Elk hunting pictures

[GaryE]

Hum is an expression around here for something that smells so strongly you can almost hear it.... .

I was curious because you're doing this at home. I hope your foot is healed enough for you to get away if this project leads to your family chasing you with pitchforks!

I have a huge buck that stands in my driveway threatening to leap out in front of cars on the main road. He's a fine looking one who isn't going to get shot unless he wanders out of city limits. Someone coming over to visit referred to our house as the one belonging to the fellow with antlers (I have none). He does seem to feel pride of ownership. If it were legal and I were a hunter, I could probably get half a dozen big whitetails out the window in the fishroom, right beside the killie tanks.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Celebration supper tonight: Elk tenderloin medallions with cumberland sauce and cheese hashbrowns. I forgot to take a picture until it was almost done. Between her young age and the long time aging, this is one tasty elk. The meat almost melted in our mouths. Ain't life grand?!

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Keep us updated!

Oh, I forgot to share my orthopedic surgeon's take on that broken elk leg.

After looking at her leg bone, he had a few interesting (or horrifying, depending on how you look at it) insights. First, he was very impressed with the thickness of the cortex, the actual bone that surrounds the marrow. Elk are built extremely tough, compared to humans, which makes this injury all the more remarkable.

Based on the long oblique fracture of the humerus, he said it looks like a rotational injury. The animal probably landed out of rotation (similar to what happens when you twist your ankle, except you're at a dead run and weigh several hundred pounds) and the full weight of the animal came crashing down on that humerus and forearm bone (which was also broken). She possibly stepped in a hole, or just took a bad jump and really landed wrong. It must have been a heck of a bad landing to do that kind of damage. I've never even heard of an elk breaking its leg like that. They are built extremely tough.

All of this happened either immediately before or immediately after I shot her; probably before. (For those of you just joining us, I saw her trotting a few minutes before and she was fine, and there was no bullet damage to the leg) I had no idea she had a broken leg when I shot her; she just happened to be the closest one out of the group.

I'm not all that into attributing things to providence; I believe that usually God lets the laws of nature run their course. But sometimes things happen for a reason. As I mentioned before, a bull jumped up at the moment I shot this cow. If I had seen him, I'd have passed on the cow and shot him instead. That would have doomed her to a lingering, painful death. Elk are built to last, and they can go many miles and many days--probably weeks, if a lion didn't get her--with a broken leg before they succumb. Instead, I put her down quickly and now she's feeding my family instead of the coyotes and ravens. I'm grateful, and if she had any say in it, she'd be grateful too.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Well, I just found out that Bugle magazine is going to publish my story of this year's hunt. So that's fun.