Well… early muzzleloader season is over… and it was good and great…!

I had set up some trail cameras on private land in September that captured some great elk pictures… so we were totally excited and ready to get hunting.

We had set up 4 tree stands on 166 acres of private forested land that backs up to National Forest land. In general proximity to where the trail cameras had captured elk traffic.

On Saturday morning we wake up at O-dark-thirty, to a steady rain and 41 degrees. With a quick breakfast and gear into the truck off we go to our tree stands. We walk in while it was semi-dark and I get in my stand at 7:00 am. After letting it settle down for about a half hour, I give my estrus cow call 3 times and sprayed some cow urine in the air and sit back to wait. Well… once you start to warm up and try and focus on every little noise and change in the forest around you your mind starts to play tricks on you… generally it tries to get you to fall asleep, 15 feet up on a small metal seat and a climbing harness on you to stop you from falling all the way to the ground, and generally you get the head nods like Grandpa used to get.

Anyway… I fight off the nods until about 9:15, and then I just had to lean my head back and rest for a minute well, after a few minutes something doesn’t feel just right. So, I slowly start to review the trails and woods on the right side, and then working my review to the left… as I get all the way to the left I see (not hear because of the constant heavy rain) the back half of an elk rushing into the brush across one of the trails… DAMIT… with no chance at a shot, I am cursing myself for having the nods… Then, I think I wonder why that elk had been moving so fast… so I slowly look around the tree over my left shoulder and I see a shootable bull coming up the same trail as the last elk at a quick pace… head down sniffing the trail and moving right along! So, I quickly get my muzzleloader up and take a big breath (calm down, calm down, breath), I scan the trail that he will take to find the best shot window. There ahead of him was a couple of nice breaks in the vine maple and one would put him quartering away… slow down….

I am ready and breathing right… squeeze the set trigger… and he walks right into the shot window… slight squeeze… BAM the smoke cloud rolls… and he takes a quick bunch of steps across the trail just like the other elk… and then he slows down and just stands in the brush… GO DOWN GO DOWN my brain is screaming… nothing… so I slowly reload with as little motion as possible… then I start looking for another shot window… I give a couple of cow calls… he takes a couple of steps towards where he would be out of sight but crossing a trail ahead of me… so I slowly climb down the ladder and make a couple of cow calls… then cross the trail under the stand and take a couple of more steps… and the he is standing broadside of me (45 yards away) but doesn’t seem to notice me… and he is slowly walking to enter some brush… I think NO WAY am I letting you get in there… I raise the muzzleloader and take aim just behind his shoulder… and BAM… I hear a load grunt (like someone being punched and having the wind knocked out of them), he spins and takes a couple of steps and spins and falls over backwards… BULL DOWN I yell on the radio to my partner…

Well I reload and walk up to him … he is dead…!!!!

Both shots had gone in ½ inch apart, I recovered both bullets when skinning him… the rest of the day was getting him quartered and out to the truck and off to the butcher.

We spent the rest of the week trying to punch my buddies tag but no luck… I looked for a buck for part of the week and nothing…

But we had a great week together with some great times (the weather could have been a little less wet)… but we did get the first snow and some beautiful sunny days as well!!!

Anyway… now some fishing time… and then more hunting time after Thanksgiving…

Shawn