Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Luck Of The Scotch/Irish




Last year, for the first time in my elk-hunting career I was afraid of getting skunked. In fact not only was I nervous about not bagging a bull but I was scared that I wasn’t even going to see an elk on that particular hunting trip. Things were definitely not looking good for the 2009 season.

Dad and Don Westmoreland had traveled out to Colorado a week before the rest of us in order to set up camp, acquire our packhorses and to scout for elk sign. Problem was, elk sign wasn’t just scarce it was down right non-existent. Dad had called me just before I was to board a plane from Atlanta to Denver to deliver the gloomy scouting report. He said the apparent combination of a horrific winterkill two years prior and the fact that the local ranchers had run over 8,000 head of sheep through our hunting territory had caused the elk population to virtually disappear into thin air. Plus early snows had hit the mountains, which were causing any animals (if there were any) to lay low and move as little as possible. By time myself and the rest of our hunting party arrived in camp, Dad and Don informed us that they had neither seen nor heard a single elk in the week they had been there. Not the most uplifting news to get two days before the opening day of Elk Season.

To add to the problem, there was a massive crowd of hunters in the mountains as well. The gravel roads in and around Bear Ears were as congested with traffic as I-85 in Atlanta during 5 o’clock rush hour. Apparently word had gotten out about Northern Colorado’s massive elk population and everybody and their little brother had come out to try and thin the herd a little. And because of this huge influx of hunters, for the first time in my life I was somewhat nervous about going into the woods. Elk hunters were going to be stacked elbow to elbow out there on Opening Morning I’m sure more than one of them would be hitting the Wild Turkey or an assortment of Anheuser Busch products pretty hard the night before. Itchy trigger fingers, bleary eyes and raging hangovers are not good combinations in my opinion. I made a note to wear a little extra blaze orange on Opening Day.

But even though the cards looked stacked against us this season, the members our camp were determined to give it our best shot (no pun intended.) We had all traveled too far, spent too much money and planned far too long, to give up and sit around camp playing Uno. So when Opening Morning finally rolled around, we crawled out of our bunks at 4AM sharp and suited-up in search of the elusive wapiti.

Dad and I dropped off the Chicken Road and down into the western rim of the Bear Ears drainage well before dawn. When we climbed out of the truck it was spitting snow and colder than a witch’s tit. I immediately began questioning just why in the heck I subject myself to such misery every other year just to chase around a bunch of four-legged animals. But once we hit the 1144 Trail I was sweating comfortably through my thermals and the biting cold was quickly forgotten.

We headed east towards the twin peaks of Bears Ears and as expected, every spot that we intended to hunt was already occupied with a hunter. In one particular park, a spot called Clyde’s Rock, which was named after our cousin Clyde who killed an elk there some years ago, Dad and I counted at least fifteen hunters who had taken up sniper positions. The entire park was completely surrounded with blaze orange vests. “God help those idiots,” I thought, “if a herd of elk actually did pass through the middle of that park- there would be more dead hunters than elk.” Dad just shook his head in disgust after seeing one of our “honey holes” taken over by a bunch of squatters, so we continued on up the trail in search of a vacant piece of land.

After about fifteen minutes of brisk walking we entered into a dark strand of timber. The thick canopy of pines prevented any morning light from entering and there was a faint dusting snow on the frozen ground. Dad suddenly stopped and pointed at his feet. A fresh set of elk tracks had cut across the trail and entered into the timber to our right. I couldn’t believe it, there actually were elk in here. Dad and I slipped silently into the trees and followed the tracks down hill. We hadn’t stepped more than twenty yards off the trail when we heard a bugle of a bull elk. We both instinctively dropped to one knee and listened. We looked and each other in disbelief- did we really hear what we thought we heard? Seconds later we another bugle.

“Where’s your cow call?” whispered Dad.

Dad rummaged through the back pocket of my pack and promptly removed my Primos Hoochie Momma. He hit it a couple of times and we waited on baited breath for a response from the bull. Seconds later we answered us with a loud, bellowing bugle. Dad hit the call again and we immediately received another answer from the bull but this time the bugle was much closer.

“He’s heading right for us,” Dad whispered. “You move off down the hill to the right and find a clearing and wait. I’ll head to the left and see if I can push him to you.”

With that Dad and I split up and I stealthily worked my way down the draw to found some open ground. We couldn’t have been separated more than two minutes when I heard Dad’s 7MM Remington open up. “Game Time,” I thought and I hustled towards the clearing and flipped off the safety of my 30.06. At first I thought the loud thundering sound in my ears was my rapid heartbeat but quickly I realized that it was in fact the pounding of elk hooves. In the split second that followed Dad’s shot, the timber came alive with retreating elk. Cows, spikes and rag-horn bulls raced everywhere cutting frantically in and round the trees churning up clouds of dust and snow. I was caught in the middle of a stampede. I shouldered my rifle and scanned the timber for legal bulls. I knew that we had hit the Mother Lode and if I didn’t take a bull now I’d never get another chance on this hunt.

