Well my wife Anna got her bull yesterday. About 3/4 mile from the nearest road and almost 3000 feet higher. A good shot and then the work started. I fired too at another one elk, but missed and got scoped. I held what I thought was the correct amount of hold-over and found I guessed wrong and the shot went right over the top of the elk. We were on real steep ground and I tried to curl around the rifle to keep from slipping down hill, but it didn't work very well for me as you can see from the dripping blood.

The shot was across a large ravine between 2 crests, with us being near the top of one and the elk being only about 25 yards below the crest of the other. Anna got on a large rock and shot from prone. I was on the slope below her about 10 yards, and in the snow.

It took 3 of us 7.5 hours to get the elk down to that road. We had to make 2 trips. The slope is steep enough to make going up empty easier then coming down loaded. The pic of Anna with the head and antlers was taken on one of the flattest places we could get to, about 1/3 the way down. The others were taken where the bull fell, and that was not too steep, thank God. We all had to wrap the loads and roll them off the steepest parts and then follow them down on all fours in 2 different places. VERY steep with loose rock covered in about 4" of snow.

What fun!

Anna earned every single ounce of this bull

AnnaElk3 by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

AnnaElk2 by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

AnnaElk1 by Steve Zihn, on Flickr