Well, Elk Camp has come and gone for 1998. Logistically, it was the best camp we ever had.

It started out looking as if the weather would be perfect for the hunt. A snowstorm hit us on opening-day eve. It was snowing hard at 9000 ft. We woke up with about an inch of snow at camp, which was located at about 7000 ft. By lunchtime, the snow was all gone and by Tuesday, the weather turned very pleasant. If you ever hunted big game, you know that pleasant is not always a good thing. The elk and deer bucks did not move down out of the high country. Does were the only abundant game in the area.

By the end of camp, we filled all our deer tags with four does and one forked buck. Kurt was the only successful elk hunter with a nice 5-point bull.

Three bulls were traveling together. Kurt saw them first from his vantage point 200 yards closer to the box-end of the canyon. He dropped the lead bull. I knocked down the second bull and the third bull escaped over the top of the ridge. My bull slid down the side of the canyon like a bullet train with a tailwind, knocking down oak trees on his 200-yard tumble to the bottom. I quickly ran down my side of the canyon to where I was sure he would be lying. When I got to the bottom, to my amazement, the bull was gone. I quickly found a blood trail and followed it for a good mile until finally the red drops started to diminish and eventually withered away to nothing. I searched for over four hours without finding him. The only other elk to be seen were a cow and calf that were out of sight before we could get off a shot.

This was the year of the firsts. This was the first year that Sharon went with us to camp. She was successful in harvesting her first deer. She did it with a single, standing off-hand shot through the heart from around 100 yards.

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