We rode horse back into one of my favorite public land drainages in Colorado. The mountains can get crowded so we chose this particular drainage because it is in some nasty country that doesn’t get hunted much. We had already shot a nice six point on opening day which spooked the rest of the elk out of the canyon.
By day three they were back in full force. About a mile from camp there was a herd feeding on an open hillside with two nice bulls in the group. Earlier on, we split up so my brothers Brian and Russ were the ones staring at the group of nearly 50 elk. Russ took one look at two of the bulls and knew they were shooters. He got down and put his factory Winchester Model 70 over his backpack and settled in. The bulls were 450 yards away so Russ dialed in his turret and waited for a good shot on the largest bull. As he looked through his Leupold VXIII he saw the bull turn giving him a great quartering away shot and he decided it was time to pull the trigger. The 168 grain Berger hit its mark and went straight into the vitals. It wasn’t long before the large 6×6 was rolling down the hillside. The bull’s final score was 336″…not bad for a general season elk tag.