Ray, when I was stationed in Texas in the Air Force in Texas back in the 60's I met quite a few people from my part time job working at a Gibson's Discount Center in the Sporting Goods Dept. I've talked about it quite a bit over the years. One couple I met was a couple from Collinsville, Texas that was just getting ready to retire from the plumbing business.
Merz & Flossie Culpepper had done quite well & were retiring young, I think 50 years old. When I first got out of the service in 1970 they joined me for an elk hunt in Idaho's Selway country in the central part of the state. Its wild, rugged country, horses only unless you are absolutely crazy. In those days many of those elk had never seen a human & getting one was quite easy. Now, with the wolves its pretty much a ghost town for elk. On that trip we took 2 nice bulls & had a great time. For a number of years I could call in bulls just using my mouth, no call. I didn't have a lot of volume but if they were within half a mile I was pretty good. What made it work was there was no pressure on those back country herds in those days.
Over the next 20 years they visited several times, usually for an elk hunt & then they would head further north to the little Ghost town of Gilmore, Idaho where they would just do a little deer hunting & sight seeing. One odd thing was, they never took any photo's, they just enjoyed the moment. They towed a little Jeep behind their small motor home & really got back into some rugged mountains. They even found the cemetery at Gilmore, something we never found in 40 years of looking.
In the mid 80's when we moved to Soda Springs Merz & Flossie came up for an elk hunt, I had one horse, Nicki, the best horse I ever had, & one saddle mule. I had to rent one horse so each of us could ride. The first morning, way before daylight I put Flossie on Nicki & wanted to put Merz on the mule but he didn't want any part of riding a mule, so I put him on the rental horse, bad mistake. As soon as he mounted up the fireworks started. We could hear it but we couldn't see it. The horse exploded, I just knew Merz was going to get hurt & I couldn't do anything to stop it. Pretty quick he got bucked off & it was quiet, Flossie was yelling, are you ok, are you ok. Of course Merz was out of breath & couldn't talk so we're thinking he's really hurt. Pretty quick he speaks & he's ok, just got the breath knocked out of him.
I dug a flash light out of my saddlebags & find him in a big bush, he got lucky, he's only bruised a bit, could have been much worse but now he's in love with my mule! He gets mounted & I lead the bronc across a small pack bridge onto some flat ground, now its starting to get a little bit light. I mount up & he starts bucking but I manage to keep his head up & after a pretty good score (I was scoring) he slows down & just stands there shaking, so was I.
I tell Flossie to go first, then Merz & then I'll follow, I also tell them not to stop anywhere its steep or on a side hill, if they have to stop its got to be on flat ground. For the first 2-3 miles its mostly uphill & he's staying pretty winded, once we hit a good flat stretch he decides he try me again. He's one rank son of a gun! This time he gets me off, I'm just too tired to finish him off. I lead him for another mile or so & when we start up hill I get back on & he seems to settle down a bit but he's goosy, shying away from everything, I really have to stay on my toe's.
Finally we get over to my honey hole, we've taken a lot of elk here, its a natural funnel. When the elk start getting pressured they head this way from several miles around, escaping to the east & south into very remote country. This one spot is one in a million, lots of elk come through here & I've shook hands with quite a number of them.
We tie up the horses in the shade of some quakies & slip down into some sagebrush on the sidehill & settle in just like I've done many, many times over the years. Off in the distance we hear shots, 30 minutes later we hear heavy animals running, lots of them. I forgot to tell them one thing, when an animal is running you have to LEAD it! They were used to a standing animal, shot from a elevated stand in Texas, not an animal doing Mach 4 at 200 yds.
There's probably 15-18 head of elk with a couple of young bulls in the herd, all running hard down hill. Both of them are shooting the classic Texas hunting rifle, the 742 Remington in 30/06. They start shooting & I start yelling, lead them, lead them! In a matter of seconds its over, the elk are gone out the bottom, both guns are empty & its totally quiet.
We look at each other & I finally break the silence, did you hit one......Flossie says, I think I did. Those 742's sounded like AK47's going off.
I walk down the mountain & start looking around in the torn up sagebrush, after about 10 minutes I see some blood & find a big piece of leg bone, she had hit one. I go back up & tell them I've got to go, I'm going to push the herd & they will have to keep up as best they can. Merz says he'll come with me & have Flosie bring the horses. I take off running, I want to seperate the wounded cow from the herd. I know this country inside out & pretty much know where they are going.
After about half a mile the main herd turns uphill, classic. The wounded cow keeps going flat, she goes right through one of my old camp sites, we call it Thompson Flats. Merz is no where in sight & I'm still running, finding a few more pieces of leg bone & more blood, she's in trouble. Forty five minutes pass & I'm getting tired & I know I'm close, then I see her, she's down but not dead. I stay below her, that way if she jumps up she has to run up hill & thats going to be hard to do, her leg is in really bad shape. I've pretty much run her right into the ground on 3 legs. I ease up & finish what we started with my old flat top 44 magnum with a shot behind the ear, its done.
Merz hears the shot & finds me, he's been lost & the shot leads him to me, Flossie shows up & she's lost all the horses. Now I've got a problem, an elk down, two older people on foot, they are getting tired & 3 horses out there somewhere, other than that, everything is great!
Just as Merz showed up he says, look, I look up & there's a calf elk standing at the top of the meadow, we have another tag but they decide not to shoot it, they are too tired today so we let it go. Its old enough it will herd up with other elk & be ok, its mid Oct. so the calves are eating solid food, this one will be fine.
I filed dress the cow & take them to the main trail & have them start the 4 hour walk back to the main camp, I've got to find those horses before dark. My mare Nicki has been in this country 40-50 times & she knows her way around, I take off for the last place Flossie saw them & then off towards another of my old camps & there they are. The only thing missing is one rein is broken, one of them has stepped on it, we're very lucky to find them.
The rifles are in the scabbards, and there's some of Merz's home made venison Salami in the saddle bags, I cut off a big hunk & find some cheese & a big swig of cool mountain water, yippee! Now I just need to catch up to Merz & Flossie & we can ride back to camp & get the cow packed out the next day. I catch them about 2 miles from camp, sitting next to the creek, they've just about had all the fun they can stand for a day. we have some more Salami & cheese & mount up, me riding the jug head, he does pretty good, crow hops a couple of times but he's about spent, just like the rest of us. I was sure glad to get rid of him, I'd like to have shot him but it would have been a waste of a good Keith bullet.
The next day me & Merz went back & packed out the cow, I have a niftly way of doing it with juat a riding saddle, no rope, nothing & it never moves, just put a half on each horse & go. We stayed a couple more days, did some trout fishing, & checked out an old gold mining town at Caribou City, it was a great time with 2 wonderful friends.
This is a photo from about the same time frame of me with a cow elk taken with a custom 25/06 built on a Mauser action, probably a year or two later.
Dick