Some final elk hunt moments

Ray glasses another bowl for elk

Right now here on Mill Bay the wind is battering the outside windows and it is pouring rain.  We are in the middle of another brutal North Pacific storm.  Earlier today I looked out the bay towards Spruce Cape and thought about how just 5 days ago on Thursday at 6 AM in the morning we were trying to round that very cape and get home to Kodiak harbor before the storm got much worse.  I look out there today and I am very glad that I am not trying to round Spruce Cape.  It is a maelstrom.

The 2015 elk hunt is over and beginning to fade into the past.  The meat is all packaged and in the freezer, and photos are becoming my memories of the hunt.  The hunt is over, and for me it also marks the end of the hunting season.  My family has all the meat it needs for the coming year, and from now on the deer just taste worse and worse as we get closer to November and the Rut.  It is time to put the rifle in the gun safe for the winter.

Here are a few final moments from the 2015 elk hunt.

Philip contemplates one of the biggest beaver houses I have ever seen

Getting ready to go on shore before sunrise

Eating Ray's chili on the boat

First elk

After getting shut out in the cows only permit area we moved on to another area where we could shoot bulls.  And we found some.  The funny thing is that we never saw a single cow elk on the entire trip - just bulls. This is unusual because bulls generally make up only about 15% of the whole herd.   Patrick

Some pixilated bulls we did not shoot

Second elk

Brooks with a hindquarter to cut up