While elk raced to and fro, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a large elk running up the draw in my direction. He got within fifty yards of me, then suddenly pulled up and stopped dead in his tracks. He paused just long enough for my brain to register that he was a legal bull and a “shooter.” He was staring directly at me and didn’t present me with a preferred broadside shot. So I placed the cross hairs of my Nikon scope in the center of his chest and fired. At the crack of my rifle, the bull leaped straight into the air, kicked like a saddle bronc, turned and disappeared into the pines. I knew immediately that I had hit him, but the question was ‘had I hit any vital organs?’

I jacked another round into the chamber and headed down the slope in search of blood. I hadn’t taken more than three steps when I spotted another massive bull charging through he timber to my left. The bull had a monster rack on him and I instinctively threw up my rifle, ready to take another shot.

Now of course at this point while reading this, you are probably thinking to yourself, “Why Rick, you may have already killed a bull. Isn’t it unethical and more importantly, highly illegal to shoot and possibly kill a second elk?” Well, the answer to that question is obviously “yes”, but one needs to realize that I am a Bryson and the unquenchable urge to shoot big critters with big horns is an unhealthy genetic condition that runs in my family. It’s an addiction known simply as elkaholoism and it’s a disease that my father, brother and more notably my Cousin Ray have suffered with most of our adult lives. I asked my self at that moment while staring down the barrel at this second bull, “What would my Great Grandfather Papa Bryson do? What would Cousin Ray do if he was in this situation?”

The answer was simple- shoot the bigger elk and deal with the consequences later.

With my mind made up to shoot this second bull I curled my finger around the trigger, ready to put him down. But by the time I found him in my scope, the bull had stopped behind a cluster of pine samplings. All I could see were the ivory tips of his tall thick antlers and the white of his rear flank. I needed him to take a few more steps in either direction in order to give me a clear shot of his vitals. I knew, however, that with every second I waited, he could break into a run and never be seen again. Now some hunters may have taken a shot at his hindquarters in order to break the bull down and hopefully finish him off with a second shot, but I simply could not bring myself to do that. I have too much love and respect for these animals to take that kind of gamble. I may have been prepared to break the law, but I couldn’t take a chance of crippling such a magnificent creature.

Seconds turned into what felt like hours as I held my rifle steady on the bull, patiently waiting for him to take a few more crucial steps in one direction. Then suddenly, just as I had feared, the old bull suddenly burst out of the brush in flash before I could squeeze off a round and disappeared into the timber with several cows in tow.

“Oh well,” I thought, as I lowered my rifle and switched on the safety. “That old boy probably just saved me a hefty fine with the DNR and a night in the Moffat County jail.”

I continued down the slope in the direction of my first bull. I scanned the snow for any sign of blood when I nearly tripped over it’s collapsed body. The bull hadn’t run more that fifty yards before he dropped dead. The shot I placed on him turned out to be deadly accurate: it had passed through the bottom of his throat and through the lungs and heart. A clean kill if I ever saw one, especially on a big bull, since I have witnessed in the past, bulls that could soak up round after round and keep on going.

After inspecting his rack, which turned out to be a beautiful symmetrical 5 x 5, I tied some orange ribbon around his antlers so I could locate him again and started back up the hill in search of Dad. I soon found him coming down the hill in my direction with a puzzled look on his face.

“Dern it, I shot at a cow back in that timber,” he said. “But dog-gone if I can’t find any sign of her.”

“Why on earth did you shoot at a cow,” I asked. “Did you not see the rest of the herd?”

“What herd, all I saw was one cow.”

“Good grief, when you shot there were elk running everywhere through here. I shot a nice 5 x 5, he’s laying about 5o yards down there,” I said pointing down the draw.

But before Dad could reply, we heard a noise that resembled a mob of horses running off to our left. We turned to see the remaining portion of the elk herd retreating through an open park.

“They-Good-Gosh-Almighty,” exclaimed Dad. “Where did all those elk come from?”

Just then a nice bull poked his head up about one hundred and fifty yards from our position and stared at us.

“Shoot that bull Son!” exclaimed Dad. “Take a rest off my shoulder.”

Before I could argue, I placed my rifle on Dad’s left shoulder, quickly found the bull in my sights and fired. As soon as I felt the recoil of my rifle I knew I had missed the elk. I was still jittery and shaky from the adrenaline rush of killing the first bull and I had rushed my shot. We both watched as the bull turned and vanished with the rest of the herd through the timber on the far side of the park.

