First elk

Discussion in 'Hunting' started by win7stw, Dec 28, 2019.

  1. win7stw

    win7stw .30-06

    So last year I was lucky and drew a once in a lifetime North Dakota elk tag. I spent a lot of time scouting and talking with landowners to get permission to hunt. I had a few generous landowners give me the nod.

    The day before season I met with one of the landowners who had said I could hunt his land. The bull I was after had moved onto his land and he decided that he wanted to harvest it. Needless to say I was pretty bummed.

    Not all hope was lost though as i knew the bull was only feeding on private land and would bed on public land. My plan was to be in position on opening day to shoot him at first light when he was on his way to the bedding area.

    Opening morning came and I didn’t see any elk. So much for all the preseason scouting. I didn’t see an elk that day or the next. I was very disappointed with the first weekend.

    The following weekend I had to work on Saturday. I had my camper all packed and ready so after work I headed west to the badlands. Sunday I saw a really nice bull on private and tried to call him into public. Apparently he we was happy with the 30 cows he had.

    Monday evening I went to a new area and found elk. Wasn’t sure what was in there because the wind was wrong so I backed out. I went and packed up camp and moved so I could be closer in the morning.

    Tuesday morning my father in law and I made the 3.5 mile walk into where I spotted the elk. It was so foggy out headlamps barely lit the trail. As soon as I got to the ridge that I wanted to sit on the elk were bugling like crazy. I had one to the north, east, and south bugling. I was jacked but I couldn’t see anything because of the fog. About 8am the elk quit bugling. I thought they made it back to the private land in the fog. About 9 the fog started to burn off and the elk were on the move. I spotted a few spikes and cows slipping through the cedars. Somehow a bull and two cows slipped below me. A quick look through the binoculars and I saw he was a 6x6. Didn’t have time to range him so I held high and hit him on my first shot. He was about 420 yards away and my Model 70 in 7mm STW did its job. I shot him a little before 10 AM and we got the last load of meat to my truck about 9 PM. We were exhausted when we were done. I put on about 23 miles that day but it was worth it.
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    David_h likes this.

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