A Season of Elk

A short time after this image was taken, a herd of 70 elk began meandering across the open pasture on the left side of the photo near the half way mark.  A huge bull, probably 6X6, trailed the herd keeping his eyes on his harem.  They were about 2 miles away and walking like dairy cows going off to milking.

They had spent the night feeding in the hay fields in Cow Valley and now were headed back up to the fir pockets and ravines to bed down for the day.  We hoped they'd run into other hunters and turn back toward the protection our mountain offers.  We waited three hours and didn't hear a shot.

That was opening day.

Over night more snow fell and the morning brought low clouds and decreased visibility.  We knew the neighboring ranch had hunters afield and we monitored their radio transmissions.

They had seen the herd and were attempting to move ahead of the animals to set an ambush.  If shot at, the elk would come our way.  We waited another two hours for rifle reports but heard none.  The elk had vanished. 

That was day two.

 

The next morning we scoured our property for sign, in hopes the beasts had doubled back.  After checking every possible passage without crossing tracks we called it a day and headed back to Willow Creek.

The hunt was over for the time being.

So there it is.  Stay tuned.  

(There are two regular Elk seasons in Oregon.  First Season occurs in the last week of October while Second Season starts in November and last for about 10 days.  A limited number of special permits -tags- allow hunting at different times during the fall and winter.  Our tags are special landowner permits allowing us to hunt until the end of the year.  We're afforded the luxury of time.  Hopefully enough time for the elk to find their way to our side of the fence.  So it's back to the mountains next week)