"Shoot the first legal bull" - a solo public land Alberta elk hunt

[DirtShooter]

So what started as a sort of last minute elk hunt ended in a way I could never have imagined.

I left my house near Edmonton to drive what I thought would be about 4.5hrs North during the first snowfall of the year and man the roads were ****. I was doing 30km per hour on a 110km per hour road. Nothing but ice. Even asked myself what I am doing but kept on driving. It was cold and I was going to camp in my SO Redcliff with no stove. Another "what am I doing" moment. I have a good friend that dropped me some pins in a unit I have sort of hunted but never had any success. And to top it off my 4 year old gave me a cold but works slow so let's hunt.

So I check out a couple spots and make camp and then head out for the evening. Found some sign of elk and a ton of mule deer. Nothing comes of that evening and I had back to camp and get ready to freeze all night. I wore quite a few layers and had a surprisingly decent sleep, enough that my wife was wondering if I was okay because she hadn't heard from me and it was already daylight. A guy on a quad driving in on the lease woke me up. Time to start the day, cooking in the cold sucks and I should have just took my wifes offer to have her make more meals in our harvest right but no I was truck camping so no need. An hour later I'm ready.

Just down the road from my tent is a spot my friend said to check out. It's public land. It involved following these mule deer trails down one ravine and up another then down another following a game trail. Thankfully he took me sheep hunting this year which prepared me for traveling this landscape and I actually trained with a heavy pack before we went. So sure enough there is the game trail he was talking about so let's inch down and see.

As I slowly head down I spot a cow and she spots me. Great it's over before it started I thought except she eventually stopped checking me out so I started glassing the timber and saw shadows of antlers moving. Alright a bull is coming. I've never shot an elk before. Closest effort was an archery effort that I missed not being prepared at the distance the bull was. In this zone it's a 3 point minimum. Awesome, shoot the first legal bull you see. Especially because I have never shot an elk before, period.

So I take my pack off, cross my trekking poles and rest and wait. I can see antlers now, obviously legal because I counted SEVEN tines. Yup no need to count anymore. He's feeding slow so I'm watching him in my scope which I think helped me relax. I range the tree he's by and it says 125 yards or so. No problem. He gives me a shot on his right side. Hit. He runs forward and stops in front of the trees immediately I move to a better angle. None of his cows seem to care a shot just rang out. He's not moving nor is he dropping. Already rest against a tree and wait for him to stick out. He moves I shoot. One more into his left side. Damn he's still standing. He pokes his neck out and a 3rd goes into it and now he's wobbling. The cows are leaving and he's slow going. Finally he lays down but his head is still up. I grab my pack and think god damn I don't wanna have to put a 4th into him but by time I closed the distance he'd finally died. Wow my first elk I thought. I sent out the texts and pictures. A mature 6x7 bull. For me probably a once in a lifetime elk.

I am not an experienced elk hunter like I said so I probably could have done a more efficient job processing him. He died on a fallen tree which made rolling him a huge pain in the ass. My game bags were too small (whoops) but I had a tarp so I put the quarters down on it. I shot him with factory Barnes VOR-TX 127GR 6.5 creedmoor and they were your typical Barnes results. I have a lot of them so once I'm out I will be looking at other projectiles. I used a Spyderco Southfork to skin and quarter him and it worked well. The main thing I was worried about was throwing my back out handling these quarters. Once I took everything I needed I loaded the backstraps and trimmed meat. I later learned that you should take the heaviest loads first cause then everything else seems easier. I did it backwards and it sucked. Up the ravine I go. It's warming up and the trailers are getting greasy. My goal was to have everything out of that ravine before dark. Almost did it. On my trip I noticed something drug one of the front quarters away from where I placed it. Great gotta compete with the preds now. I went back down to grab the cape and antlers and man I hate to say it but I could not lift my pack with it loaded. It was just too heavy. So my friend suggested I tie it to a tree and just focus on the meat. It was now after 8pm when I tied the horns up. Last light ended at 7pm.

It was dark, I had a descent and a climb in this other ravine. My friend said just pack it all through the night. Okay let's try. Load a hind and pop! The C clip on my exo k3 shoulder strap broke. I initially thought it was a load lifter that gave way. I went down the ravine, kept running into dead fall and having to turn back. Man it's hard to find that one trail you took once. Eventually I made it to the truck and it was late. I dumped the hind in the box and grabbed all the ratchet straps I had and decided that I was going to tree the meat and figure it out in the morning.

Sadly I lost a front quarter to predation but I managed to hang the loose meat and the other front but I couldn't hoist the rear so I ratchet strapped it to the trunk of a big tree and blocked it with lots of cut trees and tried to find that trail back. Got to the truck at 2:15am. This sucks I thought. I texted my wife until 3am and told her I was just going to sleep in the truck and let my headlamps and phone charge and at 7am I'll get up and go to the local place for breakfast. Well they weren't open so I went to the near town had breakfast, and went back. Thankfully I never lost any more meat. My ratchet strap tree barricade worked. I asked rokslide how I could fix my pack and used a zip tie and it held.

Getting the remaining meat to the truck went well. The trails were getting so damn slick though I was falling every time up and down, loaded or unloaded. I seemed to have lost my voice at this point, probably from shouting to scare predators away and the cold my 4 year old gave me. I headed down to the cape. Luckily nothing touched it. I really wanted a shoulder mount even though my wife doesn't like them. It PAINED me to do what I did next. I cut the cape off. I am not skilled enough to cape out a skull. That sucked. But euros are nice. I loaded the skull on my exo k3 and it was kinda funny the antlers stood the pack up to the right height where I could easily put my arms in the straps. Up we go.

The antlers didn't snag on as many trees and bushes as I thought. I had to go down backwards a lot as when they did snag and let go it shot me forward. I kept telling myself when I had these heavy loads "almost flat ground" as I climbed. Eventually I made it up and out to the truck.

My 4 year old likes to cheer "I did it!" when he does something he's proud of. Yeah me too buddy. I did it.