I love elk hunting. It’s the epitome of Western hunting, isn’t it? Anytime I meet someone from back east, they always ask about elk hunting.
The problem is I had all kinds of hunts lined up this past fall. I put in for a special draw down in the Owyhees and ended up with a cow tag over near Hells Canyon. Not sure how that happened. Maybe they couldn’t read my writing.
I also had a 17-day Alaskan trip planned. My cow tag opened the day I got back. Then I just signed on with a new outfit and got a landowner’s cow tag down south, and I also had the opportunity for a trophy bull hunt in Nevada. Too many options, not enough time.
So, for today let’s talk about the Owyhee cow hunt. My buddy Steve Meyer and I picked up the landowner cow tags and headed down scouting. At first, all that we could find were bulls, of course. Nice bulls. I teach a lot of glassing for big game seminars. In fact, I’ve got two at the Dallas Safari Club Convention and Expo in Dallas and at the Safari Club International Convention in Las Vegas and yet I’m still amazed at how much game I see when I glass.
Late afternoon, we were about to move spots and I told Steve to hold on a second and let me glass. I threw up my Leupold spotting scope and within seconds we saw some elk. A bunch of elk. Like about 200. The problem was, they were 7 miles away across a super deep canyon. We wouldn't even get to them before dark.
The next weekend I went back and parked close to where I thought the big herd was and headed towards them. I had to cross a knee-deep creek, but finally after a couple of miles I thought I was close. However, could not find hide nor hair. I sat down and started glassing and suddenly saw six.
I crossed a half-mile open spot as they grazed over a knoll, and when I snuck over the knoll, I was within 40 yards of them. It had to have been blowing 30 mph and I’d forgotten my shooting sticks and couldn’t hold steady.
The next week Steve and I went back but never could find any elk. The next week I headed down and met a local rancher that was checking cows and hunting on the side. He said I could run with him, so we unloaded out 4-wheelers and took off.
We covered a lot of ground but couldn’t find anything. After many miles we ran across a whole passel of tracks. Great. We’d found the elk army. We went for a good ways and were almost into Nevada.
The rancher was ready to turn around but told me to glass for a second. Once again, the glassing paid off. Seemingly in clear view not much over a mile away, I spotted about 20-30 elk on the side of a ridge. The rancher told me to go ahead if I thought that I could sneak up on them and he’d stay put and see if I spooked a big bull.
The snow was a little deep in the draws, but I had to sneak up on them for cover. After 30 minutes, I peeked over the edge to orientate where they were. Still a good 800 yards off. I ducked down another draw and in a bit popped up again. Now a good 400 yards off. Nothing to do but try to work closer.
As I was working closer, I got on a good blood trail. I trailed the elk all the way up to the herd but never located the animal. I knew I had to be close and hunched over to crawl out of the draw. I came up behind a small bush and there was some elk grazing not 20-30 yards away. It's amazing how out in the middle of a million bare plains, and I’d been lucky enough to sneak up on two herds.
I slipped up my rifle and took a shot. They took off. I ran over the ridge and took another shot at the closest one.
Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen this big of a herd in my life. There had to be 400-500 elk. Mine had fallen about 40 yards off. Unbelievable. The first shot had blown half of the elk's heart off and it still took off like it wasn’t even hit. Wow, elk are tough. And that was with a Federal 250-grain .338 Winchester Magnum.
I took a few pics and then started cleaning the elk. Before long the rancher showed up and we loaded the animal up on his 4-wheeler. Wow, what a great day it’d been. And we now have a freezer full of elk meat.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
