DIY Hunting & Shooting Journal — theDIYhunter.com A Do-It-Yourself Hunter's Hunting and Shooting Journal

My Cow Elk Hunt, Jan. 2012 — Hunting With My Lightweight Game Cart

Details

Category: Big Game Hunting

Created on Wednesday, 11 January 2012 14:16

Written by The DIY Hunter

Through November and December I had my fifth knee surgery and a surgery to fix my exhaust pipe (no more hemorrhoids!). My "good" left knee had been giving me a lot of trouble since this past summer. Mainly catching when I bent it past around 110 degrees. I was able to make it through the fall hunting season thanks to my DonJoy knee braces. After the fall hunting seasons I had Dr. Harrison go in and remove the offending problems behind my knee cap.

I have been having extra problems with the knees this year (could I be getting old) and Dr. Harrison let me know that jogging was off limits to prolong getting a total knee replacement for hopefully another 10 years. Anyway with jogging off limits I have been riding my bike to stay in shape... well this just seemed to complicate my hemorrhoids and I decided to have this taken care of also... not a fun surgery and recovery at all! I'll never forget that first BM... thought I'd die.

With the surgeries combined with the holidays I have put on a few pounds and am not in as good of shape as I like to be in. Well enough of me being fat and out of shape and... my hemorrhoids.

Dallen my oldest son, my brother Weston and I all drew cow elk tags for a region in Northern Utah this winter. With my surgeries and the lack of getting much, if really any snow, has prolonged me from getting out as soon as I would have liked to hunt. I normally like to hunt when there is a good cover of snow on the ground. By hunting in the snow it helps bring the elk lower on the mountain, makes them easier to find, and my modified saucer sleds work great for hauling out boned out elk meat.

As my permit is progressing to the last three weeks I decided to make a trip in myself to hopefully get one of our tags filled and assess the location of the elk if they had even moved into the public ground we hunt. Then I can come up with a better plan for taking Dallen and Weston back in to hunt later.

I showed up before light and slowly started working my way back into the property. I found only a little snow on the north facing slopes and the rest of the ground bare. With so little snow I knew that I would have to go in a few miles, probably near the end of the public ground to find any elk. To be prepared to get an elk out by myself, if I was fortunate to harvest one, I decided to carry a couple saucer sleds and my lightweight packable game cart that I have been working on. With the current prototype of my lightweight game cart I hauled a small four point mule deer I shot during the 2011 Utah muzzleloader season earlier this year.

At around three miles in I started watching a group of bull elk feeding in and around a ridge line above me. I started working my way in their direction hoping to find some cows somewhere in the near vicinity. As I worked my way up a canyon I spotted two cows that were moving across the canyon I was in. They were working their way through some really heavy oak brush. When they got near the 200 yard range I patiently waited for one of them to offer a good shot through the oak brush. Finally the lead cow stepped partially into a sliver of an opening right at 200 yards away. She only offered a shot at the head or neck back to the front edge of the shoulder. I centered up the crosshairs just off the edge of the tree she was behind and let a Accubond fly heading for the front edge of her shoulders. The shot was quickly answered with a loud whopping sound and after I reaquired the cow in the scope I could see the her piled up right where she was standing.

The bullet entered the elk just in front of the right shoulder and the bullet stopped against the ribcage directly under the left shoulder blade. The recovered 140g Accubond bullet weighs 87 grains. This 270 WSM, 140g Accubond hand load has a muzzle velocity of 3,300 fps from my Browning X-Bolt Stainless Stalker rifle. This bullet has been doing a great job for me at putting deer and elk on the ground.

I snapped a few photos and started to work on boning out the elk. I was able to use my new wireless JJC shutter release with my camera for the first time in the field. It was nice not to have to run back and forth with a 10 second delay on the camera to take pictures of me with the elk. What a cool accessory for my FujiFilm HS20exr camera. It will also work good at keeping the camera still when taking photos with my teleconverter attached.

I spent the next four hours boning out the elk and placing the meat into my homemade heavy duty canvas meat bags. I then took two trips hiking carrying the meat bags in hands the 200 or so yards back across the canyon to where a horse trail lead down off the mountain. I assembled my lightweight game cart and loaded all the meat onto the cart. I knew from my use of the game cart during my muzzleloader mule deer hunt that I needed to reinforce the elbow joint where the handle and frame join. Unfortunately, I had not had the time to make the additional strength enhancements I had wanted. I also didn't think I would be using it for another year as I always have snow to hunt in and use my modified saucer sleds for hauling out the boned out cow elk meat. To keep the elbow from breaking I tied some rope from one end of the cart to the other to get off the mountain. You can see in the video on this page that the handles look a little short for me. This is caused in part because I am six foot seven inches tall, I am going down hill, and because the weak elbow joint had bent some and changed the angle and height. I need to make the fixes to the handle.

