Party of five get their elk on first try

Published 8:08 pm Sunday, December 3, 2017

Bill Terry said he couldn’t have drawn up a hunt any better.

Son Max, a major in the Air Force with special ops, had just returned from a deployment to Afghanistan and was able to take part in an elk hunt in the San Juan mountains, located in the southwest section of Colorado just outside Lake City.

Bill said there were five in the party, two having never killed an elk.

Max, a 25-year Air Force veteran now stationed at Hurlburt Field, which is located east of Navarre, Florida, had last made the hunt in 2014 because of his military duties. Bill started hunting in the area in 1990.

“When we got in we were told that elk had been seen for the past several days,” Bill said, but the probability was that the herd would split and leave the area. 

Also, he said he was told that five mountain lions had been seen roaming the mountains and “when a cat gets in the air, game will stay away.”

It wasn’t a good outlook because the year before the take had been zero.

“Five went out and we didn’t kill an animal,” he said.

This time, and on the very first day, the hunt was different.

At 3 p.m. on the day of the hunt, all five hunters had been placed in a position where the guide figured the elk would come out on the way to graze.

Right at 3:15 p.m., Bill said a herd of about two dozen cow elk running down the mountain.

The result was quick.

From about 150 yards away, “The five of us dropped five of them within 100 yards of each other,” Bill said, he and Max popping theirs with a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle.

Later the manager of the camp said in all of his years there he had never seen each member of a group of five drop their animals and fill out their tag on the very first day.

The two taken by Bill and Max weighed right at 525 pounds each.

“You just couldn’t draw it up any better,” Bill said of the hunt.

Because everyone in the group notched their kill on the first day, the group spent the rest of the time tracking varmints, shooting a few coyotes.