tjbill
Well-Known Member
My wife drew a WA Modern Firearm cow tag this year for a hunt that runs during the same time as the general season 3-Point or better bull season. This is only her second year hunting and she was pretty fired up to get the chance to go after elk to say the least! We set up camp the day before the season opener and did a little scouting the night before. I had hunted the area earlier in the year and taken a cow with my muzzleloader, so I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted us to be the next morning. She had decided that she wanted to try for a bull for the first three days unless we weren't seeing many animals. Now, I've hunted elk since I was 9 years old and the amount of hunters we saw the next morning was SHOCKING! I wish I would have video taped it! So the first day was pretty much a bust although we did watch a guy across a canyon shoot a nice 6 point, but about 80% of the people had either left or gone somewhere else by the next morning. We located a herd with a couple of bulls in a little pocket where I had seen elk during the muzzleloader season, so we focused our efforts on them over the next four days. We hiked out to the end of an old spur road before daylight on the 5th day and caught the herd crossing an opening just after legal shooting light. We were eventually able to see that there was a legal bull in the middle of the clearing at 220 yards. I got Stacy set up with her Tikka 270 loaded with 130 grain Accubonds and she put him on the ground! She did a great job and tuffed out 5 long days of hunting. After 5 trips for Bill to get him out, we were on our way home.
