Recovered Bullets

Here's a few pictures of recovered North Fork bullets. From left-to-right:

.30-06, 165 grain @ 2800fps, recovered from dirt
(500 yards, 145.0 grains retained weight)

.30-06, 165 grain @ 2800fps, recovered from second cow elk
(~25 yards, 133.2 grains retained weight)

7mm 140 grain @ 3200fps, recovered from buck mule deer
(~150 yards, 131.2 grains retained weight)

Clicking on a photo will bring up a larger image.

Day 6 - Last Hunt

The morning hunt was along the western edge of Routt National Forest below Sand Point. We hiked in while it was still dark, found some aspens near the boundary and spread out. Hunters had reported seeing 30 cows there the day before and we hoped someone would get a shot. It wasn’t to be. At 10:00 we headed back to camp and to Craig to pick up my processed cow meat. After returning to camp and storing the meat in coolers we headed back into Routt National Forest for one last hunt. We hiked down “Little Bear Road” which was marked with a sign as being a dead end, but in fact joined another road.

We found a nice ridge to sit on and spent the evening there. I had my Marlin .30-30 and a bull tag while Dave had his 7mm Remington Magnum and a cow tag. Dave went further down the ridge while I stayed high to glass some far clearings. It was a beautiful evening but nothing was moving – we didn’t even see deer. We hiked back to the truck, arriving as light was fading fast.

The next morning we spent several hours packing up, stopped in Baggs to pick up our deer, and headed home.

Day 5 - A Doe for Dave

This morning we were hunting the BLM and Colorado land just north of our campsite so we got to sleep in – until 4:45. Ken’s knee was swollen up and painful so he stayed in the Winnebago while Eric, Ron and Travis accompanied us. The area we were hunting was rolling hills covered in sage. The only trees were down by Fourmile creek, over a mile to the east, and there were very few of them. We pulled off Highway 13 at mile marker 121 and parked by an oil well. We then walked east half a mile through the sage to the north-south fence line that marks a section boundary and spread out over several hundred yards. Dave and I stayed together and positioned ourselves at the northern end on a hill top where an east-west fence came in from the highway.

We spotted several does coming up from the creek. Their path was going to put them 300 to 400 yards away at their closest point. Dave put a sneak on them, trying to get to a lower ridge before the deer got there, while I stayed behind and watched through my binoculars. Dave was still below the ridgeline when the deer passed by on the opposite side. They eventually crossed the highway and into GMU 3 (Game Management Unit) where Dave’s doe license was no good.

Dave came back and joined me and a short while later I spotted more does coming up from the creek. These were much further away and it took them half an hour or more to make it to the north-south fence. In the meantime Dave had again dropped down the hill to a small ridge, hoping for a close shot. When the deer started jumping the fence I thought Dave would shoot but he never did. It turns out the deer were over the next little ridge and out of sight. These deer also passed by unharmed and eventually crossed the highway to GMU 3.

We spotted one more deer headed for the fence line but it bedded down before getting there. Another hunter came from the north, following the fence, crossed it, and walked within 25 yards of the deer, completely unaware of its presence. Dave walked down toward the deer and watched it for a while. The deer turned out to be a buck, no big surprise given its behavior, and Dave returned.

Dave and I headed to Craig for fuel and some other supplies, then hunted a ridge off Moffat County Road 70. We spotted a doe down below and in easy rifle range but it was on the opposite side of a fence and on private property. I was beginning to wonder if Dave’s luck would ever change.

Our next stop was a place called the “Cedars”, a parcel of land owned by Colorado and abutting Wyoming to the north and BLM land to the west and south. The main feature of the Cedars is a large cedar-covered hill that rises up from the south and drops off sharply before reaching the Wyoming line. On the northwest corner of the hill there is a bowl. From experience we knew that visibility into the bowl was limited from the east side as there were too many cedars in the way. Some hunters were parked on the road by the east end and that made our choice to climb the west end even easier. We worked our way up through the cedars along the western edge where it drops off. We had spectacular views of the land below but, not surprisingly, no deer or elk were out this time of day.



