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本帖最后由 rc256 于 2014-11-8 06:50 编辑
本文系原创，仅限于枪友网发表，谢绝转载，违者必究五岁女儿Sheryl答应和我今年打猎，觉得孺子可教。本来周五飞机因下雨晚班，周六才飞，转两班晚上才到，还阴雨绵绵，不会大家拿驼鹿无获再现，那就脸丢大了。
好在这次是在老板私人庄园，9000英亩，依山傍水，风景迷人。更难得猎季一到，动物们会到这避难，这样就会成全我们了。
Phil 是这的经理。我称他superman. 外号The Beast. 六尺五个头，魁梧身材，像罗马角斗士。曾经单人直入深山10里，干掉800磅麋鹿，来回四趟步行，上下山如履平地，而且是负重百磅。走猎黑熊更不在话下，已有8头倒在他麾下。在此令表一下，巡猎比诱钩狩猎难度不是一个量级。而且麋鹿不像白尾有规律，战术和体力都需要hardcore conditioning. 不要以为Phil是红脖，他文武双全，微生物博士，曾是大学教授，高中橄榄球明星，现在管理庄园，领导20几个动植物科学家，还在有active publication.
5点飞到missoula 机场，顿感西部狂野，群山环绕。候机厅野生动物标本玲琅满目。Elk, 我们来了！
未完待续。
Phil已经寻探多日，庄园最近有四到五群麋鹿。他的助手Katharine接了我们父女两人，劲直奔向庄园。虽然已经日落，半个小时就要天黑，但希望让女儿能看到猎物。我们开到半山腰空旷地带，远处山峰此起彼伏，迭代有秩，更高处已有皑皑白雪。就在最远山脊影影约约黑点点映衬暗灰色天际。黑点多的是，墨绿松树，矮灌木，死树桩。用望远镜仔细一瞧，才确定是传说中的麋鹿。大约有十几头。其中有一头公Bull，庄严威武，仿佛山里的神仙幽灵，悠然漫步。天色已晚，相片都是黑糊。况且，身在自然，微风袭来，夜色及近，又有远处狼嚎，加上鹿影泰然漫步，不是相片可以表述的。
麋鹿喜欢在山脊是因为能见度高，及时察觉到危险，即使狼也跑不过麋鹿。人就更不要想。好在神仙也要吃喝拉撒，这些麋鹿们会在晚上下山喝水，吃草。最好的计策是埋伏上下山的半路上。几个礼拜前，就有一例成功埋伏，60码轻松一击。看来明早就这样试一下。
观探结束，我们来到庄园客屋。实在是世外桃园里的豪宅。Katharine下厨做了色拉。Phil做了homemade 汉堡。我们交谈甚欢。
晚八点，女儿和我及早入寝，期望明日有所收获。
未完待续。
Sunday：
leave 6:30. Saw elk climbing up hill far way. Try to go around and maybe intercept on the other side. Good hiking Sheryl all the way. Piggyback a while. Didn't intercept.
Driving to other mountain tops Beautiful snow scene. Saw two herds. Back out so not to disturb them. Too far to execute a stalking strategy. You show see a herd of elks in one of the pictures.
Drive back down mountain, spotting scope. Beautiful bull bedding in snow. 3 miles away.
Back to club house have lunch.
Went to shooting range, rested rifle. 300, 400, 800. All set. 300yd gong perfect shot, saw it moving. 400yd square gong. Perfect shot. 800yd first shot with 5-10mile cross wind. Aimed at the right edge. Didn't hear anything. Sheryl was spotting all along. And told me it was shot left. I gestured to see if she saw where the impact was. She indicated it is about half width to the left. Elevation spot on. Ok. Second try mildot at the gong center. Crosshairs about 1/2 width outside right edge. Shot. Didn't hear anything back. As I turned my head. Sheryl said she heard the echo. Perfect shot at 800yd. Only have 4 bullets left. Save for the hunting.
Saw many white tail and mule deer. Mule deer really dumb. They are darker color just standing there. Oblivious of surrounding.
Drove to see the low land where I bow hunted last year. Over scrubs and near ridges, saw a few buck and doe. Stopped the car and tried to get out. Not enough time and they took off. Also noticed Engine hood too high for standing shot. I would say about 3-4 sec window starting from opening car door. Need to load bullets first. Get shooting sticks ready and execute. Need to practice more.
A while later, Phil saw a another buck cross to further ridge. Sheryl and kaharine stayed in the car. We started stalking.
Crossed the valley, we stalked, I didn't see a thing. Then we prone and crawled. Range 400yd. Tail flicks, hard to spot. Coming in and out of scrubs. Walking across the next hillside to my right. Never a good shot.
