I went hunting with Leonard this weekend. I didn't buy myself any tags, so I couldn't shoot anything, but I went along for the fun of it anyways. One of his friends, Justin, also came along for the hunt. We got up super early, so thankfully my parents were able to watch Matt overnight Saturday so he and they didn't have to get up early. It was a great day. Nice and sunny, but a tad windy and cold. As long as we were moving I was good to go in my t-shirt, long sleeve, sweatshirt and jeans with long johns underneath. We split up, so I was with Leonard, and Justin went off on his own. Leonard and I were hiking along, and we start to hear this huffing noise. We stopped and waited. Leonard did his deer call. Pretty soon, 3 whitetail does come out of the trees and walk right up to us. It was so great! The doe in the middle even stomped her feet at us a few times. They finally ran off after a minute or two of staring at us trying to figure out what we were. I had the hardest time not laughing at them just standing there staring at us. We then started to hike some more, and soon we see two deer running across the top of the mountain that we were climbing up in front of us. I told Leonard to go ahead and chase after them because one was a buck and there was no way that I would have been able to keep up with him. So off he went, and I hung out by the road. I did have my rifel with me, and I was glad that I did. I started to get all paranoid, and all I could think about were bears and mountain lions. Especially sine Leonard had a ML hiss and growl at him a year or two ago. Scary! Pretty soon, I hear a shot fired, and then some more were fired. I started to get worried, since they were consecutive and I thought maybe Leonard got mauled by a bear or something and was "calling" for help. Thankfully, being on top of a mountian provides great cell phone reception. So I called him, but he didn't answer. My phone rang after that and it was Justin. He said that he shot a Bull Elk, and that there was another one with it that took off. So, I called Leonard again, and turns out he shot that other elk! He was so excited. He's never gotten an elk before, so this was paramount. It turns out, the elk was 700 yards away, and he was so excited that he missed the elk the first 5 times that he shot, and the last one took the bull down. Also, both elk were about 1/4 mile from each other when they went down. The bad thing about it though is that we were maybe about 4 miles up a mountain and away from the main road. Getting one elk out is a pain in the butt, but now we had two to try and get out. So, we called a friend up to help us get the animals out. He came and brought three friends with them. Get this though. They shot the elk at 11:30 am. We didn't even get out of there and back to the truck by 8:30 pm. It took forever! They had to skin and quarter the meat, and then de-bone it. Lovely. I'm suprised I didn't puke from the stench. Elk are some stinky animals. Oh, and the great part? One of the guys that our friend brought with was a total pot head. He was high the whole entire time we were up there and kept taking hits off of his pipe. It was great fun trying to walk out in the complete dark with a kid that's totally ripped. He kept saying all he does is get high. I thought it was pretty sad that his whole existence is based off of getting high. I'm so glad that I've never done any drugs.
Anyways, I'm so happy that Leonard got an elk. Our freezer will be full of meat and it will probably last us for the whole year. Let me just add that while he do hunt for fun, we eat every animal that we take, or we donate it to the food bank. I know some people aren't pro-hunting, but we are. This post kind of got all wierd. But I need to leave now. My SIL asked me to pick her girls up from school, and they are almost out.