When we reached the top the ground dropped away steeply into the bowl. A few hundred yards to the north there was the fence that marks the Wyoming border. The land in the flat of the bowl was covered with grass, areas of sage and a few cedar trees while the north facing slope immediately below us had snow and sage. As the sides of the bowl wrapped around to the east the snow gave way to dry ground and the sage was replace by cedars. Almost immediately we spotted three doe mule deer heading through the cedars on the slope to our right.

Dave brought his rifle up and started scoping the deer while I used my binoculars. Once again I caught a flash above the ears of one of the deer and loudly whispered “Buck! The middle one is a buck!” The other two were indeed does and Dave took the one on the left. His rifle was a Ruger M77 MKII 7mm Remington Magnum with a handloaded 160 grain Speer Trophy Bonded Bearclaw bullet driven to about 2850fps. The range measured 274 yards with the laser. Dave headed down to the doe while I stayed high to keep an eye on the area and guide Dave through the cedars with hand directions. We got the doe to the truck and to Snake River Processing in Baggs, Wyoming, at 6:05 PM. Once again we arrived just before they closed their doors for the day.

Day 4 - Final Day on Snake River Ranch

Another day of rising at 3:30 AM. Fortunately we were able to get to bed early and were sleeping well in spite of the cold. The roads were steadily improving and we made it to the southern check-in area at Snake River Ranch in record time. Dave helped chain up the front tires, which I deemed to be enough. The chains clanked every time my speeds exceeded 12mph so it was a long ride around to our position at Gate 3, the second to last position. When we arrived there were elk above and behind us on the hills. I didn’t bother looking for them but Dave and the guide said it took them about an hour to cross one ridge. Both estimated over 1,500 elk were present, all off the ranch property and completely safe. We arrived before shooting light and could constantly hear cows calling and bulls bugling. It was awesome!

Our shooting position was another barren hill. The guide, Tom, asked me not to walk out more than a few yards from the fence. The hill dropped off steeply so that I could not see the bottom. The ridge on the left, just above the grass line is 200 yards away. With the numbers of elk above and behind us I had little hope that any were left on Snake River Ranch. As shooting light came the binoculars showed this to be pretty much the case – no elk were visible anywhere on the ranch.


Three elk came over the hill to my left and crossed the ridge in front of me. I used the binoculars but quickly determined all three were bulls. The shooter on the hill to my right had come over and set up for a shot but he too had a cow tag. The bulls were headed in the general direction of BLM land to the east and he decided to follow them as he had a public land bull license. We never heard if he was successful or not but he left about 20 minutes too soon for cows.

Dave was back at the truck with the guide, Tom, and spotted a couple dozen elk headed our way but still over a mile away. They were coming down a hill to our left when I first found them in the binoculars. I knew the chances of them making it to my hill were slim, especially given the intervening terrain, but I prepared for a shot any way. Each of the hills in front of me, out to 400 yards, had been ranged with the laser range finder but I checked them again.


The elk were on a track to pass left to right in front of me but out of range. Suddenly they turned to follow a ridgeline that rose to the hill to my left. I lasered various points on the ridge and 350-400 yards was about as close as they would come. They were still 500 yards out when the two shooters on the hill started firing. Dave counted 8 shots and I lost track as I was trying to guess the range from the shooters to the elk. The number I came up with was 400 yards. Why the shooters started firing is anyone’s guess, but if they had waited the elk would have come right to them. Instead the elk stopped and turned toward their left. They went down into a drainage and came up on my side. Suddenly I knew I was going to get a shot. The elk kept coming and I stayed low and out of sight. Finally they were right below me but out of sight behind the curvature of the hillside. I slowly rose to me knees to get a better peek only to find a cow coming straight up the hill at me – and less than a stone throw away. The cow saw me at the same time I saw her and she bolted to my right, her left. The other elk followed.

Now I had a string of elk on my right, in the open with a hillside beyond and only 40 yards away, if that, and some much closer. I hit my ‘Hoochie Mama’ cow call to see if I could stop them. The lead cow continued on but several stopped. I took a kneeling position, found a lone cow and fired. The cow dropped at the shot but got up again. I fired a second shot and the cow disappeared over the edge of the hill.