Oh, how I was so glad to have that little 10 pound game cart with me. What a lifesaver! I took off down the trail and the cart worked fabulously. It is very nibble and easy to maneuver around rocks and other obstacles along the trail. It was really cool to be able to hunt where I wanted to hunt and have the cart with me at all times. Now if there had been enough snow I could have also used the saucer sleds that I had brought along to haul the meat off the mountain.

Given the right terrain, with the lightweight game cart or with snow my saucer sleds I can hunt by myself and bring an elk or deer out without making extra trips or calling for help. Just my style of hunting, no horses required, no asking for help, and no extra trips hauling the meat out on my back or extra trip to go back for a large game cart.

After this trip I have really started thinking seriously about the needed small modifications and getting the game cart manufactured. Hmm...

You can view the video I took showing a couple sections of the trail I took the cart along on this hunt. After getting home the scales showed 149 pounds for the meat and bags that the game cart carried.

2011 Rifle Mule Deer Hunt — Dallen Takes a Buck at 619 Yards with a 243 WSSM

Details

Category: Big Game Hunting

Created on Sunday, 30 October 2011 14:16

Written by The DIY Hunter

Coming off the end of the rifle elk hunt where my son Dallen had a couple of missed opportunities to get a bull we were hopeful to make up for it during the deer hunt.

Dallen was using my latest handload of the 80g Tipped Triple Shock with Hodgdon Superformance powder. This load has a muzzle velocity of 200 fps faster than my previous load and is now going 3550 fps from a short 22 inch barrel A-Bolt Stainless Laminate Hunter rifle. I was looking forward to seeing what performance on game this bullet would have with the increased velocity.

Opening weekend we decided to hunt the sage brush covered hills of the Henefer-Echo public ground. I knew that the hunter to deer ratio was going to be well in favor of the hunters but I hoped that we could find a buck before someone else did.

We arived at the parking lot a hour before light. Trying to find a place to park was a little tricky. There were definatly going to be a lot more hunters than deer on the property today.

We hiked hard in the dark for that first hour before light working our way around sage brush draws before it got light. As it got light we decided to hike up to a ridgeline to sit and glass the area from. As we were slowing working our way through the sage brush I looked back over our shoulder and spotted four bucks that were watching us from a saddle of a draw below. There were two, two point bucks and two three point bucks in the group. Dallen quickly got setup on the shooting sticks and was ready to take one of the three point bucks however they were standing behind an old fence line. (Later that day I studied the map and gps and realized the fence was an old one and that the property line was another half mile away.) Not knowing this section of the property that well I told Dallen to wait until they crossed the fence. When the bucks decided to cross they did so running and they didn't slow down until they were 750 yards away.

We quickly started around after them. Once we got to where we saw them go into a sage brush draw we started a zig-zag pattern to try and find them. It didn't take long for them to find us first and we caught a glimpse of them bailing over a ridge at a full speed run. Dallen was hopeful that we might catch up to them again so I sent him hiking while I called my friend Ryan who was on horse somewhere further up the canyon to let him know some bucks were headed that way. Just as I got him on the phone I looked back and four more larger bucks (small four points and three point bucks) were sneaking out of the draw.

I had to yell to get Dallen's attention who was now forty yards away marching up the hill. It also took me several times yelling to get his attention... reminding me of yelling for him to get off the computer down stairs and come up for dinner. He never hears a thing for the first ten or so yells... anyway the bucks heard my yelling and that just elevated their exit speed. By the time Dallen turned around and was ready for a shot they too had ran over the ridge... What were the chances that there would have been two groups of bucks in that draw???

We had two good chances to take a buck and struck out much like Dallen's elk hunt we just experienced the previous weeks before this hunt. Having such close calls and missed opportunities was really not helping Dallen's morale.

We spent the rest of the day taking a nap and glassing for deer. We were able to find five does that afternoon but no bucks. :(

During the week I took Dallen out of school to take one more chance at finding the bucks we saw on opening weekend. We hiked all over the place trying to find a deer and the property was just devoid of deer.

