The 2021 hunting season started as most of them do, figuring out which big game tags to apply for and gathering up points for future hunts. As I’d been doing for the last few years, Pennsylvania was on my list of tags to put in for. This would be my fourth year of applying, and hopes weren’t the highest of drawing that tag. Odds were not in my favor, but you have to try. You never know when it’s your time.
I set my sights on zone 14. After looking through the Huntin’ Fool magazine, that seemed to be the zone where the biggest bulls were coming from. Fast forward to August, the month Pennsylvania has their elk tag drawing. It was just another Saturday for me, pouring concrete for a job I was doing. I noticed I had a voicemail and took a listen. It was Pennsylvania Game and Fish. I knew exactly why they were calling. I drew a Pennsylvania elk tag! I called them back immediately and got the information from them. I had drawn a zone 5 bull tag. I had put in for a zone 14 tag, but that zone was already full, so the license system slid me into zone 5.
I was pumped. When I got home, the first thing I did was grab my copy of Huntin’ Fool with Pennsylvania in it and see who they had been profiling as their Pennsylvania outfitter. There outfitter was Elk County Outfitters. I Google searched their number and gave them a call. Bryan answered, and I had a quick conversation with him. I was very impressed with what he had to say. He said zone 5 was tough with a lot of private ground and a lot of the elk were in the city limits. After a couple days, I gave Bryan a call back and booked my Pennsylvania elk hunt.
Elk County Outfitters lets you bring someone with you at no extra cost. I had one buddy in mind, Clint Bell, and it just so happens he lives in Illinois. I could pick him up on the way through. I gave Clint a call, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Yup, I’m in.”
The wait was on until that first week of November. I picked up Clint in Chicago, and we were off. We got into camp on Sunday the 31st of October. Elk County Outfitters puts on a cookout for all of their incoming hunters. You meet your guide(s) and go over the opening day plans. That’s where we met our guides, Jim and Ernie, local guys who were familiar with zone 5. They said zone 5 was a tough one, but I was up for the challenge. We had a plan. We were going to an open meadow at first light. There had been elk feeding there the last few days. In the meantime, we were going to take a drive that evening to see if we could spot some elk out feeding before dark. We spotted seven elk just before dark on a hillside, but they were too far away to make out what they were. We decided to stick to the original plan.
Opening morning was here, but it was slow. There were a few deer but no elk. We went in for lunch and made a new plan. We were going to head to that sidehill where we saw elk the night before. We got in early and settled in. I thought it would be a good time for a quick nap. I told Clint to let me know when he saw something. It wasn’t but an hour and here came the elk out of the bottoms to that sidehill opening. There were a few cows and calves, a couple small bulls, and one decent bull. We gave them a good watch but decided to wait. As dark set in, we headed back to camp.
The second day went off with no luck as we tried some different areas. We had gotten a tip from another guide that he had been seeing some elk feeding in a field he had permission on. We headed there on the third morning. The elk were a no show, so we headed out to find our other guide, Ernie. We met up with him, and he had spotted five bulls in an alfalfa field a few miles away. One was good, so we were off to check it out. Now, there were four bulls there. The big one had slipped back into timber, and we couldn’t locate him. We looked the others over, but they weren’t what I was looking for. Later that day and the next morning, two other hunters with Elk County Outfitters slipped in and harvested two of those four elk. However, the big one was never seen.
That afternoon, Jim suggested we take a walk through a chunk of timber not far from the field we had sat over that morning. We were in there for a couple hours with no luck. As we were headed up a four-wheeler trail, I spotted a cow elk cross in front of us at about 50 yards and then another. She stopped in the middle of the trail and had us pegged. Then I saw him. He was last in the group, but I had no shot with brush in the way. By now, the cows had winded us and back down they went. We tried to make a play on them with no luck. We decided our best bet was to head back to that field from the morning. As darkness fell, there was no sign of elk. Our plan was to head back to that field in the morning. I wasn’t terribly excited for this move, but I knew the big bull was in the area.
This field had an unusual way to get us to where we had been setting up. We had to walk the railroad tracks to get into it. Any other way, we would spook out anything in the field. The tracks worked well as there was a big hill we needed to go up and we could come in undetected. On the walk in that morning, my hopes were not high, but I told myself you never know when it’s your day. As we got to our spot to head up the hill, we waited for legal shooting time and then headed up. As I looked over the field, I made out a body, but he was walking away from us and went into the timber. I was bummed, but it must have been my day. He stepped back out of the timber and headed broadside at about 225 yards. There must have been some cows over the hill that we didn’t see. I raised my .300 Ultra Mag and let two fly. I could hear both of them hit. We gave it a bit and then off we went to find him.
As we got over that way, we didn’t see anything, but the field went down a hill a bit. There he was piled up. He didn’t go more than 50 yards. Finally, on the fourth day, I had an 8x7 Pennsylvania elk. The high fives and congrats began. Jim was on the phone to the other guides who had their hunters tagged out already, so there was a crew there to help us get the elk out and to the check-in station. Back at the lodge, we got the elk caped out and quartered up, ready for the trip back west to Minnesota.
I would like to thank everyone at Elk County Outfitters. They treat you like family. Everyone there is ready to lend a hand. If you ever draw a Pennsylvania elk tag, make sure you give Bryan a call. You won’t be disappointed.
Login