Thread: 15 minute season

Last weekend was the opening of Elk season in my sons region of British Columbia Canada. This year Deereman ( son) was holding out for a freezer full of elk meat for the winter.
Having left the ranch he worked on for twenty years he is lucky enough to to still be able to hunt there. This year he took one of his new bosses along as he had never hunted elk only mule deer.
Four days were booked in for leave and they headed up to Princton on the Friday ready an early start. Prior to my son leaving the property he and his then workmate Bob had made a blind up on one of the elks favourite fields which sheltered them from the weather and lots of elk eyes that are forever search for danger.

They had to carefully and quietly sneak into position before sunup and be ready for the elk to move across the fields as day light came on. As the light gathered elk were spread out in front of them , mostly cows and a few young bulls and rag horns. One bull stood out but at first glance didn't look to have 6 points on one side which is the minimum for a legal bull.
When the bull turned side on Deereman thought hell that bull has a bit of length so he decided to get in behind is rifle and start counting points. At 295 yards in dull light that ain't that easy but after several counts he was sure it was legal .

The bull was walking slowly across to the cows so my son took the shot as it walked, the bullet a 190 gr LRAB out of his new 300 Rum hit him just behind the shoulder taking out both lungs. The bull trotted off a bit so a second shot was fired and he was down for keeps.
All this happened in 15 minutes and his elk season is over. As the hunting takes place on private land retrieval is easy as they drove a tractor down and loaded it into the bucket and took it back up to the sheds and skinned, quartered it and into the chiller.
The bull was in top condition as rutting was just starting and he still had a couple of inches of fat over his rump.
Hopefully when the weather cools a bit my grandson may have a chance at a bull as he has a tag also.
Both my grandsons hunt with their dad so hopefully I will have some more stories to add to this one.

Big dark hefty looking bull, will be good eating I bet.

Originally Posted by nor-west

Big dark hefty looking bull, will be good eating I bet.

Son loves it, he marinates the meat then Sears it at a hi temp on BBQ then drops the heat down low for about half an hour. Both his boys are into it to.

Got a message from son he will pick up meat tomorrow , it went 560 pound on hook and cost .75 cents a pound to process.

That was a cool story. Good luck for the Grandson.

Originally Posted by Mooseman

Got a message from son he will pick up meat tomorrow , it went 560 pound on hook and cost .75 cents a pound to process.

Shit that's a big bastard. Awesome head too

Solid bastards those Roosevelt's, ask if your son can send some photos of cow elk, they have dark brown almost black necks

Pretty big animal. Neat story.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Solid bastards those Roosevelt's, ask if your son can send some photos of cow elk, they have dark brown almost black necks

The area my son hunts only has the Rocky Mountain Elk, Roosevelt Elk are only found on Vancouver Island according to a report I just read from the Ministry of the Environment Canada. I have seen them when we have visited years back and the cows are as you described very dark in the neck and creamy bodies.

Originally Posted by Mooseman

The area my son hunts only has the Rocky Mountain Elk, Roosevelt Elk are only found on Vancouver Island according to a report I just read from the Ministry of the Environment Canada. I have seen them when we have visited years back and the cows are as you described very dark in the neck and creamy bodies.

The antler form of your sons bull is Roosevelt or Roosevelt / Rocky cross esp. the dagger tine. Same with its coat colour. The fall colour phase for a Rocky is cream with some darker hair through the coat and dark legs. The bull is also stocky solid bastard and not a tall Rocky shape

Not according to the article I read . Also my son puts in for limited entry draws for Roosevelt Elk on Vancouver Island.The area he hunts is about 3-4 hours from Vancouver, he is in theOkanagon region. The information I looked up on google came up under a search for elk species around Princeton were he hunts.

Son has sent me some info about the differences between Rocky Mountain Elk and Roosevelt Elk. As I said it is 100 % Rocky Mountain. In the pictures that follow you can see the different antler structure, RM Elk have the long antlers with throwbacks and the large sticker tine whereas R Elk tend to cluster on the tops like our red deer. The butcher said his bull was about 4 years old and the colouring was influenced by the very hot long summer and he was caked in mud from asshole to head. The two pictures that follow of the RM Elk show different colour phases despite both being RM Elk.

These are typical Roosevelt heads as can be seen they are more clustered on the tops than the R M Elk

Originally Posted by Mooseman

Son has sent me some info about the differences between Rocky Mountain Elk and Roosevelt Elk. As I said it is 100 % Rocky Mountain. In the pictures that follow you can see the different antler structure, RM Elk have the long antlers with throwbacks and the large sticker tine whereas R Elk tend to cluster on the tops like our red deer. The butcher said his bull was about 4 years old and the colouring was influenced by the very hot long summer and he was caked in mud from asshole to head. The two pictures that follow of the RM Elk show different colour phases despite both being RM Elk.Attachment 179106Attachment 179107

is it normal to shoot young bulls in Canada? don't you guys want a 50"x50"? The wap foundation are always encouraging hunters to let young bulls grow until a good 8 years old or so.

4 y/o seems very young although since it is a seasonal tag I can see why you'd shoot one

Originally Posted by Mooseman

Attachment 179108

These are typical Roosevelt heads as can be seen they are more clustered on the tops than the R M Elk

As we can see, your sons head doesn't fit with either the Rocky's or Roosevelts. Rockys have longer beams and cleaner tynes. Sons bull has ridging on the beam and the beam is not round. The T5 tynes shape are not typical of Rocky's T5's.
Also the Roosevelt's Elk tend to have proportionately better trey's and often have Double Daggers like many of our Fiordland animals.
I still pick it as a hybrid Rocky / Roosevelt cross. In the '90s I did a big fencing job for a Roosevelt Elk stud on the Washington / Idaho border so got to see plenty