My First Elk Tag

Memory by Margie

When I drew my first elk tag, we went hunting at his hunting camp in Northern Idaho. We rode the mules to the spot where we were going to hunt and tied them to a tree, and then proceeded to walk to where we were going to sit and wait for the elk to come in. We heard some rustling in the brush not too far from us. The brush was so thick that year that dad had a brilliant idea to climb a tree. So, dad went up first to climb up into the tree. When he got up to the top and got settled he told me to climb up next. As I started to climb, he told me I better leave my gun on the ground because he didn't feel comfortable looking into the barrel of my gun as I climbed up. I was the one who was supposed to be shooting the elk. So, after climbing up, I sat in the tree next to him with my gun on the ground and a big old 5 by 6 point bull elk walked out of the brush and into the clearing. Dad stood up on the limb and started shooting. The bull went back behind the brush and dad shot about 16 times and finally killed the elk. So, we climbed down the tree as I was very irritated that I didn't get to shoot. We got over to start cleaning the elk and Dad asked me what I was doing while he was shooting the elk. I told him that I was holding him in the tree because he was was barely standing on the limb.

Later we always laughed that he was shooting my elk while I was holding him in the tree.