Congratulations to your dad. I heard all the huffing and puffing in the video. It got me excited as I know it was a lot of adrenalin pumping. I really enjoyed the video. I didn't get all the details but first , 146 yd shot with open sights on ML is fantastic. Did he take that off hand or what as I didn't see any shooting sticks, etc during the video? I was just today looking at ML bullet options and seen that bullet and wondered if it was any good. I believe I just found out. If there are any more details on the hunt as far as leading up to it etc that is not in the video I would love to hear it. I shot my first bull with a recurve this year in Colorado. I was going to post it here on LRH somewhere but haven't had time yet. I have killed 4 cows prior to the bull, 2 with ML, 1 compound bow, and one with recurve. Your dad made a great shot. I say congrats to both of you...
Yes it was a standing up, off hand shot with his CVA Optima .50cal
We've had excellent results with the 300gr Aerolite. One exit on a deer he shot at 35 yards, ended up with 4 exit holes from ribs splattering through the hide and the main bullet exit pulled a large section of lung out with it.
We had hunted for 4 days, not seeing much but deer and a few grouse ( the grouse we took!) and that evening I said we should go to that area we saw elk during the summer, a few years ago. This was one nasty hell of a mountain valley to get down into ( you saw it in the video) we drove up that area, cruised the roads to find where folks were hunting and grouse hunt the logging areas along the way.
On the way down we found a spot about a mile from that valley and said screw it, its windy as well, nothing is going to be out in this weather. We actually were messing around with my phone down loading some apps because I had service there.
I'd go and use the binos to scan the area a long ways out there.
I remember hitting the DOWN LOAD button for the facebook app and said, wow its already at 15%! This wont take long.
Put the phone down and turned my head and saw a single black/tan spot standing in front of a huge aspen grove. I said a few choice words, grabbed the binos and saw a nice cow grazing in the grass.
I took a look at the road and counted how many hills I'd have to cover in order to get us a lot closer so we'd have enough time to hike down to where she was.
Got the truck started and at the number of hills I counted I found a safe place to pull over and park. We got most of the gear and camera set up and started going into the next valley on foot, down to where I saw the cow.
Everything from this point on is on camera.
What seemed to take 10 minutes to get down into, took an HOUR to get back out.... EMPTY..
All we had on us were these tiny back packs that could carry maybe 30lbs of meat. After the first load, we grabbed 2 canvas elk bags and put even amounts of meat between my brother and I and let my dad carry what his bag could.
2 1/2 trips for us and we did not get back into camp until 1:55am! A 7+ hour hunt and pack out job.
Its a whole lot easier to get an elk out when you de-bone it in the field, thats for sure. We got everything from the base of the skull on down, except for rib meat which is completely useless as it dries into scabs very quickly.
