Elk, It's What's For Dinner!

Henry finally got his first elk. He got it Sunday night (the 14th), after church. It was a 5 x 5. He was so excited. He saw it about 800 yards away, which is way out of bow range. So he let out a little bugle (that's an elk bull call). The elk looked his way and started walking slowly toward him. Henry thought nothing of it, he didn't want to get too excited. Then he looked a few minutes later and he was halfway down the hill. Henry let out another bugle and the elk started walking a little faster. Henry then let out a cow call (actually an estrus cow call, a cow elk in heat). That was pretty much all the bull could handle and he started charging toward Henry. Henry ran about 100 yards down the hill and set up the pop up elk decoy and ran 20 yards ahead of it. He looked for the elk and he could see rack coming toward him. He said he was shaking so bad, he had a hard time ranging the elk and drawing back on it. He made a good shot and the elk went only 50 yards.

Henry made some calls and we had a few friends come help with the elk. Mike Manning and Aron Snyder who are expert elk hunters, came to help. And then Henry's hunting partners Tim and Brad Laing came too. They were so excited. Luckily Brad had a 4 wheeler, and the elk was kind enough to die few yards from a 4 wheeler trail. That saved everyone a lot of work!

When we took the meat into the processors, we had 191 lbs. of meat, not counting bones. WOW! Since our freezer is full of deer already, I get a new freezer. One of game meat and one for grocery store food (food most people will eat ;)).

CONGRATULATIONS HENRY! Now he still has tags for a bear, turkey, and deer.