Yesterday was Brooke's birthday and also the opening day of archery elk and deer. So we headed up to the Boulder top and camped Friday night. Brooke got up about 6:20 and started up the road. The kids and I got up and started a fire, ate a yogurt and talked for a little while, when all of a sudden Brooke came back at 7:55. The kids were so excited to see him, all running down the hill yelling, "Did you get one? Did you get one?" Brooke just smiled and said yes. So we hurried and changed most everyone out of their pajamas and grabbed a few things and were back on the road in 15 minutes. We drove around to where Brooke had shot an elk, and he told us he had been walking through the trees when he heard something and looked through the trees and there was a cow elk. So he held super still and the elk started feeding toward him. She ended up being about 10 yards from him and stopped and stared right at him. There was nothing between them, so the elk could see his eyes moving. Brooke saw another elk coming up behind the lead cow, and thought oh great they are gone for sure. The lead cow saw him then whirled around and took off spooking the other cow as well. Brooke made a cow sound and the elk stopped and looked back at him (Brooke wasn't sure if the cow sound stopped them or they happened to stop just to see what had spooked them). He already had an arrow knocked so he pulled back and aimed at the lead cow, who was broad side at 30 yards. Knowing he didn't have much time before they took off again he quickly aimed and shot. He could tell he had hit her perfect, and she jumped crashed through the trees and a few seconds later he could hear her "coughing" and then heard her crash down. He went over and found his arrow and was going to go track her down and gut her but then heard a bear growl/bark in the distance. Being the great man he is who listens to his wife tell him over and over tell him to be careful of mountain lions and bears, he decided he didn't want to be up to his elbow in guts when a bear came, so he came back to camp and got us.
So we get to the place where the elk had collapsed, which was only about 60 yards away from where he shot her right in the lungs, and Brooke started gutting her. Solayna was completely freaked out by it, and wouldn't let me put her down, so she and I went to find a path to get the 4 wheeler up to the elk. Solayna and I were busy chopping logs with our hatchet and trying to move logs so we could get the 4-wheeler right to the elk, when Brooke and the kids started coming down towards us. I was telling them my plan, and we had 2 more logs to clear and Brooke looks and me with a mischievous smile and says, "Alright, well let's go. I've got a surprise for you guys. I shot a deer this morning too!" I just stared at him in disbelief. Who has the chance to kill an elk AND a deer on the opening morning of the hunt with a bow?? So we loaded back on the 4-wheelers and went to where he had shot a deer that morning on the way to hunt elk. We get to the spot and he tells us the story of the deer which is as follows: So he comes around this corner on the ATV and there is this buck on a salt lick. Brooke didn't have his bow out, his release on, or anything. So he shuts off his wheeler, gets out his bow from the case, puts his release on, and knocks an arrow, and the buck was still there just watching him 40 yards away. Brooke shot him right off of the 4-wheeler. He thought he had hit him a little far back, so he went and found his arrow and it looked like it was a gut shot, so he decided to just leave him and go hunt elk.
So after leaving the elk gutted we start tracking this buck around. This is the kids favorite part, and they are terrific trackers. They would find a speck of blood and then we would keep looking. So the buck went through the trees about 200 yards, and then circled right back around to a meadow and jumped a fence and collapsed. Brooke's not sure how he didn't see him collapse, but figures when he went to get the arrow it must have circled around. Solayna was completely freaking out by now, and then Brooke and I lifted it over the fence and she completely lost it. She started trying to climb the barb wire fence to get away from it, whith an"I'm scared to death" look. I hurried and ran and grabbed her before she cut her hand all up. Solayna kept saying, "That elk, it freaks me out" "That deer, it grosses me out" "I'm scared! I don't like that elks bum" She was hilarious. Brooke went and gutted the deer, and we took it back to camp and got it hung up. Brooke and I hurried and skinned it, while the kids were eating lunch. Then all of sudden the rains came, and the lighting, and the thunder. Brooke and I both hate lighting so we all jumped in the truck. We were there for about 2 hours and Brooke was going crazy. It was raining like CRAZY and hailing and just miserable. We knew we still had to go get the elk, but all our extra clothes were soaked since our tent leaked like crazy. Luckily Brooke had 2 rain suits, so he and Spencer took off to go get the elk. Sam, Shianne, Solayna and I stayed in the truck for a while longer until the rains slowed down. I started packing up all our gear. Once I got that finished, we got on the 4 wheeler and went to help Brooke. I knew right where we were going until we got closer to where the Elk was. I took a right, instead of a left, and soon Shianne was freaking out about being lost. I started to worry about it too, since there are so many meadows up there that I knew I could get lost in easily. So we said a prayer that we would be able to just find our way back to camp. I looked up and saw this patch of rocks we had to go through and remembered that was were we needed to go. So we headed back to camp. I wasn't very happy because I knew Brooke would need help, but I didn't want to risk getting lost either. We made it back to camp, and tried to start a fire with all the wet wood. It wasn't working all that well, and then around 5 pm we could hear a 4-wheeler coming up from the main road. Sam and Shi went to see who it was, and I told them it couldn't be dad, because it's coming from the wrong way. Boy was I wrong. Brooke, Spencer, Cocoa and a big ol' elk came driving up the road. I was so glad to see them (Brooke said it took them so long because they had to chop a small tree down to make a brace between two trees so they could pull the elk up and tie it and then back the ATV under it). We loaded the 4-wheelers on and decided to just skin the elk when we got home, since it was so cool up there the meat had cooled down. We threw the deer after quartering it, who appeared tiny next to the elk, into a large tote and came home. Brooke and the boys were busy skinning the elk on the lawn, I put Solayna and Shianne in the tub, where Solayna couldn't see the elk and make me hold her, and I got busy cleaning out our deep freezer down in the dungeon. I then went and helped Brooke finish skinning the elk, and we got the elk and deer both put in the freezer by 9:30 last night. What a day!!!!
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