I am soooo depressed today. Last Saturday I shot a very nice branch bull (atleast a 5 pt). I nailed it 3 times with my 7mm mag. I tracked blood for 2 miles and 9 hours. I was so dissapointed. He was a tough son of a gun!

 

damn!! even for an elk, three hits with a 7 mag!
impressive. sorry man!

 

He "hunched" all 3 times too. This is something that I will never ever forget...that is for sure.

 

that's just got to make you sick! Sorry bud next time use a cannon! oh wait you did!

 

It is still haunting me very badly. I keep visualizing that big elk in my cross hairs knowing that the day was my "lucky day". I cannot block it out of my mind. The only way to describe the feeling would be to know you have just won the lottery, but your winning ticket just flew out the car window.

 

I also lost a big mule deer with two hits from a 7mm. An old gunsmith told me that the 7mm is sooo fast that if you don't hit any bones it will just punch a hole through the size of a pencile!!! Well this summer I traded my 7mm in for a 300wsm. We are going deer hunting next weekend so I can try it out.

 

I would say the "pencil" hole is accurate. The elk my buddy shot with his 7mm had one hole in that missed bones and had a small pencil hole out the back side. When he finally hit the neck bone on the last shot, it blew a 4"-5" hole out the backside of the neck and the elk dropped.

I was joking that next year I am going to buy a gun that will bore a hole big enough that I can see daylight though it.

 

cammoman- hope you have fun pickin' up pieces of deer from your new 300! I've helped dress a mule buck that got shot by one. it just ripped him apart.
at least you can hit 'em a couple miles away![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]
- the kid

 

Dextreme,

Just got back from Elk hunting and it as a disappointment this year due to the dry weather. I am in NM, prime time Elk country but we did not get one this year. I know you must be disappointed but there is always next year...right !! So where did you go hunting and was it for Mature Bull only. We saw some cows and calves but the only Bull we was in the back of a pickup on the interstate coming home. We had fun anyway...besides it is all about the great outdoors and the experiences while doing it.....harvesting an animal is just gravy.

 

Here is Oregon, there is a lottery type system to apply for Bull tags. Each year ya don't draw the tag, you get a point and then your odds increase each year you don't draw. So hunt the big ones, ya basically get the opporunity about every 3-5 years on average. This bull was a nice 5 pt raghorn/brush bull so I would say we was fairly mature, but not near as mature as some of the Heard Bulls.