Dante's Bull

[Dave]

Hopefully doing this Imgur photo thing right.

Just got back from Colorado with 6 family/friends on an elk/mule deer muzzleloading hunt.
It was the most brutal hunting trip I've been on.  Combined with my age, new hip and just not ready for a hunt without animals (horses or llamas).  We packed in 5 to 6 miles into a wilderness area just north of Vail.  There is an old logging road that is carved out of the wilderness area and is designated as part of White river National forest and not the wilderness area.  That means there are a different set of rules for that road (believe we were permitted  to haul a cart up the old path, but nothing motorized, including a bike). This old washed out roadway ran 2-1/2 miles toward our camp. 

Here's a brief vid on the cart - I blame the videographer for poor quality vid

Clip1 by daveandbarb2, on Flickr Once at the top, we locked up the two carts and packed the other 2-1/2 miles up and down trails til we reached where we wanted to set up camp.  Elevation was 9,800'. Other than some above average headaches and gasping for breathe every now and then, we all handled the altitude fairly well.

We hiked in Friday and muzzleloader started Saturday.  Saturday morning Dante and I headed down from our camp about a 1/2 mile to where a steep valley formed and dropped down about 1500' to the Piney river below us.



Elk were bugling on the other side of this valley and all we could do is call to them and listen to them bugle back.  We spent the morning hunting along a steep drop off paralleling the Piney way below.  Came across a small black bear around 100 yards away - he just sat down when he saw us and we watched each other for close to 10 minutes.



We continued another mile and a half before heading back up toward a ridge that we needed to go over to hunt the north facing slopes and bowls.  It was about noon and we were both out of water since early morning (we were figuring on filtering water not far out of camp, but pushed it off thinking we'd be able to replenish at another seep - but never found it).  We were now sitting on top of this dividing ridge separating a few open parks and travel ways from the cooler north slopes of vast expanses of dark timber. We ate a little lunch and relaxed for an hour.  We were both extremely parched and needed to fill our water bladders.  Couldn't even swallow.  I said to Dante we have two options:  1. we could head back toward camp and water up 1/2 way back at our watering hole, and spend the rest of the day around camp; or 2. we could head down into the hell hole toward a known creek almost to the bottom, but all through dark timber.  We sat there thinking about it both wanting the easy out and walk back to camp.  I said, 'You know, in two years from now we won't be sitting around talking about how glad we were that we headed back to camp.'  He said 'yep!' and we dropped down through the hundred of acres of ledges and slopes of both live and dead lodgepole pines. Neither of us were concentrating very hard, but I kept a diaphragm call lodged in my mouth in case we were to jump any bedded elk - one quick cow chirp and they settle right down.  We really didn't get too far into it all (maybe 1/3 of a mile) and came to a steep drop-off.  Behind a pine we could make out something moving and saw a bull appear easily feeding toward us.  We both hunkered down and Dante slipped forward about 10 more feet giving him clearance over the ledge and a clear shooting lane down to where the bull was feeding.  It was perfect - the mountain breezes were coming uphill strong.  Nothing to let him know we were there. He was still quartered toward us and we heard something back behind him.  It was only a few minutes, but it seemed like forever for him to move a little more forward and from behind the pine.  We were looking at his left side, and something moved behind him.  He turned his head back over his right shoulder, and opened himself up just enough.
BOOOOM! 
He reeled around and dove back down the slope, disappearing deeper into the hole.  I had a real good look at his left side and didn't see any sign of a hit.  Dante thought he did.  After 10 minutes we thought we'd at least look where he was standing  No sign of a hit.  Looking for cut hair and just behind him was a big dead fall with no bark.  Nothing on it.  Dante looked for signs of a hit in the first two kick-ups from where he was standing.  He pulled up his binocs and glassed through the dark timber.  His heart leaped when he saw antlers piled up along a big hulking body a little over 100 yards way.  He made his way down there and made sure he was dead.  I forget how big these things are.





It was massive as it lay there!
We pulled out our game bags and began the process.  We hung most of the bags of meat in trees and packed the back straps and hanging tenders back toward our camp.  Finally made it to our watering whole halfway back to camp.  We drank for quite awhile, filled up our water bladders and trekked the final mile back to camp. 

[FinsnFur]

WOW!
I gotta be honest...I'm kinda jealous
Nicely done Dante! Not a lot of kids your age are able to do the things your Dad has lead your through.  I love the fact that we get to hear about these ventures of yours. This is one thing in your life that you will never forget. And it sure looked like a LOT of fun.

I tried to fix the pics, But apparently Imgur doesnt allowing linking back to them?

[Okanagan]

WOW!  That is a dandy bull!  Excellent shot placement it looks like, and it sure worked.  Love the story, well told.  Were you able to get water down by the elk or not until you got back to the spring a mile from camp?  I always get super thirsty after I shoot a big animal. 

Great photos of Dante.

[riverboss]

Great read! That brings back memories,its been over 20 yrs since I hunted very close to were you were. It takes a tough person to hunt those mountains!
But you must be even tougher if you kill one.
Congratulations to Dante and you.

Sent from my Tank Xtreme 5.0 using Tapatalk

[Dave]

Thanks guys

I tried to fix the pics, But apparently Imgur doesnt allowing linking back to them?

Jim, any ideas how I could link the pics so they show up in the post?  I've got a few videos I'd like to post also, but can't figure it out.

[HuntnCarve]

I just found this on another site.  I seems to work!  I opened Photobucket, then did what the below described.  I can now see all the photos that I used Photobucket to link them to other sites.  (See below):

Apparently Google Chrome and Foxfire have found a way to access the photos that Photobucket.com does not now allow you to post to 3rd party sites anymore without paying a high price.

