Opening Weekend

There it was again. The bugling. I had the rifle rested on the blind with the safety off before I heard the second bugle. I looked through the Zeiss scope, I had it on 4.5x. I expected this big boy to be close. And he was. Fairly so anyway. Seventy-five yards. Coming straight for me. I took aim at the right side of his chest, and squeezed the trigger. The magnum cartridge kicked quite a bit, and made a loud-ass bang, but the big semi-automatic loaded the next cartridge faster than any bolt action could, and those are more accurate than a semi-auto, so I'd been told. But it didn't matter. I didn't need a second shot. The 180-grain .30 caliber slug hit the big bull in the chest and dropped him. He didn't even know what hit him. I kept the scope on him for a little while longer, just in case, but he didn't move.

I collected the casing, and stepped out of my blind. I walked out to the big bull and poked him in the side once with the muzzle of my rifle, dead as a doornail. It was almost sad, an animal so majestic being taken down, but it was a good way to control the population. I called my cousin on the radio.

"Frank, come in."

"Jon, was that you?"

"Yep. He's a beaut. I'm gonna field strip him and take him back to the truck. You got anything yet?"

"No, not yet. Come to my blind after you've got him done and in the truck."

"Roger that, buddy. Out."

I pulled out the double-edged Ka-Bar fighting knife that I carried on my boot and went to work. It smelled really bad. But that was okay. After I was finished, I dragged the big carcass back to Frank's truck, a Ford F-350. That was the only thing about Frank. He drove a Ford.

I walked to where Franks blind was, and I called him on the radio to let him know that I was coming up behind him, and not to shoot me, please.

I arrived just as we heard more bugling. I figured the noise of my .300 would have scared anything worth shooting out of the area. I guess not.

This bull was even bigger than mine. I was amazed at Franks luck. He raised his Remington 700 .30-06, and looked through the Leupold scope. The elk turned broadside to him and he fired. The shot hit the bull and it turned and ran for a few yards, but dropped and hit the ground. Hard.

I had my Benelli up and aimed at the big bull, just in case. But as we walked out of the blind and up to the great big animal, we saw he was just as dead as mine had been. We both gave him a substantial poke, just to be sure. Nothing. Frank pulled his knife out and started to pull the innards out of the big animal, and it smelled to high heaven, just like mine did. We dragged his big ass elk back to his truck, and we loaded it up, along with mine, and we unloaded our rifles and set them in the back seat. I got in the passenger seat, and he in the driver's. We began our 2 hour ride to the processor, and then home.

As we were on the way home, I called Lindsay, to tell her that I was on my way back to the hotel. She was still out with my Gran and Aunt Joann.

When I got back, I got directly into the shower, and I didn't even hear Lindsay come in. Once again, the shower curtain was opened, a bit to my surprise this time. She stood there with nothing on, and climbed into the shower with me.

"Here we go again...." I thought to myself.