“You think you hit him?” asked Dad.

“I don’t think so,” I said as I bolted another round into my rifle.

“We’ll let’s go see if we can find some blood.”

We spilt up and walking in opposite directions, Dad and I made a wide circle through the snow-covered park. But we found no blood trail. I walked to the far side of the draw and looked down into the valley below. I didn’t see any sign of the retreating herd. Satisfied that I had missed the second bull completely, I slung my Remington across my back and headed back toward Dad who standing in the middle of the park staring at me with a disappointed expression on his face. I knew that Dad was going to give me a ribbing for flat out missing the bull, so I quickly began running through a series of believable excuses in my mind.

But suddenly I noticed several large shapes emerging from the timber behind Dad. I started running in his direction as fast as I could, pointing as I ran.

“ELK! ELK! ELK!” I screamed under my breath.

Dad turned and once he saw the elk coming out of the timber he too started running in their direction. We ran as fast as I legs could carry us over the frozen terrain, making a beeline for a small strand of aspens that protruded from the center of the open park. Once we reached the trees Dad immediately threw up his rifle and took aim at the lead elk- a big cow.

“I’m going to shoot that lead cow,” Dad whispered excitedly.

At this point I had my binoculars up and as I scanned the tree line I could see more elk slipping through the pines about to emerge into the park. “No, wait, “ I snapped back. “There are more elk coming.”

“I’m going to shoot this lead cow,” Dad repeated.

“No Dad! Just wait a dog-gone minute! There are more elk coming. Be patient.”

Good grief, you would have thought the old man had never been elk hunting before. He was as excited as three year-old on his birthday. If he shot the first thing that walked out, some skinny old cow, I would have never let him hear the end of it.

More and more elk were now streaming out of the timer-cows, spikes, forked-horns, 3 x 3’s. They looked like an army of ants marching to a Fourth of July picnic. With a herd of this size, I knew there had to be a big bull in there somewhere. I continued to scan down the line of elk with my binoculars towards the rear of the herd and that’s when I glimpsed a heavy set of antlers moving through the aspens in our direction. A monster bull quickly materialized out of the trees. He was the last elk in the procession. There was no doubt in my mind he was the herd bull. He also looked very familiar. I was certain he was the big bull I had seen early in the morning.

“Dad… big bull coming! Big bull coming,” I whispered.

I glanced over at Dad. He had his rifle trained on the slow procession of elk while anxiously shifting his weight from one foot to another. He looked like he was about to pee his pants. The anxiety of watching elk after elk after elk, slowly amble past him was about to push him over the edge. It was like holding a freshly opened bottle of triple malt scotch under the nose of a raging alcoholic. I knew he was about to shoot at any minute.

“Don’t you shoot. Just wait,” I reminded him. “The last bull in the line is the one you want. Be patient. Trust me.”

One by one, the herd slowly, meandered past Dad’s position until finally the herd bull stepped out and presented him with a clear, broadside shot.

“That’s him! That’s the one!” I whispered. “Take him!”

Dad’s black Remington 7mm, a 60th birthday present from Joe and I, boomed through the valley. Seventy-five yards away, the big bull collapsed to the frozen ground. Dad jacked another round into his rifle but we both knew it wasn’t needed. The old bull had dropped dead in his tracks. Dad and I raced over to his body, Dad in the lead while I fumbled through my hunting vest pocket for my video camera.

“Good night, son, would you look at the size of that bull!” Dad exclaimed as he crouched down beside the animal.

The bull was a massive 6x6, with heavy main beams and tall thick tines that were tipped in creamy ivory. The bull easily dwarfed my 5x5. He was without a doubt the CEO of this particular herd of elk.

“The Bryson Boys definitely had some good luck this morning,” said Dad as he slapped me on the back.

He was right, I thought, while I clicked off a few ceremonial snapshots of Dad proudly posing with his trophy. The odds were stacked against us that morning, but somehow, someway, we not only managed to find elk where there wasn’t supposed to be any, but we managed to kill two nice bulls in the process. And more importantly we were able to experience the thrill of the hunt together as father and son, which will be one of those memories that I’ll hang on to as long as I live.

Yep, I must say that on that cold morning in early October in the northwest corner Colorado, Dad and I were blessed with The Luck of the Irish (or in our family’s case, The Luck of the Scotch/Irish.) It was undoubtedly one of the best hunting experiences of my life, but it was short-lived. Like all elk hunts, once the kill has been made the real work begins and this trip was no exception. I’ll go on record here and confess that the next 48 hours of field dressing, quartering and packing both bulls out on horse back in the middle of a blinding snowstorm while ascending over 1,ooo feet in elevation, was one of the most grueling, back-breaking, and physically exhausting experiences of my entire life.

But that’s a story for another time.