Crawling is like military sniper team mission. Very exciting. Phil was in the front. I had the bipod on. So one hand hold the rifle, on crawl step at a time. I was afraid the gun pointing to phils butt. Made sure bullet not in chamber or pointing muzzle off direction. Some times feel barre was too high cuz of bipod. Collapsed bipod, but need to hold barrel off ground to clear muzzle from dirt.
Waited maybe one hour total. Could walked to other side. Couldn't find him.
Decided to back out and detour to the high ridge 9 o'clock to the position deer last seen.
Quick hike, crawled and prone and observed. Many mule deer. Saw a doe. More mule deer in the valley.
One more hour. Nothing came out. Decided to walk out for evening elk hunt. Just hen Phil saw the buck broadside 50yd 8 o'clock position to the mule deer across the valley.
Drop down, Prone and prepare. Range 285 yd. dialed. Buck facing 3 o'clock broadside, slightly toward me. Cross just behind shoulder. Bang. Ready for second shot. Stumbled and then rolled. He is done.
One small point on range finder. Greatly recommend Leupold 1000itbr. Their ballistic is not simple cosine horizontal distance. They use a more advanced horizontal equivalent calculation with much better error. Also it displayed directly MOA or mil adjustment. So we can quickly dial up or low. No need to consult a table or a ballistic calculator. Other rangefinder either gives out a simple consume horizontal distance or holdover in inches. That's useless I need direct dial number.
Back to get Sheryl and Katharine, all walked down across valley. Nice 8 pointer. 200lb live weight. Pictures, and field dressing. All done around 5:30pm.
Sheryl was not afraid of field dressing. She learned an important aspect of how to tell if a game animal is down, using a stick to poke the eyes. The buck was a 8 pointer. And Sheryl wanted a rug and European mount out of him. The rug will be a good addition to her bedroom where my last year bear rug lies.
Sheryl was a trooper. Helping on carrying her share of pack!
As for the knife for field dressing, this was the first time I tried Havalon replaceable blades. Such a joy to use. Have 庖丁解牛味道。
30min to go for elk. Just observing. Saw some herd. Phil thinks this herd may go to water source on south side of property. Expect a morning ambush.
Monday:
6:30 leaving. Very dark morning, but still no need for head lights. All four of us sneaked upon a hill. Saw a herd half way up the hill, maybe 900yd away. Phil said over the near side, rest of herd may walk back from the water source down the valley. The near side is only 200yd. We waited and waited. Over the farther south side we did see a few elks far far away. Maybe they would walk by, but hey never came. We walked up to the ridge and observed and determined all were cows, nothing to shoot. Need to switch to another spot.
We drove to another half hill. another herd across the valley. All cows, no shooter.
Around a small hill to the west side, saw another herd moving farther away. Too far and too exposed to observe. We backed out and plan to go go around to intercept them over the next hill when they are heading. They were moving slow. So should be a good chance
Lost bino on the way back to meet Sheryl and Katharine. All four went down to north side hills to intercept. Sheryl and Katherine stayed behind about 200 yd. We crawled to just above ridge. Paid attention to never pop our heads above the ridge line. Observed across valley. All bedded down. This is good news, because they can bed here for all day. There are about 40 in the herd. Saw a nice bull probably 4 pointers, a few spikes, rest are cows. Can you see the bull?
Here is the exact point of view from our shooting position. See the bull beeded down, in the picture center, facing 9 oclock. The two elk to the right are spikes. Now it is the shooting time.
Ranged 425 yd. dialed up 5 MOA. Bipod support. Wool Socks rear support. Pretty easy shot. Bang. And... nothing. Elk got up, and moved to the right, NO HIT! Phil said could be high. Second shot aiming at brisk. Bang, no response. Another miss, WTF? Didnt see the dirt, no idea where it hit.
Video is here for the first missed shot. DSLR really shins here. It was damn cumbersome to crawl with the bulky D7100. But the video is really cool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qkifwcwYUA
What do we do now? I have two more bullets. What woul you do?
To be continued...
Well two bullets left. We contemplated for a bit and decided go for addtional shots. Phill will use binocular to spot instead of covering his ears. It really wasn't loud across open western hills. Third short, missed. No idea where it hit. The dirt could be wet, and just can't see it. Amazingly the herd not really moving. The bull just walked around and started sniffing other cows' butt. He was taunting us! Last shot, no hit. And the bull just bedded again! Something is fucking wrong with the rifle. I doubled checked rang, reading, level bubble, all seemed alright. Shooting platform was stable. I was proning low on the ground, rear rest was stable.
Plan two. Go back to get my trusted .308 Winchester Model 70. We slowly backed out and walked back along the stalking path. Sheryl was excited and asked me if we got him. Daddy missed four times!