As soon as the elk had disappeared over the next hill Dave and I started looking for the one I had shot. I found blood in the snow and followed it over the edge of the hill, fully expecting to see the cow at the bottom. It was not. The blood trail seemed to indicate my cow had gone over the next hill, but that didn’t seem possible given where it had disappeared.

In fact the blood trail turned out to belong to a cow wounded by the hunters to my left when they were blazing away at what for them was too long range. I followed the drainage down and found my cow had slid 50 feet down the hillside, ending up at the bottom of the drainage. She hadn’t moved since hitting the bottom. Once again I was disappointed as it was not a clean one-shot kill. As I walked up I was stunned to find she was still alive. I had left my rifle at the truck and asked Dave to go get it. Then, rather than waiting, I decided to hasten the inevitable and end the cow’s suffering by cutting its throat.

Now we had the problem of getting the cow out of the bottom of the drainage so we could start processing the meat. Tom drove down on his ATV but didn’t think he had the horsepower to pull the cow out. In the end I drove down with the F250 diesel, looped a chain around its neck and puller her out to a relatively flat area. Once the meat was in the truck we headed to Craig where we dropped it off at Mountain Meats for further processing.

We then headed up to the Wyoming border and took Moffat County Road 2 east to some state lands called the “Cedars”. Dave and I had hunted this area before and knew there was a half-moon bowl on the back side that often held deer. Several vehicles were parked on the road, however and we decided the area might be too crowded. Instead we decided to walk into a section of Colorado land north of Road 2 but just a mile from Highway 13. We had driven by this area many times but never investigated it. We worked our way up to a hill top where we buried ourselves in the sage and started glassing for deer. A fence line half a mile to the north marked the Wyoming line and just beyond the fence the ground rose up to hills covered with cedar trees. We watched a couple of deer on the Wyoming side of the fence for a couple of hours and we watched another group for several minutes as they disappeared over the hills. Dozens of antelope were in the valley below us to our right and we enjoyed watching them for over two hours. Dusk came and no deer had shown up on the Colorado side of the of the line so Dave and I gave up for the day.

Day 3 - Sage Deer

Once again we arose at 3:30 in the morning and headed to the southern check-in area at Snake River Ranch. The guides said elk had come in the previous evening and expectations for a successful hunt were high. The roads were a mess due to melting sow so we chained all four wheels. We were positioned at Gate 2 before shooting light came at around 7:00. We used the binoculars but all we saw were two bulls cross a meadow separately. At 8:30 we talked to Tom Riley, one of the guides. He informed us that the two bulls we had seen had split off a larger herd of about 3,000. The larger herd had been on the ranch on the far side of the next hill to our left. It took them over an hour to get past the shooter on that hill, who took one cow. We checked out about 9:00 and headed to Craig for fuel, then to the BLM land at mile marker 123 on the east side of Highway 13.

The BLM land is a treeless area, as you can see in the picture, except for a few trees down by Fourmile Creek. We sat on a knoll a couple hundred yards from Fourmile Creek for a couple hours, glassing for deer and seeing nothing. We finally gave up and headed to the northernmost section. The mountain in the center of the picture is Long Mountain, 13 miles distant and 2 miles north of the northern check-in area at Snake River Ranch.



As we drove to another overlook a doe suddenly appeared in the sage 40 yards in front of us. It crossed the trail we were on and Dave jumped out with his Marlin .30-30 in hand, ready to fill his doe tag. I took a quick peek with my binoculars and saw a small flash of light above the doe’s ears. “Buck” I yelled, and another look showed it was a forkhorn. Now it was my turn to jump out of the truck. The buck was quartering away but stopped for one last look back over its shoulder. It was ready to run and a couple steps would put it out of sight over a fold in the sage-covered hillside. As soon as the crosshairs settled I took the shot. Immediately afterwards I saw the buck disappear over the fold. Dave and I both took off after the buck, not wanting to lose it in the sage. We found it about 150 yards from where I had been standing. It had gone straight down with the shot. We took it to Snake River Processing in Baggs, Wyoming, by 6:30, getting there just before they closed their doors for the day.

The rifle in this case was my Ruger M77 7mm Remington Magnum, my first and for many years my only centerfire bolt action rifle. I had acquired in 1982 for my first elk hunt. The load was a handloaded 140 grain North Fork bonded bullet pushed to 3200fps.

