Time Crunch: Good Things Come to Elk Hunters Who Wait

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Made it with 10 minutes to spare. Glancing up from my watch, I soon located the craggy rock pile I had discovered on an earlier exploratory elk hunt into the basin. It would be my base to watch the nearly vertical, open slope above for signs of elk at first shooting light.

Adding another layer and gulping down an energy bar finalized my setup as I settled prone with my rifle nestled in my backpack and pointing upward. After a few zaps with my SIG Sauer KILO6K HD rangefinding binocular, I felt confident that no shot would extend more than 450 yards. Relaxing my eyes for a moment, I lifted the binocular back to my eyes to begin scanning through the gray haze of daybreak.

That’s when I saw the first bull step from the far side of the timber to graze across the face. Was the last day of my hunt going to be my lucky day?

Narrow Window

As I’ve added years to my well-used body, I’ve been blessed to be able to also increase my time in the field. That is a good thing, especially when it comes to hunting elk on public land with a DIY mindset. Over the course of my hunting career and particularly as I fine-tuned my public-land approach, I discovered a given amount of time is required to tag out when competing with the crowd. Public-land elk receive a tremendous amount of hunting pressure beginning in September and extending even into December—or beyond for antlerless management hunts. With that education in play, elk become masters at finding refuge and traveling far distances to escape continued pressure. Are you doing the math yet?

A common complaint by my peers follows a trend of elk moving onto private ranches for sanctuary where only pay-to-play hunters pursue them with minimal stress on the herd. In other units where elk have no private escape pod, their recourse of action includes moving away from roads and into terrain that turns back the timid. This is where the time aspect becomes crucial. Finding elk, locating a route into their asylum and then strategizing to move into shooting range requires time. Although you might get lucky and tag out in a few days, most of my DIY archery and rifle elk hunts average between eight and 12 days. Sometimes they go longer.

So, when I drew a permit in Wyoming a few seasons back, looked at the calendar, re-checked my schedule and discovered I had a window of only three, maybe four, days for the hunt, I wanted to call Dr. Phil for some inspiration. A four-day window for a public-land hunt really meant three days of hunting and if successful, in a not-too-remote area, spending the fourth day packing an elk out.

A combination of factors crunched my time, including a work trip that I needed to fulfill for bill paying and a trip to visit my son as he neared closer to graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The academy restricts cadet leave to a minimum and on occasion allows parents to visit. We had planned this open-house weekend for months, and my wife and I had no intention of missing it. I added up this logistical problem and realized it equaled four days to hit the Wyoming mountains and fill our freezer.

Knowing that killing and extracting an elk in four days was a lofty goal, I reached out to a buddy of mine, Levi Duncan, from nearby South Dakota. Levi and I have a lengthy past of hunting together, which includes him leading me into a Montana general elk unit and allowing me to hunt his family’s ranch. In turn, I shared some of my Wyoming elk waypoints and landed him a hunting slot on a Kansas farm for whitetails. He agreed to join me on the hunt as a spotter and packer if I landed a bullet in the right spot.

Goodbye Help, Hello Hope

The morning before Levi arrived, I packed camp. I use the term loosely as my camp consists of a 20-foot enclosed gooseneck horse trailer decked out with cots, a Coleman stove, Mr. Heater Big Buddy heater and coolers for storage. My hunting approach centers on setting a base camp for most overnights with the occasional bivy if required. The trailer also allows me to move quickly if elk signal a camp adjustment.

The horse trailer camp provides me with a comfortable bed, warm meals, a splash tub for the occasional purification and, most of all, protection from the elements. To reach elk, I bounce the trailer as close as possible to my hunting area and then utilize an ATV for a brief ride to reach trailheads. Over the years this method has accounted for most of my DIY bulls, and I escape the life of living out of a backpack. Research your elk hunting units judiciously and you could locate similar areas. Again, although your camp may be comfortably placed, the elk will still likely be in intimidating topography. And that brings me to losing a friend.