"In the cases where former/current PhotoBucket users haven't deleted all their albums, Chrome and Firefox now have an extension, Photobucket Embed Fix, that will display 3rd party hosted images. It will fix all your broken pics, no need for you to do anything, it runs entirely in the background.

Click Tools>Add-Ons (Or press CTL+Shift+A) >select Extensions > enter "photobucket embed" in the Search box (upper right corner) > then click the install button."

[Hawks Feather]

Heck of a hunt and it sure paid off.  Congratulations on a great elk.

Jerry

[Todd Rahm]

Very nice!!!!!!!!!! 

[Okanagan]

Photos showing now.  That is STEEP country, especially the cliffy spot.  Sure a pretty slope where Dante's bull went down. 

I am impressed that you took some meat out on your first trip, even without big packs to carry it.   "Amateurs" hike out empty to go get a pack.     We have learned the hard way to pack something out on the first trip and every trip even if you have to carry it in your hands or on your shoulders.  Every pound carried out helps reduce weight on later loads and may make the difference for one less load.  That had to be a brutal pack out.   

Sitting here wishing I could have been in on that one, but at my age and condition you'd have probably had to carry me out!

[pitw]

Heck of a hunt.
Pretty country and wonderful to see this way.
Thanks.

[coyote101]

Hooray for Dante!  Congratulations on a great hunt.  More pictures please.

Pat

[FinsnFur]

Thats awesome! So what did you have to do to gets the pics to load? Looks like you changed the code a bit but...was it a option in your account or what did you have to do?

[Dave]

So what did you have to do to gets the pics to load?

I had to talk to HnCarve
He sort of directed me to copy and paste the "embedded" code off the site.  When you are in Imgur, open up your images, click on a pic and the last link on that page is titled "Linked BBCode."  I copied and pasted that - poof! they appeared.
I tried to post a video, but can't figure that one out. 

That is STEEP country, especially the cliffy spot.  Sure a pretty slope where Dante's bull went down. 

Yeah it seemed to get steeper with a load on your back, too.  There were loads of blowdowns all over down there - he just died in the 1% area where they weren't!

Sitting here wishing I could have been in on that one, but at my age and condition you'd have probably had to carry me out!

I wish you were there to help, too! And you'd have been fine out there with what you go through keeping up with your son and grandsons in those rainforests you hunt. 
There were supposed to be 6 of us meeting there the next morning to pack the last 4 bags out, but my brother and his 2 sons ended up getting after a muley, his son shooting it, and were dealing with that while Dante, Mike and I packed out the elk.  If I figure out the video thing I'll post a clip of that.  You get to hear me huffing and puffing with one 50/60 lb bag on my back.  Dante had one bag and then the rack. Mike had two bags totaling over 100 lbs plus 15 lbs of daypack material as he hunted that morning.  Mike's 6'8", late 20's and strong. He goes over blowdowns just like an elk. Dante's 17 yrs old, strong, and 17 years old! I carried Mike's muzzleloader allowing him two walking sticks. It was fun, and tough enough that we'll all remember it for a long, long time.

[Dave]

I'm figuring out videos and am using Flickr here. 
Here's a brief clip of us packing out

Clip13 by daveandbarb2, on Flickr

We got that back to camp, along with my nephew's mule deer and decided to pack it all out the next day.  There were 7 guys to pack all the meat back from our camp to the top of the trailhead where we had our two carts stashed (the carts are basically modified deer carts - I put bicycle tires and wheelbarrow handles on mine and my brother just added handles).  Once we trekked the 2-1/2 miles to the carts, we just tossed everything on and three of us wheeled the last 2-1/2 miles down the old, washed out in spots, logging road.  What an absolute pleasure that was, and was so glad we modified!  Then the three of us dry-iced them for the night and ran the meat to a storage refrigerator 30 miles away.
Here's a clip of our carts in action.  Over 250 lbs of weight on the one with the elk rack.


Clip31 by daveandbarb2, on Flickr

[coyote101]

Dave,

What rifle and load (propellant and projectile) did Dante use on his elk? Did you recover the bullet?

Pat

[Dave]

Dave,

What rifle and load (propellant and projectile) did Dante use on his elk? Did you recover the bullet?

Pat

Pat, Dante was using a Thompson/Center Black Diamond. More importantly, he was using the No Excuses 495 grain 50 caliber bullet.  Used 90 gr. Triple Seven FFG black powder.  This was all from my brother who's way more knowledgeable than I.  He said you NEED to use these with 85 to 90 gr of powder.
here's a link to No Excuses :
http://www.muzzleloading-bullets.com/index.htm

The shot was quartering towards and the bullet passed through everything except the hide on the backside. When we got to the elk, I pressed my hand down on its shoulder and could feel the bones and damage rolling around underneath.  Then while skinning the backside I found the bullet with little difficulty.  Four years ago he hit one (roughly the same shot angle) that we didn't recover using 395 grain Power Belt bullets with 100 gr powder.     
No Excuses!
Where are you headed to?  If you have time to give these a try, I'd highly recommend them.  Very reasonably priced.

[coyote101]

No Excuses!
Where are you headed to?  If you have time to give these a try, I'd highly recommend them.  Very reasonably priced.

Thanks Dave, I may give those No Excuses bullets a try. I have killed several deer with 395 grain Power Belts using 100 grains of pyrodex, but have been unimpressed with the expansion. Some were just pass throughs, not expanding at all and leaving a poor blood trail.

I'm headed to Idaho next month. I don't know if I will take the muzzle loader along or not, but I may.

Congratulations again to you and Dante.

Pat

[FinsnFur]

No excuses
Very Interesting