This year�s Cow Elk hunt didn�t provide any extra meat for the table, but it wasn�t from lack of trying. It rained and/or spit snow at us everyday. Even with all the rain it didn�t stop my friends and I from enthusiastically going on the hunt. Hitting the trail every morning at 05:30 to look for game, tracks, scat, ect . . . After we found a spot that held fresh sign I set up my portable blind but I didn�t see much other than the rain. For the next few days we traveled the back country on roads. Demanding the taking of the utmost imagination even to be called roads and they don�t even appear on the newer maps.
Going through the Rodeo/Chendeski burn of 2001 that destroyed a half million acres of pristine forest. I was depressed at the waste of all the wood that the Environmentalist won�t allow to be used. I wonder how many millions of reams of paper, lumber or sheets of plywood were lost. I guess that they prefer to see healthy green trees cut down. But now, like Yellowstone, the grasses are returning and are shin bone deep. Now I need to get off my soap box and get back to the hunt.
In the pouring rain we came up on a twosome of cow elk standing in the Pines, Oak and a scattering of Maples, 75 yards off the road. But as luck would have it they vanished over the hill by the time I got my rifle to bear. The next day we were in some prime looking Elk country but failed to find any sign that hadn�t been rained on from the night before. The following day was also the last day of the hunt and still raining. That morning we traveled up and down muddy roads all the way to the Apache Reservation line but still only saw some snowflakes. As the clock passed 4:00 we finally spotted a herd of 12 - 15. But they were on private land so we couldn�t take a shot. They were spooked, as soon as they spoted the truck they broke into a full gallop and vanishing act disappearing into the brush. We continued on but with the failing light all we saw were a few beef cows. We returned home empty handed but hoping that next year to get drawn again.
So ended the 2004 Cow Elk hunt for unit 23.