I did not set camp before Levi arrived, and we spent the first night at my Wyoming home. In the middle of the night, we arose and Levi followed the horse trailer up the mountain. Arriving at the jump-off location, I was surprised by feet of snow. I figured we would camp at a pull-off, take ATVs up the mountain to my elk location of choice and hike in. The snow had different plans. After 30 minutes of the ATVs plowing through snow in blizzard conditions, I ended the hunt. If the conditions continued, our ATVs would likely not make it back down to the trailer camp. I had another idea. We would ascend from the bottom of the mountain into the canyon country I had hoped to approach from the top.

Of course, this move killed half a day, but after 2,000 feet of straight-up climbing, we reached a series of small mesas I hoped held elk. A lack of sign, no elk vocalizations and the sight of hunters in the distance sank my hopes for the second time that day. Where was Dr. Phil when I needed him? At sunset we descended a cliff trail and collapsed in exhaustion at the horse trailer after a long day.

My fatigue caused me to miss Levi’s restless night, and the next morning I awoke to an obviously ill friend. At first Levi thought he might have the flu bug, but a night of vomiting and expelling in other manners left him convinced something even worse was upon him. Two hours before daybreak, I wished him well as he prepared for a long, grim drive home. Later, after some internal bleeding, he would be diagnosed with an acute form of altitude sickness. It took him more than a month to fully recover.

My second day of hunting the steep mesa reflected the first. As I wandered back to the trail that dropped me to my ATV waiting more than 1,000 feet below, sunset broke through the heavy cloud cover, lighting up another slope a couple of miles distant. Sweeping it with my binocular, I almost shouted “Yeah!” at the sight of a lone bull. Quickly pulling up my HuntStand hunting app, I marked the location and joyfully discovered an ATV trail less than 200 yards from the bull’s location. I knew where I was headed the next morning. Cancel Dr. Phil for the night’s therapy session.

Weighing the Positives

The following morning, I wished to rebook with the mustache man. Apparently, the bull was an anomaly and left before shooting light. Although elk sign abounded on the slope, it likely resulted from herds passing in the middle of the night. Circling around the slope opened another view to my north, and I pressed the bino to my face again.

Bingo! More elk coursed up a narrow canyon, again several miles away with the morning fog and snow showers obscuring them minutes later. Still early, I jumped on my ATV and soon located an old trail leading straight up mountain to the elk sighting. Would they still be there?

A positive sign directed me forward. A mountain lion also tracked the herd and only minutes ahead of me as told by the new snowfall. When I reached the first of the two openings, fresh elk sign littered the lower park. Cautiously, I stalked upward hoping to catch a bull still feeding in the open with snow showers boosting his confidence to stay out in the dim lighting. No such luck, but I found a rock outcropping serving as an ideal observation post to monitor the upper and lower park simultaneously, while also doubling as a sniper perch that even Bob Lee Swagger would eye with approval.

Layering up, wolfing down calories and warding off the chills anyway possible, I maintained my surveillance position, but the elk did not return to the grassy steepness. Had they moved on? Had they sensed my setup? Did the mountain lion continue the hunt and blow the herd? These questions and more raced through my mind as I hiked down in the darkness.

Day four lay ahead. Using commonsense, I realized that I needed to kill an elk in the morning if I had any chance whatsoever of extracting an entire bull from this hellhole before the end of the day. The perpendicular mountainside required just less than two hours of hiking to ascend 1,500 feet.

Without a solid plan B, I added up the positives. Elk had just visited the slopes. The steepness reflected the terrain that elk, particularly bulls, appreciate because they can use their evolutionary escape skill of climbing. No roads allowed the overweight hunting crowd to reach this location, and two large swaths of mountain grazing gave any elk the calories they needed. Water was found in the snow and a running creek on the backside of the mountain. I decided at once to succeed or fail at the newfound location.

The Agony of Success

Leaving out of camp on day four before 4 a.m. gave me the needed time to drive to the trailhead and do nearly two hours of vertical climbing with gear. The hike took longer as I planned a route through timber to avoid bumping any elk that might be feeding in the lower opening. Reaching the rock, I knelt for a quick prayer of thanks and prepared for the morning hunt. That’s when the first bull stepped out in the predawn haze I described at the beginning of this story.

