Hello to all the HBC members! I am pretty new to this site but I am glad to have found it in my internet travels. There are so many great stories and great adventures to read about here, I have spent hours “glassing” the site for great stories and even some insight into some hunts I’ve gone on. I’ll have to say I’m not exactly a journalist but I’d like to share with you, what was for me, a crazy adventure.
I’ve hunted now for 4 seasons and this was my first year being successful in the LEH draw. This year I would get the chance to harvest a Sunshine Coast Roosevelt Elk! There was about 3.5 months until opening day and I spent almost all that time preparing. I spent hours on the computer studying maps, reading articles, watching you tube video’s and of course reaching out to the HBC community for any help I could get and I was in no way disappointed, thanks to the members who replied on my thread “ Vancouver River Elk draw.” So as you might of guessed, haha, I drew the Vancouver River bull elk tag.
Truth be told I had put in for this tag due to its location on a map in relation to Squamish but after some research found out it wasn’t that close at all. From the Fraser Valley I had to take a ferry to the sunshine coast, drive up to Egmont where we chartered a water taxi to the area we were going to hunt. We managed to get a dirt bike and a three wheeler with a small flat trailer on the boat, which would later become a savior!
After about a 30 minute ride up Jervis Inlet we arrive in Vancouver Bay. The weather was beautiful, sunny about ten degrees and calm wind. We unloaded a mass of gear and started out to look for a place to camp. We drove a few km’s down the logging road and found and old building that was now nothing but a pile of lumber but had a nice flat area to set up camp, not too secluded but not right beside the river either. While doing the multiple trips to the beach and back for the gear, I happened across not 1, not 2 but 3 CO’s walking down the road toward me. I’m an honest hunter so I had no worries, but I was just amazed to see 3 at once. I guessed it must be a blitz for the opening of the LEH Roosie’s. We chatted for a bit and I poked them for some information but I think I had more knowledge of this area then they did…haha.
With camp setup, it was time to start looking for the Elk. This area is fairly simple as there are basically two main roads and a river splitting them. We worked the north side the first afternoon and came across some pretty fresh sign but no elk so we headed back to camp for a little snack just before dinner. With a couple hours of shooting light left we decided to head back up the north road toward the fresh tracks we had seen, within 1km of our camp we find some of the loggers stopped on the road. They were helping one of the other tag holders with this beautiful 6x7 Bull that they knocked down on opening day! A part of me wished it was me but at the same time I had spent 3 months preparing for this and it would have been bitter sweet for it to end so quickly. I wasn’t able to get a pic as this bull decided to run down the cut and across the river so they had to cut it up to get it out. If nothing else I was pretty excited to see fresh sign and elk on the first day.
Day 2 we spent further exploring the north side, mostly going down short side roads off the main, none of which went very far. There was lots of tracks and scat around, some new and some old, but still no sign of live elk or deer or black bears all of which we had tags for. With only 2 days in we were still in the scouting stage as I was unable to do any scouting during the summer and even though we had seen no animals, the scenery in this valley is stunning, as is most of this area so we stopped and took a bit in.
Day 3 was spent on the south side of Vancouver river. This side doesn’t go back as far as the north but had some really fresh sign as well. We got off the machines and spent most of the morning hiking the roads and trails. I tried some cow calling but got no response. It was pretty clear however, that we weren’t that far behind the elk as there was some very fresh scat and a strong urine smell that covers the air when a bunch of elk are around. Tomorrow (day 4), I would learn all about that smell! But we never did see them on this day.
Day 4 was Saturday and the small logging operating that was working the valley had shut down for the weekend except for a small blasting crew that was road building. My partner and I decided to check out the area on the north side where the loggers had been working as we talked to the foreman who was nice enough to give us some fresh intel about the area. We road for about 10km’s and got to the one and only fork in the road on the north side, where we had stopped two days before. We continued on right, down into the only area we hadn’t been yet to scout it out. It was nice and clear out this morning and it was around freezing in this part of the valley. We stopped about 5km from the fork we had gone past and had a break but when we went to start heading back towards the fork, my partner couldn’t get the dirt bike going (it’s a 2000 CR125). Since it was a bike familiar to me and not him, I jumped on and gave it a kick and got it going. Its too bad in the process I smashed my face with my binos and got a fat lip!
At this point I’m a little bit cold and feeling a lot annoyed at the unnecessary face adjustment i had just got.( It was the tenth time I had to start the bike ) We headed back towards the fork to head to where we had seen some good sign, I decided to stop at this clearing that was adjacent to the fork in the road to let my face rest a bit, I was not super excited at this point but as Dick Pronneke says, “ it happened with the suddenness of a broken shoelace.” We pulled into this area and turned off the machines. As I was taking off my pack, my partner and I heard some commotion right behind us in the direction we had just come. In the blink of an eye there were about 15 cow elk about 30feet, literally behind us, they came out from the other road we had not been down yet. How we never saw this massive group as we approached I’ll never know.
At first they just walked out but as more appeared they startled, except for one huge cow which was way larger then the rest, but then she too took off running across the road and into the bush after the others. My partner and I look at each other in shock, barely able to believe the sight(or smell) of the herd of cow’s that almost ran us down. That was the same pungent odor from the day before, smells a lot like pee…bull pee I’m guessing. Immediately I realized that there would most likely be a bull near by. I took a quick peek up the road to see if he was coming and didn’t see him. I took the few steps back to my machine, loaded my gun and snuck up a pile dirt that sort of over looked the side road and coming slowly, right down the middle of the road towards me was a nice 6x6 bull.
He had no idea we were there as there was a large dirt pile about 10 feet tall and 30 feet wide between us and him and the wind was in my face. I set up on the dirt hill and rested my rifle on a piece of broken branch. He was about 75 yards away at first but I knew he hadn’t seen us and let him walk right to me. I was kind of behind the hill a bit so he wouldn’t see me and when I thought he was close I took a peek, I happened to move a bit and a small rock tumbled down the dirt from my feet and he heard it and stopped……I managed to stay calm and perfectly still and I waited for him to make his move. I could see his antlers turning back and forth but he never made me……thank god! He was now at 20yards and I was all set. The bull relaxed and slowly continued down the road, when he reached the area that I needed him to clear(16 yards), I squeezed and my very first elk was down!
At 16 yards, 180grains of federal premium 30-06 packs quite the punch. The bull was taken clean off his feet and didn’t even get a half a step in after the shot. I hit just behind the front leg and hit both lungs perfectly. The bull was down on the road but very close to a ten foot drop into a small marsh and was kicking a bit, so I put a second one in him to stop him from thrashing himself down into the marsh. After a short celebration and of course a couple of pics it was time to get to work. Now this is usually where the story slows down but I was bout to get a little payback for harvesting this guy.
As I was just starting to dress out the elk, I bent down and as I stood back up my left knee locked up and I was in incredible pain, turns out I did some meniscus and MCL damage to my left knee, 10km from camp on a boat access hunt with a very large game animal down. That being said, it was a tough situation, but we managed and I would go through it again in a heartbeat!
Well that’s it for my little adventure, I hope you like it and the pics .I also want to thank all the HBC members for all the great reads and information.
Thanks,
Greg