Back to the truck, switched to my WInchester. Have ten bullets, 165gr Federal Trophy Copper. If I missed on all ten bullets, I might as quit hunting for life. While I was switched the bipod off to my backup rifle, Phil started the truck. He was surprised and ecstatic to learn that I had the rifle in the truck. He was going to drive down the mountain and thought the rifle was in the clubhouse.
The stalking path is familiar. We quickly assumed our position. I said we should get closer as .308 performs better within 300yd. We looked at the hills down right, where could be closer. We quickly detoured further down right. And started our prone crawling routine again. There are more bushes and shrubes on this side of hill. In order to get closer to the herd, we needed to crawling over the ridge line to eh hillside directly facing the herd. It is not an impossible task, but we need to move smoothly, inch by inch. No sudden jerks. And keep the rifle barrel down too. it seemd hours has passed, but we crawled for about 150 yd, and rested by a schrub. This time I abandoned the DSLR, a decision I later regretted.
Range 304yd. Ballistic adjusment up 2.5MOA (Already changed ballistic group in the rangefinder). The bull was facing, again 9'' oclock, bedded, and ruminating.
Adjusted vortex scopr to 7, cross hair right behind his shoulder, about 1/3 above the brisket.
"Ready?" I gestured to Phil.
"Go."
Steady aim, and light straight pull. Bang.
A moment later, I saw through the scope the elk skin twitched exactly where I aimed. Must be a hit. He tried to get up, half way up.
Recycle the bolt. Try to reacquire the target. Can't find him.
"You got him, he rolled down," Phil said.
Taking my eyes off the scope, I saw him down over the valley. He was dead. The rest of herd were still minding their own business.
I high fived Phil. Now that is a hunt. Time is only10:30am.
The bull was near the bottom of valley. We would not carry him up. We would need to get an ATV as close as possible. Just pack out the meat.
The real work jsut got started. We first drove back to club houses to get some snaks. And get the game bags, and external backpacks.
All four of us get onto an ATV and drove as close to the valley as possible. It would still need about 1/2 mile hiking.
The bull is named Captain Hook. He has one side 5 point antler, and 2 point antler on the other side. As we hiked in, he was belly up, totall tumbled upside down. Picture time. Sheryl again wanted european mount and elk rug. So we need to skin him carefully.
Captain hook was big animal, estimated to be 500-600 lb. I was not a virgin anymore, skinned and deboned an elk last year. So Phil and I quickly skined half side, and then detached the legs. We tied the legs to a pole nearby, and then just debone the meat out. The hind leg alone would weight over 50lb.
The bullet hit exactly where I wanted it to. I would say POI is no more than 3" away from POA, possibly closer. Right into the boiler room behind the front leg. My trusted Winchester Model 70!
Sheryl helped out fielddressing. She noticed the huge stomach. We took the opportunity to explain the elk anatomy, and how their stomches work. Katharine was learning to detach the hind leg. Accidentally got blood squirted on to her face. And it was penis blood! She was laughing and Sheryl wondered why so funny.
About four hours later, the all were left are bones and entrails. I got the heart out and Sheryl said "Yummy!"
Packing out was not that bad. Phil and I took two trips. Katharine and Sheryl took one. We are a happy hunting team.
We still got plenty time. Decided to check ou the bad rifle. Also Katharine wanted to shoot both rifles to fee the difference of .308 vs 300wm. She shot .308, 2" high on 100yd, missed 400yd gong. but solid hit on 300yd. Tried on 300wm savage with the only bullet left. deadon 100yd. Should be 1.5 or 2" high. It the gun were consistent, it would shoot about 10" low with the holdover adjustment we had. So we should have aimed high instead of low. We would never know. I will need to check what's wrong when back home.
After I got back home, I viewed the video I shot for the first missed shot, it was actually high and to the right. So Phil was right calling it high. I would need a lot of shooting on this rifle to find out what went wrong before I can take it out hunting again.
Tuesday:
We pretty much pack the cooled meat into syrofoam boxes. 50lb each. We got six boxes to go with my flight. Total extra luggage fee is around $450. Not that bad. It would be more expensive to ship from butcher.
Flight was long, first need to go to Salk Lake City, then to Chicago. We didn't get back to Chicago until 9:30pm.
Then there was a big incident at the last leg. At the baggage claim, we quickly saw our boxes. Rented a cart. But the dame cart was too small. While pushing the cart out, the stacked boxes fell. The floor is splattered with blood. Even worse, the blood is dripping from boxes. We quicly alarmed a airport staff, and hushed the cart out to outside waiting area. Many wary eyes staring at me. One lady called 911, I think. "There is blood coming out bags, you police better come now!" Police never came. I guess in a real murder case, police is good for report writing.
That's it, the end of my hunting story. Thanks Phil and Katharine! It was a great hunt and team work!
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发表于 2014-11-4 16:12
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发表于 2014-11-4 16:24
