Be Prepared. That's the Boy Scout motto and never was a truer statement spoken before. I heard that statement a lot when I was in Boy Scouts but never paid much heed to it or fully understand the value in that statement until I started big game hunting when I was 14 years old. Even now being 31 years old I still forget to bring very, very important equipment with me when I head off into the hills to pursue the wild beasts.
Last year my father was lucky enough to draw a limited entry elk tag for a unit that we've hunting for more than 10 years and had to sit and watch all the big mature elk cruise on by without being to able to take one. However this year was different. We knew exactly where to go where we knew we could and would harvest an elk that would score between 300'-350'.
This was what we had been waiting for for 10 years now. The day finally came. Opening morning was very uneventful with nothing to be seen or heard. When evening was finally upon us out came the big bruiser we had been looking for. The only problem was he was 1500 yards away a little too far for a Remington 30.06. Well we knew he'd be there tomorrow so we headed back to camp.
The following day found us in position waiting for the bruiser and his harem to make their way out to feed. It wasn't too long into the late afternoon that he screamed out his first bugle of the day and was headed out for a fight and food. I had purchased a 'Carlton's Estrus Call' the week before and at the opportune time my father told me to give it a couple of squeezes. Well it worked like magic and got the bruiser into a frenzy of bugling and raking.
After he had made his way out into the open he immediately started fighting with another bull that was a little smaller than him. All the while my father was taking aim. After the bruiser had won his fight my father squeezed off the first round hitting directly home, then fired off two more shots to make sure he wasn't going anywhere, which you know they do if you've ever hunted elk before.
It took us an hour to get over to him and find him. We both let out our Indian woots to celebrate and give thanks to the elk god for the awesome beast that laid before us. Then the work began. We quartered him up in about 40 minutes and night was approaching fast. When we finished it dark enough that we had to use flash lights to see our way out.
Then it happened it started to rain and then the rain turned to half snow-half rain. We'd been hiking for about an hour when we realized that we had taken the wrong ridge and we didn't know exactly what ridge we were on but we knew weren't headed in the right direction. We were at least 2 maybe 3 miles away from our truck and we were getting cold and wet fast. At about the time we decided to make a fire to warm up before we kept hiking I realized that I had left my lighter and matches in our horses' pack saddles which were in the truck. Just then my heart sank to the ground. I stood there thinking to myself, "how could I have done this? I never forget my lighter and matches."
Well there was no time to sit and bellyache and say woulda, coulda, shoulda. We had to get outta there fast and at least keep hiking until we made it to a road.
After 3 hours of hiking we finally hit road and knew exactly where we were at that point but we were still an hour from the truck but at least we knew where we were. Neither one of us admitted it until the next day but we were both extremely close to hypothermia and completely exhausted from hiking most of the day and well into the night. We were definitely blessed that night. The next day we brought the horses in and got that bruiser of an elk out which is another story for another time. Which was a rodeo in it's own right.
Something I learned that night that I want to pass on to everyone that reads this and that's make sure you check, check and recheck your packs and always make sure you're always prepared. No matter what! The weather in the mountains has a mind of it's own and is very unforgiving. That night we came very close to ending up as headlines.
Always be prepared.
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