My good friend Ryan was hopeful to get his daughter her first buck. We made plans for the last Saturday of the hunt to take her and Dallen back into the area that my brother Weston had taken his mule deer buck during the elk hunt with a buck/bull combo tag. There had been a lot of small bucks in the area during the elk hunt so I was hopeful we could get the kids in on a few bucks.

Friday even we were up in the high country glassing for deer with the kids. It didn't take us long to find some bucks. The deer were still hanging out in the area they were two weeks before. As it was getting late we made camp and made plans to go after them the next morning.

Almost an hour before you would want to hike down into the canyon two groups of hunters showed up and marched off down the trail invariably bumping the deer out of the location they like to be feeding in during the night and early morning hours. Dang it! This put a small damper on our plans. At about a half hour before light we started working our way to the area the bucks should be in and to no surprise we found hunters surrounding the canyon.

We moved off to the left and started glassing and found the deer were way down in the bottom of the canyon. Again not a surprise because of the hunters hiking in so early right through the feeding area of the deer.

Without hiking around past the hunters that were setup in front of us we decided to try and get as close as we could working our way directly towards the deer down through some small cliffs. When we had made it to the last cliff we were still 500 to 600 yards away from various small bucks that were feeding in and out of maple trees, chaparral and other brush below. If we tried to get any closer we were going to have to scale down through rock slides and thick chaparral brush. The deer would clearly hear and see us and we would also not have any good place to setup and shoot from.

So here I was stuck in a dilemma. I wanted for Ryan's daughter to get a buck. I felt pretty comfortable with Dallen taking a shot from this distance and other hunters were closing in on the group of deer below... I really felt we needed to take a shot from here. At 619 yards below us a three point buck and a two point were feeding next to each other. With the kids setup on shooting sticks I calculated that we wanted to hold for a 550 shot with the steep angle. That would make approximately 36 inch drop with the bullet Dallen was shooting. I instructed Dallen how high to hold and he sent a 80g Tipped Triple Shock at 3550 fps from a 243 WSSM down to greet the buck. The buck dropped like a ton of bricks. The buck appeared to be completely dead... or was he only just shocked? Then after a few seconds up comes the bucks head and he tries to get up but his spine was clearly broke. We watched him crawl into the brush and then decide to head down to try and get a closer shot at some of the other bucks for Ryan's daughter.

The deer weren't spooked that much as we started to work our way down through the thick chaparral and rock slides. On the way down the other hunters had finally moved around into shooting distance and a barrage of lead started to rain down into the canyon. On a couple of occasions we setup on the way down hoping that our young female hunter could get a buck, but alas it wasn't to be. She was a trooper hiking down in and out of a very steep canyon, a canyon I'm sure few ladies have ever ventured into.

Surprisingly when we got to the the downed buck, probably a full hour later, he was still alive and required a finishing shot to the neck.

Upon inspection Dallen's shot placement was great with a double lung shot just off the back edge of the shoulder blades. The bullet at 619 yard would have been traveling at 2100 fps and it had complete penetration out the opposite shoulder. How had the buck lived so long with clearly a lung shot? How had the spine been broken? Upon skinning the deer to bone it out the mystery of the spine being severed was revealed. The bullet upon entry had hit a rib and exploded a larger sized entry hole than the exit hole. This caused a "malfunction" in the bullet and a pedal of the bullet came off sending it angling up through the spine, leaving a very small second exit wound out the opposite side.

Sometimes bullets do weird things and I am grateful this time that the Triple Shock actually came apart or this buck may have been a lot harder to recover. I actually wish the Triple Shock bullets would loose their pedals upon impact giving much more damage with multiple bullet fragments flying around inside the chest cavity.

Similarly, because Triple Shocks from my 270 WSM have not preformed well at times with direct vital zone shots I have switched to 140g Accubond bullets in my 270 WSM to be able to be more effective at taking down big game, especially at longer ranges. In the case with such a small diameter and weight of bullet that the 243 WSSM offers I choose the harder better penetrating Tipped Triple Shock. This small 80g Tipped Triple Shock bullet will not disintegrate on mule deer and elk at close range, like other .243 bullets do, and this bullet does perform fairly well at longer ranges.

In the rush to get down the mountain to hunt I left my camera at the truck. Luckily Ryan had his camera.

After a few photos with Ryan's camera (thanks Ryan!) we loaded up the packs with the boned out meat and up the mountain we went.