Jake's Elk

So Jake and Shane have been up bowhunting elk in the backcountry in Wyoming. Candace and I had been canning pretty much all day Saturday after Dalton's soccer game. My mom came over and helped us for a little while and Natalie and Clayton brought some dinner over. We were just finishing up with the canning when I got a phone call from Jake saying he had gotten an elk and needed me to bring up the horses in the morning. So Candace volunteered to take the boys for me and I called my dad and father-in-law to see if they wanted to go too. Jake said to make sure to bring up a horse for him to ride since he had logged twelve miles on his legs on Saturday. So we had three horses ready to go and needed one more so I called Casey and Alyson to see if we could borrow one of their horses. They let us borrow Wade, their horse that we had taken backpacking a month ago. So we made a plan that we were going to leave at 4:30 Sunday morning. I couldn't sleep hardly at all Saturday night. So I got up about 4 and took the truck over to my dad's to hook on to the horse trailer and load his horse, Sassy. Then we picked up Dallas and came back to our house to get Guy, Freckles, and Wade. When we got here Casey was standing in front of his house with Wade all saddled and ready to go. So we got everybody loaded and off we went. The truck ride there was pretty fun. We're loving our 2001 Dodge diesel. It pulls four horses like they don't weigh a thing. Dad, Dallas, and I were all in good spirits as we anticipated the adventure ahead of us. We chatted and shared stories and had a good time. We got to the turn off where Jake was parked in Shane's truck and then I got in and rode with Jake up to the trail head. While we drove Jake told me the story of how he got his elk.
He said that Saturday morning he and Shane woke up to the sound of elk bugleing. So they hurried and headed out to try to get the stalk on one. They've been doing enough homework that they've figured out a pretty good plan of calling in the elk for eachother. Shane got a chance at a nice six point at about 50 yards, he said it came in screaming! He pulled back but there was a bush in his way so he tried to stand up to shoot over it and the elk saw him and took off. They had three nice bulls come in pretty close that morning but weren't able to seal the deal. Things slowed down a little around noon so they decided to stop and eat some lunch. While they were eating they heard this deep growly bugle about a hundred yards below them. Shane insisted that it was Jake's turn to go try to get a shot. So Jake took off down towards the elk and Shane stayed up above to cow call for him. Jake had barely found a spot to kneel down and stay hidden when this bull came bustin out about fifty yards below him. He stopped just behind a tree and Jake notched his arrow and pulled back and held it for about two minutes. Shane was cow calling behind him and the elk had his attention on that and didn't notice Jake. Jake took out his range finder and ranged the tree the elk would be stepping out from behind at fifty yards. Shane cow called again and the elk came out from behind the tree then Jake did a little cow call and the elk stopped dead in his tracks broad side at fifty yards. Jake said it couldn't have been a more perfect opportunity for a shot. So he let the arrow fly and heard a loud THUMP and the elk took off! He thought the arrow had hit, he said everything felt good, but he didn't know for sure. So he hiked back up to where Shane was and they finished their lunches and waited for about forty minutes then went back down to the spot where the elk was when Jake shot. They followed the elk's tracks and found a little bit of blood and found the elk piled up about 80 yards away from where he had been hit. He couldn't have died in a better spot. He was on a north facing slope a few yards away from a steep ravine. If he had ended up in that ravine it would have been miserable getting him out of it. Jake and Shane were both so psyched when they saw the elk there. Jake said it was an awesome feeling! All his time and preparation had finally paid off. They got to work getting him quartered up and hung in a tree then Jake took off on the grueling hike back to the truck to call me.
