Elk Hunting

Every year my husband gets to take a week off of work and go out into the mountains to elk hunt. Up until now, he had to drive 5 hours to hunt with his cousin and uncle, but since we moved out of Denver, his hunting grounds were now just an hour drive away.
Last year, my husband got a 6x6 bull elk and brought it home to Denver for harvesting. We butchered and processed the meat ourselves in our kitchen. It was a wonderful experience to be able to see where our meat came from and to package it into the freezer. That lone elk feed our family its red meat for an entire year...and that includes meat given away as presents. After eating the organic, all natural, grain feed, no added hormones elk, I was determined that God would provide our family another elk for food.
In April of this year, I took my hunter safety class and got interested in hunting. I did not grow up hunting or fishing, but knew friends and family that did. Growing up, the thought of moose (I grew up in Alaska) hanging in the garage with skin and blood was gross. I did not know that is not how it is done. So, I became interested in hunting and fishing and providing super healthy food for my family. This summer we did some mountain lake trout fishing and was very impressed at the fish. My husband and I started planning how the hunting season would work. He hunts on the weekends with the guys and we decided that during the weekdays, he'd take me out.

Waiting for the sunrise.

The whole hunting experience was amazing. Waking up at 4:30a, eating breakfast, getting dressed in camo and blaze orange, driving out to the hunting area- the 40 minutes of 4x4 trail to get to the trail head, walking out to our tree before dawn and huddling together watching the sunrise and listening to all the animals wake up. That was the most magical part of the whole experience...listening to the forest wake up. The birds and the squirrels chirping at each other, the crows finally flying around and the distant calls of elk.

My first 4x4 elk

We sat for three days at a tree from about 6:45a to 10a watching and watching and watching for elk. We saw some does (deer) and a coyote, but no elk. Then on our third day, about 8:30a, a lone 4x4 bull elk came running up the draw. I was so excited. An elk. For us. God had answered our prayers for an elk this year. My hubby helped coach me along....get your rifle out...aim....now wait till he is in a good shot. I aimed my rifle and moved along with the elk as he trotted through the valley/draw. I kept telling my husband, "we have to shoot him" and "Stop him! Stop him!" Thinking back on it, it was a pretty silly thing to say, but luckily my hubby had a cow call and chirped to the elk and he stopped to listen. Just as I thought I didn't have it in me, the rifle went off. I downed my first big game!
We let it sit for about 20 minutes before walking over to him. He was beautiful. Not a very old elk, but definitely big enough for me. Now the fun starts. My hubby graciously gutted the elk for me. Once that was finished I was more than ready to help skinning and quartering him. 8 hours later, we had quartered, skinned and packed all the meat back to the truck- which was luckily only about 0.75 mile away.

The wonderful Hubby packing out the meat.

The truck all packed. Ready to go hom

At home, we let the elk hang in the cool garage for 5 days before butchering it in the kitchen. My parents were visiting from Alaska and were here to experience the whole process. The extra help was greatly appreciated as we processed over 140lbs of meat. We did not make bratwurst or summer sausage yet- so that will be another fun weekend.

Until next time......
~GunniChick