Grilling An Elk

Grilling An Elk

It was a pristine winter morning in Montana, fresh snow on the ground and the sun bright against the blue sky. The road to White Sulphur Springs was snow packed and icy, a perfect day to hunt some elk. My hunting partners were Hal and Tyrell. We were taking advantage of an extended elk season in mid December.

Hunting elk is no easy proposition. It’s a lot of hard work hiking and scoping to find them. The elk tend to hang out in dense timber and come out in the early evening to feed on farmers’ haystacks. Once spotted, there is a technique to stalking them until you are in range to shoot. The work really begins when you kill one. There is on site gutting, quartering and hauling the meat out. You have to be in good physical shape to hunt these critters.

We spent the day spotting and sneaking but to no avail. As the sun began to set, tired and disappointed we called it a day. It was a two-hour drive back to Bozeman so we packed up and headed out. Just south of White Sulphur, we spotted a lone cow elk standing on the highway. Barreling down on the elk, we tried to maneuver around her but she turned around and looked us right in the eye.

Let me tell you what it’s like to hit a five hundred pound elk with a one-ton Ford truck at forty miles an hour. You see lots of fur and legs and flying plastic along with a loud thud! All the while the three of us were saying “Oh No.” Then there was a crunch, crunch as the truck and utility trailer ran over the now deceased elk. We were in shock.

By the time we got the truck stopped, we jumped out to survey the damage. There were plastic parts everywhere. The front grill was gone and the radiator pushed in and leaking fluid. We limped back to town and waited for a ride back to Bozeman. It was a long day of hunting.

You could say we got our elk and grilled it all in one without firing a shot. It turned out to be a very expensive hunt.