Cow Time

I have been saving cow points for a couple years with the idea of drawing a Deseret cow elk tag and taking my oldest daughter out with me.  Well, 2013 was the year this was finally going to happen, and I couldn't be more excited than I was!  I made that arrangements to bring her up just shy of her 7th birthday and Blake came along to help out.  We met at the main ranch and got all the instructions and were matched up with our host.  We spend most of the morning trying to locate elk.  Sometimes things got a little "western" as we would be trying to get from one area of the ranch to the others.  I'm glad those roads were well maintained.   I was worried about bringing my daughter up because we were having an absolute cold spell.  When we arrived it gave a temperature reading of -5 degress with almost -20 degrees windchill.  It was cold!  But we moved along.

Finally late in the morning we located some elk and after switching me to the co-pilot seat and Blake driving we were able to get me into position to hop out and slip up a little knoll to where the elk were at.  I was able to get into position, sat down, put the scope out there and started from the back of the herd.  Bull, spike, good bull, spike, spike...COW!  There was a good amount of space between her and others that were all grouped together kind of tightly.  I held steady and squeezed the trigger.  I immediately knew I hit her good as she doubled up, but she took off sprinting into the herd and I got worried!  Then she came out the other side still sprinting and just folded, tumbling over herself after running about 30 yards.  It was game on to get her dressed out and out of there.  It wasn't a real difficult hunt, but exactly what I was looking for to get my daughter to be a part of it.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect set up to accomplish that.  She had a ball and when I asked her if she wanted to do it again, she said yes.  When I asked her if she could change anything about the hunt, what would it be:  "Nothing, but next time can we shoot a big daddy elk?"  Your wish is my command, baby girl!  Let's get it done!  We have been eating well off this girl and the family is all fans of the elk meat.  I am certainly not complaining.