The first bull, a young 5x5, was halfway up the top slope and feeding in my direction. Soon, two more bulls followed, and their 6x6 frames focused my attention. Looking at each as they unknowingly fed in my direction, I assessed the middle bull was the oldest. They would score within inches of each other, but the middle bull held more mass in his antlers and exhibited the sagging body lines of a bull in his prime. Then both the larger bulls fed behind a lone pine … the only large pine on the dang slope, and it prevented me from getting a shot.

While waiting for them to reappear, I ranged the area where I suspected I’d see the bulls again and came up with just over 300 yards, ideal for the ballistics of my .300 Win. Mag. I also confirmed my rifle rest, pushing the forearm firmly into my backpack and checking the steadiness of the reticle. With those chores out of the way, I waited for the bulls to appear and had a Dr. Phil conversation with myself to calm my nerves.

Five minutes later the mature bull showed first. While he was still feeding, I took a second to snap a picture of the bull and then turned to the business of the hunt. With the SIG Sauer SIERRA6 riflescope on 18X, my confidence jumped, and I slowly pressed the trigger.

Recovering from the recoil, I watched the bull stumble backward from the energy of the 200-grain Hornady ELD-X bullet only to disappear behind the dang tree again. Seconds later, I wished he would not have reappeared, as he was beginning an end-over-end somersault down the slope. After a 100-yard freefall, his antlers hung up in the sagebrush to brake his descent. I grabbed my backpack and hustled upslope.

That hustle took another 30 minutes due to steepness, but what a surprise ending to the abbreviated hunt. Not only did I manage to tag a bull elk, but it was a spectacular mature bull. Although his antlers were scuffed, not one tine was snapped off from the fall. I knelt again, prayed thanks, messaged my wife and friends, and then went to work. All alone with a horse-size critter to remove off a mountain is intimidating at best. Snow began to fall as I dove into my work.

By noon I had the bull deboned and the first load in my pack. I shot off the mountain, slipping and sliding in the nearly foot of new snow. Arriving safely at the trailhead below, I devoured my lunch and did more arithmetic. With four hours of daylight left, I could bring another load down before dark. Off I went, and since Wyoming has no law on when the head may be removed, it came off with the second load.

I did that for two reasons. One, I would undoubtedly be wiped the next day, and two, I wasn’t going to take the chance of another hunter finding and stealing it. I have experience with that.

The next morning, I ascended 1,500 feet and combined the last two loads into one. The hike down was slow with the triple-digit load on an icy slope, but I made it back to camp by noon. After a quick teardown of camp and several hours of driving over the mountains in yet another snowstorm, I made it home. With no time to waste, I packed, grabbed a couple hours of sleep and made our flight to visit our son. Tailgating at an Army football game with family and new friends was the ultimate celebration of a short but successful hunt.

Bull Shooter

• The Bergara MgLite is a lightweight, rugged chassis rifle right at home in the elk mountains.

As a younger hunter I carried almost any rifle into the mountains if it provided enough punch to tackle tough elk. As my joints remind me daily that I am racing toward “old guy” designation, I evaluate my rifles more carefully. My first dive into a lightweight model came through the use of a chassis-style rifle from Bergara (bergara.online/us) called the MgLite. It looks like it belongs in “Star Wars” but the rifle weighs just 6.8 pounds when chambered in .300 Win. Mag. It gets much of its weight reduction from the XLR Element 4.0 magnesium chassis that alone weighs just 29 ounces. The Bergara CURE carbon-fiber-wrapped barrel also supports that trim design.

I outfitted the MgLite with the capable SIG Sauer SIERRA6BDX 3-18x44 mm riflescope. The scope, a full magazine of cartridges and a rifle sling pushed the weight of my rifle setup to 9.7 pounds. I have been bumping that weight with the addition of a Silencer Central Banish Backcountry suppressor (silencercentral.com), which adds only 7.8 ounces but tames sound and recoil.

Oh yeah, Bergara’s latest chassis rifle is the MgMicro Lite. For hunters hoping to shed even more weight, it hits the scale at a mere 5.8 pounds. A chassis rifle like this has a lot of promise as an elk gun.

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• This article was featured in the August 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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