues unchecked.

“BOOM” echoed my second shot as the bull headed into a small depression

“BANG!” comes from my left as the bull throws up his head and falls to the ground instantly. 

“All, I saw on the last shot was his neck and head” shouted Dad as I ran toward to downed bull.  One final shot from my rifle ended the bulls struggles for good. 

We all admired Dad’s 6×6 that lay there in the open, and jokingly thanked Dad for dropping him in an accessible place.  Brendan took off for pack horses after we got the bull quartered.  We left Mike the guide, and Dad  to guard the carcass, while Colby, Gene and I rode off to find a good nap and lunch spot before we hunted our way back to the ranch. 

After naptime we rode into a basin that historically was a gathering place for migrating elk.  Without the weather to push elk into it, we were not expecting any action but we did encounter a couple of pronghorn bucks in an unlikely spot.

Gene and Colby even got close to this buck who wondered what these two cowboys were doing in his summer home…

It was a long seven miles back to the ranch where we arrived just before Dad and his pack outfit.   We had ridden 22 miles that day.  We toasted the evening and two filled tags so far.

Dad and I rode with Brendan.   Gene led Colby, and my brother in law , Mike.  By 4:30 am we were on the trail with the 10-15 mph NW wind making the 15 degree morning feel like zero degrees. 

Two hours in the saddle, in the dark, got us six miles from camp before we split .  Dad and I went left while Mike and Colby went right.  We waited on meadows as daylight found us and burned off some of the chill.  We saw no animals as we hunted our way through burns, meadows, regrown pines, and deadfall timber.  Both Dad and I thought we heard shots in Colby and Mike’s direction, and a radio call at 10:00 am confirmed Mike had indeed killed a bull.    Our instructions were to meet Colby back at the ranch, and bring pack stock, along with a saw. Apparently the bull was in the middle of some nasty deadfall.   So we climbed the back side of a 9900 ft peak and walked our horses down off the steep front side, past where I’d killed mule deer bucks in 2005 and 2006. 

We arrived back at the ranch with 18 miles on the GPS odometer so far.  We saddled two pack horses and Brendan, Colby and I rode out to retrieve Mike’s bull while 68 year old Dad recouperated from the hard ride. 

Colby led us to the kill site where Mike and Gene had the front quarters back to the horses and accessible.  Gene said that the hinds were too heavy to lug out the 150 yards over deadfalls.  I grabbed my Badlands pack and followed the ribbons in to the thicket, and secured the bulky quarter in my fold out meat shelf.   I hiked out with the 100# quarter on my back stepping over down trees, glad I only had to get to where the horses waited, not 7 miles back to camp.  Before I could go back for the second hindquarter, a couple of the guys teamed up to get the last quarter back to the horses. 

I saw the site where Mike, a large animal vet, conducted a post mortem autopsy while they waited for us with the pack string.  Gene commented that he learned more about anatomy and physiology those few hours than in a lifetime of field butchering.

After loading the packs and tying off the loads, Gene and Colby left with the guides headed back to the ranch, while Brendan and I hunted our way back to camp.  We arrived back in the dark with only four mule deer does making an appearance on our second trip of the day.  That 11 mile loop made the day’s total 29 miles. 

After hearing bulls bugling the day prior, we had a plan for the morning.  The difficulty was, we had to get an EARLY start if we wanted to be on the ridgetop at daylight.  We rolled out of bed at 3:30 am, ate a quick breakfast and rode three hours in the dark  to a 8800 ft elevation ridge .  We tied the horses in a burn on the back side of the ridge and begane a quick sneak in the growing daylight. 

We could hear a bull further down the ridge bugling on a regular interval, about 1000 feet below us.  As we worked down the spine we surprised a lone five point bull who  looked up at us then ghosted into the aspens.  We moved on to find the loudmouth.  Once we reached a point overlooking a saddle, we set down in an ambush in case the bull brought his cows up through the saddle to bed for the day. 

As it turned out, he went the other direction with his cows as they fed into a year old burn.  We could see an occasional elk rump in the trees, so we hustled down , trying to get in range.  One of the cows spotted us and the herd of six cows and a bull galloped down off the ridge at Mach 2.  Once they dropped over the side and into the next drainage, the bull continued to sing to his cows.  We conceded the match and began our mile hike back to the horses.

Along the ridge we saw a large number of mule deer, including two bucks, a heavy 3 point and a 4 point with small forks.  I guess they knew we didn’t have deer tags this year. 

With our early start, and the lack of elk sign for 10 miles, we called it a day early.  We took an opportunity to catch up on some sleep back at the ranch, where we learned that Mike, my brother in law, had a shot at a bull that morning, but missed high.  We enjoyed an “easy” 20 mile day, and made plans to venture out further in a different direction in the morning.

Our crew consisted of myself, my 36 year old brother in law, Mike Karle, a Veterinarian, My 68 year old father, Paul, and my 65 year old Uncle Colby.   Our support staff from Western Wyoming Outfitters consisted of the owner Gene Borre, his capable assistant guide Brendan Rien, and first year guide Mike Findarle.  We also enjoyed the company of our camp cook Lee, and “Indian Charlie” who served as the rough string rider and packer.   Charlie did all this with one foot in a “walking boot” from a severe ligament strain.  The guy is a hand.

Sunday morning we were up at 4:00 am and had coffee and a hot breakfast before mounting our horses for a two hour ride in the dark. We arrived at an area our guide Brendan had heard elk bugles earlier in the week. We rode up one canyon, down another, and back up to the spine of another ridge overlooking a large burned area. Faintly we could hear a bull bugling way off in the distance. After following our ears we realized he was across a huge basin, and out of our reach. Since we were already 10 miles from camp, we made plans to return the next morning to this spot to see if we could catch the vocal bull before he retreated to the timber.

We rode the three and a half hours back to camp for a total of 23 miles ridden and walked.

..and we are “Rolling Heavy”.  As a teaser we have three bulls down, after five hard days of hunting.   Pictures and stories to follow shortly…

This year we have Elk tags to fill.  This will be the latest I’ve gone, since all my previous trips took place in September. 

I’m sure when we return I’ll have plenty of stories, and I hope an elk rack and meat to share with you all.

I worked Saturday , picked up a pig from the meat locker, and watched some college football. Sunday I had signed up for a 5k footrace with my middle daughter, so I ran that in the morning instead of going hunting.   I finished 22nd overall and 2nd in my age group.   I though I’d earned a nap and did some errands around home that afternoon.

Then late that afternoon, my cousin calls on the phone, and says he saw a buck in the creek. So we grab Erin’s rifle and shooting sticks and start quick sneaking north along the creek.

We watched a spike as he slipped into the willows and moved north ahead of us. We worked up to where we could see another 300 yards along the creek.

Pretty soon we spotted a good buck following a doe headed southbound weaving in and out of the willows. Pretty soon the spike came streaking out into the open as the buck defended his girlfriend.

The light was low enough, and at an angle that you couldn’t see deer in the shadows under the willows without binos or a scope. I could see the doe looking our way deep in the shadows. Pretty soon the spike made the mistake of approaching her and the buck came out and chased him off. He dropped his head and fed for a little bit before he headed back into the cover. He lingered in the open too long and Erin dropped him in his track at 200 yards off the sticks with her 7mm-08. One finisher behind the ear sealed the deal and Erin had her first buck.

Erin was a trooper and did much of the knife work in field dressing and skinning her buck late into the night. Monday morning she had photos to share with her friends and teammates commemorating her first buck.