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Hunting with Me - Elk Hunting, Day Two

Day 2, Sunday

As I have detailed before here,I go hunting and hiking quite a bit by myself. I am always prepared for just about any emergency and I take great pride in that – plus a year or so back I splurged and bought a SPOT Tracker for emergencies, and I also buy search and rescue insurance. My best line of preparation when going at it alone is that I always let someone know when I am going, exactly where I am going, what I plan on doing, and when I plan on returning. So one would think that on my many treks from which I have safely returned, that my husband would think me capable of somewhat being able to care of myself, right? WRONG.

On School Section Mountain, the husband and I decided to split up. He would take one side of the mountain, and I would traverse the other. Little did I know that he was trying to keep me in his sight; for what reason, I have no idea. I was merrily going along my way, looking into groups of pine trees and groves of aspens, stopping to listen, watch and smell the air. Elk, especially bull elk, can tend to smell musky and sometimes you can smell them before you see them.

Evidently my husband lost sight of me, backtracked to where I was last, and still could not find me. About that time and on opposite sides of the mountain, we both heard lots of barking. I thought it was odd to hear dogs barking that far away from the nearest ranch, but I wasn’t too concerned about it. My husband was closer to the source of the noise and heard lots of yips and howls to go along with the barking – coyotes, and several of them from the sound of it. At this time, panic must have set into his head. He ran towards the source of the noise and the coyotes had reason to be excited – they had backed a mountain lion up against a cliff, and the mountain lion was standing over and protecting something. My husband, bless his heart, thought it was me. He got close enough to the coyotes to take a clear shot at them, but they must have caught a whiff of him and moved away, and at that time so did the lion. It wasn’t me – it was an antelope fawn that the lion had drug to his favorite hangout.

Instead of being relieved, he fired three shots in the air. Me, in my blissed out state of mind, figured he must have gotten something, so I headed up towards the source of the shots when I heard shouting – someone calling my name. I answered back, and over the ridge came the husband – overjoyed at finding me when I didn’t know I was lost. In his mind, I had been eaten by wolves, mountain lions or coyotes after I had a heart attack and hit my head on a rock when I fell down, clutching my heart. Or something like that. While I felt horrible for him being in such a state, I still wasn't quite sure what he thought I was doing on the mountain.

Needless to say the day on the mountain was shot. His shouting and shooting probably scared off every elk within 3 miles. We still walked down a promising ravine, but there was nothing to be found. It didn’t look like there had been elk on the mountain for at least a few days because there was no fresh evidence of them. Even though it was fairly early, we decided to call it a day and head back home.

I will be surprised if, next trip with him, I am not outfitted with a leash, walkie-talkie, and a helmet.

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