11th Hour Elk

[cableguy11]

Great story and great pics!

[One Shot]

Great story, thanks for sharing. Just got back from hunting 3rd season and wasn't able to bag one. Saw large numbers of elk but were on private property. A few guys in the camp below us were able to put a bull and a cow down.

26 out of 28 years is pretty good!

[Hummer]

Keep moving and keep living. Too bad many people do.not understand the connection that occurs between man and nature when we hunt. It is so much different than when I just hike or even camp in the woods.

Well done you make it look easy even though it is very hard work. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I think you're right on all counts, Samurai. When my cousin and I were in our twenties we went on many backpack and canoe trips where we would hunt mushrooms and collect butterflies. He was the butterfly expert and I studied mushrooms (we're both Eagle Scouts). It was from stalking and chasing butterflies that it dawned on me that the special energy, excitement and satisfaction I got from the chase was indeed hunting, that it was instinctual, and that it stirred something fundamental in my soul as a man. The hunting instinct connects us to the natural world where all life consumes other life. When you realize that men are natural predators at the top of the chain and you act on that role by hunting (or warrioring), you become more whole as a man.

A few years later, by age 28 or 29 I began deer hunting. I've almost always hunted solo. It took me 5 years to kill my first deer, then two years later I killed my first elk. I've hunted every year since. Hunting has been one of my most fulfilling, rewarding life endeavors. I'd encourage every man to seek that inner connection through hunting.