Day 2 - Are We Having Fun Yet?

Day two was one where getting to the hunting area was our greatest challenge. We awoke at 3:30 AM to find 10” or more of snow on the ground with temps well below freezing. As we pulled away from camp in 4-wheel drive we decided to head for the south check-in area of Snake River Ranch. While it was no closer, half the distance was paved roads and the remaining gravel sections were in better shape than the roads to the northern area. The snow plows had been down the road but a half-inch layer of glaze ice remained on the road.

We arrived at the southern check-in area at 5:30 after an hour of slow, sometimes white-knuckle driving. Following check-in we went back outside to chain up all four wheels. At 6:30 the guides took us to the hunting area, leading the way on ATV’s. The hunting area was a valley parcel roughly 2 miles long and a mile wide with a road running around three sides. Dave and I were positioned at ‘Gate 2’ on the far side of the valley. We walked out 100 yards or so on a hill and sat where we could see over the edge. Below us to our right there was a pond with some cottonwoods next to it. Beyond the pond there were multiple hills with ridges running up from the valley floor. Our hill was barren, as were most of the hills to our left, but the hills to our right got progressively more covered with scrub oak. Mountains and high ridges surrounded the valley and Dave and I saw a lot of elk and deer on their slopes at ranges of 1-2 miles. Unfortunately we did not see any elk in the valley. By 9:00 we decided to call it quits and head to the northern check-in area for the evening hunt.

The snow made for slow driving and we arrived at the north area at 11:30. We checked in and waited for the guides to position the hunters. We had requested the same spot we had hunted the day before. Our particular guide took us well beyond that spot to the end of the property and began describing the property boundaries. It was clear from his answers to our questions that he wasn’t at all sure just where they really were. Fortunately we had good maps showing the property lines. Dave and I drove back to ‘our’ spot, pulled off the road into the aspens, had a bite to eat, reclined the seats and promptly took a two hour nap.

About 3:00 we decided we had better get in position on the hill. We broke out the binoculars and started glassing for elk. There were elk on a far mountain slope and we watched a bull come down the slope across the road and start feeding just 100 yards from us but behind a slight rise. The bull was safe as Dave had no licenses for Snake River Ranch and mine were for antlerless elk. For 45 minutes or so we watched a herd of 9-10 deer down by and on our side of Slater Creek but we had no licenses for them, either.

At 5:45 we decided to head back to check out for the day. Check out time was supposed to be 5:30 but we think that time was set before they changed the daylight savings time dates – there was still plenty of good hunting time left as the sun had not yet set. Back at camp we talked to Ken and company and found they had not had any success either.

Early Success!

Success came early, at 08:30. We had been using our binoculars to glass the far hills when for elk when we noticed a small herd of 20 or so were walking past us on the opposite side of the draw to our left. The elk were strung out in singles and doubles, mostly cows with a couple of bulls. My two Snake River Ranch licenses were for “Antlerless” elk so cows were good.

When I brought the rifle up I couldn’t get a clear shot at any of the cows – they were either doubled up or behind the aspen trees. I looked over the scope for a gap in the aspens, swung the rifle around to cover it, and waited. In a few seconds a lone cow walked into the gap and I gently squeezed the trigger. I lost the cow in the recoil and when I recovered found a cow standing a few yards further away and looking back at me. Was it the same one? Should I shoot again? I decide ‘no’ as I’m not sure it is the same one.

Just then Dave whispers that some elk are running directly in front of us. I swing around and a several cows and a bull are running left to right, no more than 25 yards in front of us. Again I consider taking a shot, as I had two cow tags. Again I decide ‘no’, unsure what the status of the first cow was. The last thing I wanted was to have two wounded cows wandering off in opposite directions.

The herd disappeared on the scrub-covered hills across the road. Dave and I sat watching one cow that hung up in a stand of aspens just short of the road. Was it the one I shot? It wandered into a depression and we didn’t see it again. Was it down?

