Elk

Sometimes I wonder what kind of hunter I would be if I didn't live in Alaska and have the opportunity to hunt Dall sheep. I bet elk would be my obsession of choice. My favorite hunting shows are the archery bull hunts where they call them in close. I spent my youth chasing them all over the coast mountains of Oregon. Maybe it's nostalgia for the animal that taught me to hunt that causes my hunting mind to drift from rams occasionally. Maybe it's the towering branched antlers. For sure the eery, high pitched bugling that seems such an odd sound from the regal bulls sends chills down my spine. I never did kill one but their memory haunts me and every time we go to Oregon I look forward to seeing a few on the hoof. This last trip I even bought myself a "hootchie mamma" (a cow elk call) so I can close my eyes and pretend I'm in the dark timber with a herd of the tawny ghosts all around me. And if you are ever walking the forests of POW and hear a bull bugling, there's a better chance I'm nearby than you're really hearing an elk.

I posted a hunting picture of my dad a few days ago and thought I'd better give him some more props for his prowess as a hunter. This is a pic of him many moons and fewer gray hairs ago with a Roosevelt elk he killed with a bow and arrow.

My bother got the spike bull in fall 2007, his first bull.

And finally, there's a picture of a herd of elk at Jewell Wildlife Meadows in Oregon, where after nearly every unsuccessful hunt we'd go and ogle the big bulls as they thumbed their protected noses at us.