ADVANCED HUNTING by FRANCIS E. SELL

Author:FRANCIS E. SELL
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811766470
Publisher: STACKPOLE BOOKS
Published: 2017-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

LESSONS FROM THE GAME YOU HUNT

Best hunting techniques are exemplified by the big game you hunt. A canny old buck or a shy, wily herd of elk have much to teach even the most experienced woodsman.

Hunters become startlingly proficient. They take their game, autumn after autumn. But those that do are usually ones who have learned their woods lessons at the very source of all good hunting techniques, the game itself.

Remember those legendary bucks of campfire stories. Each hunting community has at least one; hunters talk in awed whispers of their uncanny ability to give a woodsman the run around. They live, wise battle scarred veterans of hunting season after hunting season, until they make a mistake and some lucky hunter downs them. In the meantime they are a hunter’s best teacher, if he is a careful student.

A herd of elk once gave me a lesson which has stuck throughout the seasons. They told me as plain as could be that they had decided views about going out when jumped.

My partner and I trailed that herd for the better part of two hours across a logging slash. I was on the tracks while he moved from vantage point to vantage point, ready, if I should jump them in the mountain willow, small fir and spruce which made a jungle of the logging.

We angled around a draw, came into some broken ridges, the· smoking fresh tracks still before us, but without a sign of the herd. Crossing a ridge, however, we found them moving into a heavily timbered slope, apparently intent on day bedding. Three ridges fell away from the main hill here, and our elk herd was on the middle one. We could see yellow rump patches like great sunflowers as they picked their way through the brush at the foot of the old growth fir.

We decided I should slip around the edge of the ridge, make a careful stalk about a quarter mile west to get into the heavy timber above them, while my partner remained on the ridge in a position to intercept them as they came out.

It appeared to be a wonderful setup–I could almost smell frying elk steak. I would move in and spook the herd, maybe get a shot, but if I didn’t, they would come boiling down the ridge, out across those small openings between the clumps of mountain willow, and Elzie would do the shooting.

Everything worked out wonderfully well. I found a deeply cut pathway leading down from the high mountain, and there wasn’t a fresh track showing. I was above our herd as sure as shooting. Now, all I had to do was to steal along, and the hunt was as good as over. Adverse wind wouldn’t matter. Only thing I had to worry about was the scattered feeding herd. They could give me trouble if they were not closely grouped. I could easily over run them.

I contacted the herd in just a short time, the casual noise showing they were still moving slowly, deliberately, browsing along the ridge.

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