We unloaded the horses and started headed in. I understand why Jake loves archery hunting as much as he does. It was gorgeous up there! Steep rugged mountains, tall green pines, a gorgeous lake with fish jumping in it, crystal clear streams filled with little brookies, rocky cliffs, and game sign everywhere. We saw a few piles of fresh bear poo on the way in but didn't see any bears although Jake and Shane had seen a few. I was riding Freckles and I noticed that he was favoring his left front leg a little so I decided to get off and hike to give him a break. There was a real rocky spot where we had to lead the horses, other than that one spot it wasn't to bad going in. We got to where Jake and Shane had been camping and visited with Shane for a while and ate our lunchables then we went down to get the elk. We loaded all the meat onto Guy. Guy is such a good horse. He's by far the best 400 bucks we've ever spent. Thanks so much to Christopher for finding him for us four years ago. We decided to put the head on freckles since once it was all skinned it only weighed about forty pounds although we probably could have put the head on Guy too and he could have packed the whole dang elk out himself. That saved Wade and Sassy as riding horses. We had to lead all the horses until we got over the really rocky stuff. Since there were only three of us heading out and four horses to lead we decided to just let Sassy go and hopefully she'd just follow the other horses. When we got to the really rocky mountain we had to cross my dad decided to lead Sassy since she's easier to lead than Guy. That's probably Guy's only quirk is he's kinda hard to lead. He kinda pushes ya, especially when he knows he's headed back to the truck. He just wants to go and go fast, I'm always afraid when I'm leading him out that he's just gonna run over top of me. So my dad led Sassy and we just let Guy make his own way up the rocky son of a gun mountain. Well, I was leading Wade and we were the last one's coming out so I didn't see all of this happen although I could hear rocks sliding down the mountain and the sound of a horse struggleing up it. I guess Guy decided instead of going up he was going down and he started headed down into the canyon and Dallas saw him heading down and he started hollaring at him so Guy kindof panicked and he could see the other horses heading up so he tried to run straight up a really steep rocky side of the mountain and Dallas said he was afraid with all the weight of the elk on Guy he was going to tip over backwards and roll down the mountain. But Guy is as tough as they come and he stumbled a little and banged up his legs but he made it to the top ok. I could hear all the commotion and I saw Guy struggleing a little, luckily I couldn't see the worse part. While all this was going on my dad was trying to tie Sassy up and get down to help Guy. But Guy made it ok on his own. I was praying the whole time that none of us and none of the horses would get hurt and that we'd make it out of there ok. I definitely know my prayers were heard. It was pretty scary. Luckily Wade is a good horse to lead. So that was the worse part of heading out. After that it wasn't too bad. My dad had brought his part heeler part border collie, Saige. She's such a cute dog! She was like the mother hen on the trip she'd run up to the front of our pack train and check on everybody up there then she'd run to the back and make sure everybody back there was ok. We were all so exhausted by the time we finally made it to the truck! We had one more adventure before it was smooth sailing though. When I was riding with Jake and we were heading up the dirt road, my dad and Dallas didn't know how far up the dirt road it was to the trail head. It was a lot farther than any of us thought. We should have got fuel when we went through the last town; when we were almost to the trail head the low fuel light had come on in the truck. Jake and I have only had that truck for a little over a month and we have no idea how many miles we can go once the low fuel light comes on. So we were praying we could make it to town before we ran out of fuel. Luckily it was down hill most the way out so we could coast a lot. We made it to the little town gas station almost on fumes but at least we made it! We ate a late dinner at Subway and I was so hungry that was the best sandwich I've ever had! We finally got home at about 12:30am. It was almost a 24 hour ordeal! Dad, Dallas, and I were all so exhausted by the time we finally got home! The drive going home seemed to take three times as long as the drive getting there! When we got home we unloaded the horses and threw all the elk meat into the freezer and the head in the garage. Monday morning I went in to Dallas Green's and got some salt to salt down the cape to start it drying out. I got the cape all salted and when Jake gets home we'll take care of the rest of it. I'm still completely exhausted! Candace took the boys to Joyce Sunday afternoon and since we got home so late Sunday night they spent the night there and I picked them up Monday morning. Thanks to Candace and Joyce for all their help with the kids and thanks to my Dad, Dallas, and Shane for their help with the elk!