I recently went out to Utah and did a cow elk hunt with J&J outfitters. The outfit is top notch, and the guides were great. This season there was very little snow and so the elk were up high and all over the place. Because of that I had to do a good amount of hiking to find the elk. The elevations ranged from about 5000-8000 ft. and the temperatures in the morning were around 5 F and warmed up to about 25 F by mid day.
We got back into the area via quad and polaris. We came across some fresh signs of about 5-7 elk and so with the help of one guide I decided to see if I could go and find them from the top of the ridge. It ended up being a good hike through some knee deep snow, but the view alone was worth it.
When I got to the top the guide spotted the herd on the far mountain side, but when I pulled out the LRF they were 900 yards out and there were too many bulls with the herd. The range was more than what I felt comfortable pulling the trigger on, and so I conceded defeat and started back towards the trail, but in a round about way.
Fortunately the area is very game rich and the guide pointed out the many porcupines, deer, and a couple of moose. On our way back we came across another group of elk that were bedded down in some trees. As we were moving to get into a good position on them I noticed some elk on the other ridge line. Fortunately this herd was in a much better location than the initial one that we were currently moving in on, because it was straight down hill to the trail that we drove in on. I moved into a good position on the herd about 450 yards away and started milling all of them to see which one was the largest. Just my luck, the one that was the largest was behind a tree. So I traversed the mountain to get in a better position while the guide watched the elk and would tell me to stop if they looked in our direction. By the time I finally got into a location that was clear of the tree I had moved within 385 yards of the elk that I was wanting. The one issue was that she was laying down facing away from me with her spine directly inline with me. It was a slight down shot and across the valley. I placed a rucksack down and took up a seated position with the bipod on the ruck. I waited for her to stop looking from left to right, she looked directly away from me and I sent one round through the back of her head. Her head went down and the herd didn't even move until we started to come up to them. I couldn't of been happier. I was using a 168 grain Berger VLD traveling 2950FPS out of my 21" AR10 7SAUM. It was much to the thanks of the guides that put me on the elk. With the help of the guides the elk was quartered and myself and my crossfit buddy drove our elk back to CA the next day. At the butcher mine weighed in at 149lbs quartered and my buddy who first time ever elk hunting scored a monster that weighed in at 189lbs which was around 550 on the hoof. All in all a great time and a great hunt. Here are a couple of pics.
We got back into the area via quad and polaris. We came across some fresh signs of about 5-7 elk and so with the help of one guide I decided to see if I could go and find them from the top of the ridge. It ended up being a good hike through some knee deep snow, but the view alone was worth it.
When I got to the top the guide spotted the herd on the far mountain side, but when I pulled out the LRF they were 900 yards out and there were too many bulls with the herd. The range was more than what I felt comfortable pulling the trigger on, and so I conceded defeat and started back towards the trail, but in a round about way.
Fortunately the area is very game rich and the guide pointed out the many porcupines, deer, and a couple of moose. On our way back we came across another group of elk that were bedded down in some trees. As we were moving to get into a good position on them I noticed some elk on the other ridge line. Fortunately this herd was in a much better location than the initial one that we were currently moving in on, because it was straight down hill to the trail that we drove in on. I moved into a good position on the herd about 450 yards away and started milling all of them to see which one was the largest. Just my luck, the one that was the largest was behind a tree. So I traversed the mountain to get in a better position while the guide watched the elk and would tell me to stop if they looked in our direction. By the time I finally got into a location that was clear of the tree I had moved within 385 yards of the elk that I was wanting. The one issue was that she was laying down facing away from me with her spine directly inline with me. It was a slight down shot and across the valley. I placed a rucksack down and took up a seated position with the bipod on the ruck. I waited for her to stop looking from left to right, she looked directly away from me and I sent one round through the back of her head. Her head went down and the herd didn't even move until we started to come up to them. I couldn't of been happier. I was using a 168 grain Berger VLD traveling 2950FPS out of my 21" AR10 7SAUM. It was much to the thanks of the guides that put me on the elk. With the help of the guides the elk was quartered and myself and my crossfit buddy drove our elk back to CA the next day. At the butcher mine weighed in at 149lbs quartered and my buddy who first time ever elk hunting scored a monster that weighed in at 189lbs which was around 550 on the hoof. All in all a great time and a great hunt. Here are a couple of pics.