Dave and I carefully approached the stand of aspen and I elected to circle around to the road. Dave searched the stand of aspens for blood or a downed cow while I searched the dry roadbed for blood, following it around to the far side of the drainage. It was possible the cow was down in the sage by the aspen but I started my search of the knoll walking to the top and taking a peek at what laid beyond. Only after I was sure a wounded cow wasn’t headed away did I begin to work my way back down to the drainage and the aspens. My search was rewarded when I found the cow exactly where she had been when I shot. She had simply dropped out of sight in the sage. I wish I could say it was a clean one shot kill, but it was not. As I approached the cow stood up and I fired a second shot from about 20 feet. The cow went down again but amazingly managed to keep her head up. In spite of using premium bullets and placing them well, I had to administer a final shot to the head.

The rifle was a Ruger M77 .30-06, made in 1984. It had become mine in November of 2006, the Centennial year for the .30-06. The load was a 165 grain North Fork bullet hand loaded to a bit over 2800 fps (feet per second). The first shot was measured at 126 yards with a laser rangefinder. We had to carry the elk 42 yards to the road.

After field dressing the cow and getting it to the truck we went back to our spot on the hill for a while, thinking I might possibly fill my second tag so we could refocus our hunting efforts on public land where Dave’s cow tag was valid. Two cows ran by within range but we couldn’t get a shot as they never stopped, even when we hit our cow calls. A lone bull ran by and Dave called it in to within 20 yards with his call. After a short while we decided to call it quits and get the cow to Quality Custom Meats in Craig for final processing.

We spent the final hours of opening day hunting the BLM land east of Highway 13 and a few miles south of the Colorado-Wyoming border. We drove in to a spot facing Baker’s Peak from the west and stopped to discuss our options as we glassed the sage for deer. A few raindrops sprinkled the windshield and Dave mentioned it looked like it could snow. Remembering the forecast, neither of us gave that thought much credence. A few minutes later it was indeed snowing and the weather was getting worse rapidly. We decided to call it a day and head back to camp.

Opening Morning

This is how things looked opening morning, Saturday, October 20th, 2007. The weather was great, mid 50’s, and the last AccuWeather forecast I had seen predicted similar weather for the rest of the week with the first chance of precipitation the following weekend. This picture is from Snake River Ranch. We rose at 3:30AM in order to make it to the north check-in area by the 5:30 deadline. Slater Creek is at the bottom of the valley. Notice the road running along the bottom of the hill on the right side. Our truck is parked in the aspens just off the road and out of the picture by few feet. The mountain in the background, to the northwest, is Baker’s Peak. Our camp was about 5 miles southwest of Baker’s Peak and 15 miles almost due west from where the picture was taken.

The row of aspen trees in the center of the picture mark a drainage about 20 feet deep with steep sides. Past the aspens and below Baker’s Peak you can see a grassy area, more aspen lining the banks of Slater Creek, and the ridge on the far side. At the top of the ridge there are flat areas where cattle were grazing. Before sun up we were sitting on the edge of the hill 100 yards past the near aspens, waiting for elk to come up through the sage and head for the mountains behind us (off to the right of the picture).

The Camp Site

This was our 2007 camp, off Moffat County 101, north of Craig, Colorado. From here it was a 40 minute drive to the north check-in area for Snake River Ranch where I would start the hunt and 40 minutes to the south check-in area.

Our trailer is visible between Ken's 35-foot Winnebago and the green army tent where Ron and Travis stayed. Notice the small blue tent the the left. We dubbed it the "Taj Mahal", although its purpose was far different. Let's just say one person could stand - or sit - comfortably!

Dave Miller, my hunting partner for over a decade, was staying in the trailer with me. Ken Willis, a good friend and two-time ex-boss had his son-in-law, Eric, staying with him in the Winnebago. Dave and I have hunted with Ken and Eric before. Eric is a DEA agent in Maryland. Ron and Travis are cops from Delmar, Maryland.

The snow is what was left of about a foot we got Saturday night. It made for great mud. Fortunately I have chains for all 4 wheels – we needed them!

Home Sweet Home

This picture is actually from the 2006 elk hunt after we had packed up and were ready to head home. The ends of the trailer pop out to form beds with a canvas cover. They are impossible to heat in cold weather so warm sleeping bags are a must. It beats the heck out of sleeping on the ground, though!

Preparations

Ths section waiting to be written.