Hey guys, this is one proud dad chiming in about his son's first elk hunt. He drew a Jr. Antlerless tag in Unit 4A in Arizona.
Last week was the first time he had ever shot a rifle and he nailed the bullseye 2 out of his first 3 shots with a .300 Win Mag!
We Camped in the Chevelon Canyon Lake campground and scouted the area 2 days before the hunt. We drove around and hiked into some recommended areas and settled on a nice remote area where we saw plenty of sign. I had never seen so much wildlife before in any of my prior hunting trips! On the second day of our scouting, we saw a HUGE black bear! He saw us but couldn't have cared in the least since he found a herd of elk and was slowly mozying down to find a stragler calf. We must have seen 10 mule deer and 20 white tails, 20 or more turkey and ofcourse plenty of elk!
Come opening day....nothing! All the sign was a day old and not a shot to be heard! We sat behind a fresh bedding area before daylight and didn't see a thing! We went back to the same area in the early evening and still could not find any fresh sign!
Day two: We still liked the area from our scouting experience, so we decided to stalk the canyon below. We did see plenty of new, fresh sign, but still no animals! In the afternoon, I decided to form a new game plan. We headed for the flats up north in the Junipers. We drove to Chevelon Butte and immediately found sign everywhere! I was very excited because I thought we were going to make short work of this hunt after all! Wrong! I climbed the butte and saw plenty of sign again and glassed the whole flatland below but couldn't locate any animals! We finally climbed down from the butte and decided to hide out near a water hole, but didn't see anything other than rabbits!
Day three: After all of that sign in our original hunting spot, I decided to stick with our original plan. We woke up a little late this morning and I wasn't very pleased with my son's lack of enthusiasm for our third day of hunting. We arrived at our spot well after sun up and started to walk the bottom of the canyon. I told him that he has to walk as if his life depended on it! That meant slow light steps and making the least amount of noise possible! Well, his idea of being quiet and mine are definitely different! I'm walking slowly, quietly, scanning the area left and right making as little movement as possible while he lags behind making big size 13 1/2 boot stomps in the ground and occasionally blowing his nose and coughing/sneezing! He has a lot to learn! LOL!
Finally, I see a herd climbing up from the bottom of the canyon and I pointed this out to my son. I said let's go! I take off running parallel to the herd trying to catch up and find an open area for a shot and look back to find my boy slowly walking behind and looking at the ground! I quietly yell at him to hurry up and I told him he'll have to keep up with me if he wants to get his elk today!
Well, by now, the herd is out of site, but we are still climbing the hill at a fast pace trying to locate what we had lost. After about 20 yards of up hill climbing, I spotted the herd again just before they beat feet up hill again. Frustrated I waited for my boy to catch up with me and then I noticed that beautiful color of light and dark brown! There was a calf grazing about 10 yards up hill from us! She was behind some brush but we could clearly see that she had no idea we were there! Just when I was going to tell my son to wait for her to walk out into the open so that he could get a good shot...BOOM! He hit the calf and it staggerred into the open and I told him to take a better shot, this time resting the rifle butt on one knee instead of standing! He made a perfect shot! Right behind the shoulder in the boiler room! Elk down!
What a proud moment for this dad! I've waited years for him to join me on a big game hunt! I had to wait until he was 16 to finally get the desire to hunt big game and now I have a hunting partner for life!
Sorry for the long winded story, but I just can't help bragging about my boy's first hunt!
Here's a few pics:
He dwarfs me at 6'1" 235lbs where as I'm 5'10" 155lbs!
Last week was the first time he had ever shot a rifle and he nailed the bullseye 2 out of his first 3 shots with a .300 Win Mag!
We Camped in the Chevelon Canyon Lake campground and scouted the area 2 days before the hunt. We drove around and hiked into some recommended areas and settled on a nice remote area where we saw plenty of sign. I had never seen so much wildlife before in any of my prior hunting trips! On the second day of our scouting, we saw a HUGE black bear! He saw us but couldn't have cared in the least since he found a herd of elk and was slowly mozying down to find a stragler calf. We must have seen 10 mule deer and 20 white tails, 20 or more turkey and ofcourse plenty of elk!
Come opening day....nothing! All the sign was a day old and not a shot to be heard! We sat behind a fresh bedding area before daylight and didn't see a thing! We went back to the same area in the early evening and still could not find any fresh sign!
Day two: We still liked the area from our scouting experience, so we decided to stalk the canyon below. We did see plenty of new, fresh sign, but still no animals! In the afternoon, I decided to form a new game plan. We headed for the flats up north in the Junipers. We drove to Chevelon Butte and immediately found sign everywhere! I was very excited because I thought we were going to make short work of this hunt after all! Wrong! I climbed the butte and saw plenty of sign again and glassed the whole flatland below but couldn't locate any animals! We finally climbed down from the butte and decided to hide out near a water hole, but didn't see anything other than rabbits!
Day three: After all of that sign in our original hunting spot, I decided to stick with our original plan. We woke up a little late this morning and I wasn't very pleased with my son's lack of enthusiasm for our third day of hunting. We arrived at our spot well after sun up and started to walk the bottom of the canyon. I told him that he has to walk as if his life depended on it! That meant slow light steps and making the least amount of noise possible! Well, his idea of being quiet and mine are definitely different! I'm walking slowly, quietly, scanning the area left and right making as little movement as possible while he lags behind making big size 13 1/2 boot stomps in the ground and occasionally blowing his nose and coughing/sneezing! He has a lot to learn! LOL!
Finally, I see a herd climbing up from the bottom of the canyon and I pointed this out to my son. I said let's go! I take off running parallel to the herd trying to catch up and find an open area for a shot and look back to find my boy slowly walking behind and looking at the ground! I quietly yell at him to hurry up and I told him he'll have to keep up with me if he wants to get his elk today!
Well, by now, the herd is out of site, but we are still climbing the hill at a fast pace trying to locate what we had lost. After about 20 yards of up hill climbing, I spotted the herd again just before they beat feet up hill again. Frustrated I waited for my boy to catch up with me and then I noticed that beautiful color of light and dark brown! There was a calf grazing about 10 yards up hill from us! She was behind some brush but we could clearly see that she had no idea we were there! Just when I was going to tell my son to wait for her to walk out into the open so that he could get a good shot...BOOM! He hit the calf and it staggerred into the open and I told him to take a better shot, this time resting the rifle butt on one knee instead of standing! He made a perfect shot! Right behind the shoulder in the boiler room! Elk down!
What a proud moment for this dad! I've waited years for him to join me on a big game hunt! I had to wait until he was 16 to finally get the desire to hunt big game and now I have a hunting partner for life!
Sorry for the long winded story, but I just can't help bragging about my boy's first hunt!
Here's a few pics:
He dwarfs me at 6'1" 235lbs where as I'm 5'10" 155lbs!
