"Baby Bulls" 2009 - part 2

So the first weekend was very cold, snowy and no elk to be seen. We were hoping for much better luck the 2nd weekend. My sister ended up getting sick so she was done. My dad was told by his doctor that he could go so when my brother Marcus got home they went out on Wednesday to the south end of Mt. Dutton. They had a very long horse ride and saw some elk but didn't get shots at them. He was very tired after that day so he didn't go back out with me and Marcus Thursday.

We got back over there and on the horses early. We were up on top of this big ridge when we stopped to call for a minute. The bulls were talking and lead us right to them but they were a long ways away. We could see at least 3 or 4 spikes in this herd of about 30 - 40. We decided to give it a try but didn't hit anything. The wind was blowing so hard right at us and I would guess they were about 400 to 450 yards away. All we did was scare them over the hill. We got back on the horses and followed. When we finally caught up to them 2 ridges over we did the same thing all over again. In fact we did that ALL DAY LONG. The herd kept splitting and we were following a big bull that had about 15 cows with him. We caught them around 2:30 in a small meadow. The cows kept laying down and their tongues were hanging on the ground, we had them wore clear out. They spooked again and headed back to the north so we followed. They hooked back up with more elk and Marcus could see a spike he started shooting at but missed. We decided at that point to stop and eat some lunch. After we got done we were trying to decide which way to go. He wanted to circle back up around to the top but I thought we should go down around the bottom.

I was glad that he went with my suggestion because we spooked the elk out again. The majority of the herd headed straight up the mountain with the big bull and some of the cows went a different way up the same hill....then there were 2 spikes going down the mountain trying to escape. It was like the herd was trying to distract us so the spikes could disappear. My brother saw them though and said he was going to shoot. I said if there is 2 of them wait for me to get down there so we can shoot together. We both sat down and count of 3 started shooting. We had for sure wounded them and they were just standing on a side hill. We moved closer and Marcus finished his off. He was shooting his brand new 270 and using the new Leupold VX-3 3.5x10x40 B&C scope he bought from my website, www.sneak-a-peek-optics.com. I then did the same and they fell within about 10 yards of each other. WOW! We couldn't contain ourselves. It was such a rush. Since it was around 5:00 that afternoon when we got to them, we then had to get them cleaned out so that we could come back in with help to get them out the next day.  One of the most exciting and exhausting days ever!

There is still more to this story!! Of course we weren't done then!! Stay tuned!