I guess I put about 250 rounds down range at 200 yards during the summer using the 168 Gr. Barnes and that doesn't count what I put down range for my 270 and 308 caliber rifles. I did practice standing, prone, and sitting positions. I must say that I have shot service rifle completion for years so I'm used to shooting these positions out to 600 and 1000 yards at Camp Perry with open sights.
I was using a range finder (Bushnell Pro) which I just took back to Gander Mountain and bought a Leica 900. Lesson learned: Stay away from a Bushnell Pro, both my son-in-law and I had bought one of these and it wouldn't work on cows in a field at 300 yards, we both took them back and got the Leica. His brother who was with us had a Leica and it work great and we all love it. It just happen to work out with this elk and this shot because it was just a 169 yards out.
The shot occur at 7:15 am on the last morning of the hunt and I was the only one that hadn't got an elk or mule deer, everyone else had got one of each. We were on a ridge that looks like a bowl with a pond down in the valley with a couple of ravines coming into it. This part of Colorado is different hunting then you see on TV. Alot of sage brush and rocks, berry trees at 8,000 ft. The aspen trees (forest) are higher up and this private ranch that I was hunting on is surrounded by public hunting grounds. The biggest elk herd in North America is in this area, but the bull elk for the most part are not huge record breaking bulls due to hunting pressure. My 5X5 went around 650 to 700 lbs. Well anyway, you only hunt in the morning time when the elk come up from the valley where they have been feeding all night and are going back to their bedding areas. All week I had seen elk (about 300 head) put they were mostly cows and several times I seen these three bull elk running together, but they would always go right when they should have gone left and come by me. What they do in this area is they have a lead cow that takes them to and from their bedding areas with the bull elks walking way behind. The secret is not to let the lead cow see or smell you. I had this huge sage brush on my right and I couldn't see the ridge where they were coming in from, but was looking down at the pond. My guide was to my left and little back of me. At 7:00 am here walks in about 8 cows and they walk right into the pond and break up the thin ice and get a drink of water. They stay their a few minutes drinking and move on up the ridge to my left and over the ridge. It wasn't 15 minutes and I spot this bull elk coming into the pond area from my right when he passed the sage brush that was blocking my view. About that time my guide hit me in the back, like saying this is the one to take. All this time I'm sitting their and I'm thinking this is it, time is running out for me and praying at the same time that a bull elk would come along. I was in a good sitting position and he was broad side to me at 169 yards and I aimed right behind the shoulder in the boiler area and pull the trigger (2.5 lbs trigger pull) and he drop right in his tracks, I rack another round into the chamber, but it was unnecssary he was dead on his feet. Now I'm laughing and pounding my guide and wanting to go down and see my elk, when he said "Let's sit here a little while and maybe another will come along and I can get mine, and wasn't allow to shoot one until you got yours. Well I'll be, it wasn't five minutes here comes another one and Butch shot him at 220 yards using a 338 caliber, but he had shoot him three times before he went down (shot placement). Now we are really laughing and talking and I look up and here comes another bull elk which was bigger then the one I shot, but he took one look at two dead bull elk and thought he better get out of Dodge, but he didn't run he just walk around the other part of the ridge, I could have shot him within the next few minutes if I had wanted too. Now you know the whole story of my elk hunt. This is the same pond and the same area that I lost the record breaking mule deer three evenings before. Scope work fine at 7:15 am, but couldn't cut it at 7:00 pm.
By the way these were the same three bull elk that I had seen several times during the course of the week.
:grin:
dbuck
