Name: Arlen H
Date of Hunt: September 29, 2010
Location of Hunt: Grande Prairie, Alberta
Animal Hunted: Elk
Were you successful?: Yes!
Weather, Wind, and Conditions: 15 Deg C, 5mph wind from West, Light clouds, Sunny

Interesting Details of the Hunt: As a new husband to a self-professed “city girl”, I decided on this day after work to have my wife come along for a quick evening hunt, to show her a bit of what I was up to, and possibly fill a doe tag. I lent my wife a camo hat and coat, and she packed her lawn chair, candies and water bottle for the adventure.

We headed out to a friend’s land with a small strip of harvested grain field adjacent to several bush quarters. To make it as easy an experience as possible (and to save time on a short hunt), I brought the ATV and we rode the half mile down the field edge to a clump of bush where we could hide the quad and set up a small blind that would be well within range of where I knew deer (and sometimes elk) liked to enter the field. My wife set up her lawn chair and got comfortable and I set up some camo netting around her to conceal her movements and gave her a video camera/tripod to operate.

No sooner had we set up her hiding spot when I noticed white-tailed does coming out into the field about 200yds away. I left her with the camera and belly-crawled 30yds to the stubble edge to set up prone with my bipod on my Tikka .30-06. I located a suitable doe and obtained a good sight picture, waiting for her to turn from her quartering-to position to a clear broadside.

All of a sudden a branch broke to my right at the field edge (80yds away) and the 4 deer in the field looked up, turned and bolted! “Oh NO!” I thought, as I remembered seeing a huge black bear on the field 2 days earlier, “Please Lord, don’t let my wife see that bear or she’ll NEVER come out to the woods again!”. My fears quickly turned to excitement though when a second later, a huge bugle erupted from the same location, and 5 or 6 cow elk and a 6×6 bull ambled out into the field and began grazing 70yds to my right – perfectly upwind!

Because I was already set up on my bi-pod, I simply rotated with my toes 90 degrees to my right and leveled the sights on the bulls vitals and POW! He humped his back and soaked up the first 165gr Hornady SST and turned 180 degrees – so I gave him another on the other side and he wobbled and dropped where he stood!

We had only been at the location for 40 minutes tops, and as I jump in the air and yelled “Praise the LORD!”, I quickly turned to my wife and yelled “It’s not that easy!!!”. It was my fastest elk hunt ever and the only one my wife has been able to come along, since we began having children. A great “date night” to be sure!