I decided to take the bird dogs out for some grouse hunting over Labor Day weekend into the Mountains. Hunted a new to me area and found an amazing number of berries and great habitat but few birds. On the last hit of the day, I was running Boss and Duke, both solid Pointers. I got a point signal from Boss and quickly made my way to him, coming along his right side at about 6 yards. He was pointing a shaded patch of thick pine trees. I stopped and was looking up on the limbs for grouse as sometimes they will fly up a tree when pointed. Immediately in front of me I see some brown fur emerge from the shaded pines. Out walks a HUGE cow elk at 15 yards to our front! I have seen a lot of elk in my day and this matriarch was a good 600-700 lbs. Big ole sway back and pot belly.
She came out of the trees at a trot and was heading our way, my first thought was ‘that’s a dead elk with a bow’ and my second thought as she kept coming was ‘why in the heck isn’t she running away from me’. Well, that old girl was focused like a laser on Mr Boss. Her ears were pinned back and she went right into that Pointing dog with hooves a blazin stomping the hell out of him! I was dumbfounded for a second realizing that this giant cow elk was going to kill my good Pointer! After a second I come to my senses and scream at her ‘WHAT THE EFF!’ (keeping the language clean for the internet) and charged at her with my shotgun shouldered, ready for war! That Cow Elk Karen heard me swear and immediately turned my way and squared up on me.
At this point I have the end of my 20-gauge muzzle about two feet from her nose. As I started to pull my trigger, I see her second guess her posture and she begins to take a couple steps back. I let the tension off the trigger, and she whirls around and takes off at a run going the other way wondering where that white man with the boom stick came from. Old Boss was a little banged up but considering she only had about 2 seconds to stomp him he was ok. I checked him thoroughly for broken bones and internal injuries and he was ok, just a little banged up. I was pretty well lit up with adrenalin from that 6 seconds of WTF and had to take a second to regain my posture! We continued our hunt and made it back to the truck.
Thinking on it, if I would have had to dirt that bitty with an ounce of bird shot to the face, I guess I would have quartered her up and then called the fish and game. I’m glad it didn’t come to that but man I was close! So there ya go, there was my fun story from the weekend. Picture is of the crew after that day’s events, Boss is the smiling meathead on the the right. Not glory but we did scratch a limit
She came out of the trees at a trot and was heading our way, my first thought was ‘that’s a dead elk with a bow’ and my second thought as she kept coming was ‘why in the heck isn’t she running away from me’. Well, that old girl was focused like a laser on Mr Boss. Her ears were pinned back and she went right into that Pointing dog with hooves a blazin stomping the hell out of him! I was dumbfounded for a second realizing that this giant cow elk was going to kill my good Pointer! After a second I come to my senses and scream at her ‘WHAT THE EFF!’ (keeping the language clean for the internet) and charged at her with my shotgun shouldered, ready for war! That Cow Elk Karen heard me swear and immediately turned my way and squared up on me.
At this point I have the end of my 20-gauge muzzle about two feet from her nose. As I started to pull my trigger, I see her second guess her posture and she begins to take a couple steps back. I let the tension off the trigger, and she whirls around and takes off at a run going the other way wondering where that white man with the boom stick came from. Old Boss was a little banged up but considering she only had about 2 seconds to stomp him he was ok. I checked him thoroughly for broken bones and internal injuries and he was ok, just a little banged up. I was pretty well lit up with adrenalin from that 6 seconds of WTF and had to take a second to regain my posture! We continued our hunt and made it back to the truck.
Thinking on it, if I would have had to dirt that bitty with an ounce of bird shot to the face, I guess I would have quartered her up and then called the fish and game. I’m glad it didn’t come to that but man I was close! So there ya go, there was my fun story from the weekend. Picture is of the crew after that day’s events, Boss is the smiling meathead on the the right. Not glory but we did scratch a limit
Agreed, good looking crew.
