My First Hunt

The Idaho in me has been growing.  In the last year I have purchased two guns, my first fishing tackle box, and a truck.  While the truck was a little bit of a necessity the guns were not.  I have been wanting to hunt since I moved here last year.
My Remington 700 SPS has been a good rifle for me.  When ever I go out shooting I seem to be as accurate as an inexperienced city boy could be.  While in the desert shooting I had visions of an elk down range, ripe for the picking.  Well Saturday I had my visions come true.
After months of practicing my accuracy, and finally taking the hunter education course required by Idaho State, I went on my first hunt.  My brother-in-law, Trent, was my guide.  There is only one general season left open in the state for elk, and I happen to only be about 30 min. from that location.  As we drove into our legal area to hunt we soon noticed a heard of about 30 elk.  The bad news was there were four or five other trucks full of men with rifles that saw them as well.  It was around 7:30 in the morning.  The sun had only been up for 40 minutes.  These elk we spotted were out grazing in a field on private property.  This was a little annoying at the time but proved to be to my advantage later in the day.
Not wanting to compete for a few elk that weren't even on public land my brother-in-law and I decided to drive into the desert to find another heard.  After a few hours of driving on snow covered BLM roads we found our way to a butte over looking the desert in all directions.  After all of out driving the only signs of elk we spotted were day or two old tracks in the snow.  These elk were smart and knew they were protected on the public lands.  Once on the butte I looked to the farm where the elk were first spotted, there were still a bunch of trucks around the property.  I couldn't get a location on the elk themselves, but I knew those hunters weren't sitting around for nothing.  We decided we better do like the others and try and wait out the elk to see if they moved off the property.
Left or right was the choices to get off the hill.  Left took us the way we came and right took us almost directly off the hill, through the farm road back to the highway.  I was the one on the hunt, my brother-in-law bagged his elk a couple weeks earlier, it was my decision.  I chose to go right.  Another choice that created an advantage.
Once on the highway again I pulled out the binoculars and glassed the elk, they were running.  They were running away from us, and heading towards the highway that is the border of the hunting zone.  If they crossed that road we would be out of luck.  We gunned it for the edge of the private property to cut off the herd at the fence.  Right as we approached the fence the elk were starting to jump.  Lucky for me they were jumping onto public land.  My guide gave me a few last minute pointers as I jumped out of the truck with my rifle.  There were three other hunters taking shots at the elk as they jumped the fence.  One of these men dropped the first cow to hop over, her hind legs hadn't even hit the ground before she was dead.  I took five shots at one elk, missing every time.  Not having ever shot a rifle at a moving target, let alone a printing elk, I didn't feel too bad.
That wasn't my only chance though, the elk stopped running about 100 yards out in the middle of a field.  We ran back to the truck and drove to the highway where the elk would be free from the threat of our bullets if they crossed.  The animals slowly continued making their way towards their freedom, just as we slowly drove to slow them down.  Once with in about 50 yards I hopped back out of the truck and hit one knee.  One of the bucks leading the heard stepped out and a yearling calf followed him and hesitated.  I set my sights on the calf's neck and pulled the trigger.  BAM, one shot and he was down.  I heard a "Way to go Geoff" from my brother-in-law.

I had broken the elk's neck and he wasn't able to move, though still alive.  I walked up to him and shot him a second time right under the ear to put him out of his misery.  He was dead, the brain matter from the kill shot scattered in the snow.
Now came the harder part, gutting my kill.  I was still pumped up from the kill and was looking forward to learning the more skilled part of the hunt.  Trent guided me through it and was giving me pointers.  He also helped with some of the sawing and cutting off of useless skin.

We loaded the elk into the back of the truck and drove back to Rexburg Idaho where I am having it butchered.  While hanging the young calf in the butcher freezer Trent made sure I knew how rare it was to be hanging a kill at 2:30 in the afternoon of the first day of a hunt.  I was lucky to have such an easy hunting experience.  I am glad it was fairly simple this time around so that it could be more of a learning experience.  Next time I'll be able to handle a little more hard ship on my hunting adventures.

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