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Two years ago, my dad Dave Dusterhoft came with me to a Peace River paradise. The plan was to end his dry spell on elk and let the student become the teacher. Well, things never worked out as planned. I did get my elk. However, while Dad and I were retrieving it from the hell hole I shot it in, we managed to shatter his foot between two logs, a dead elk and a 500 Artic Cat. We had been working hard to get the animal out of the bush that Dad never let on just how bad his foot was. It wasn’t until later that night after skinning and quartering the elk that dad finally took off his boot and we both knew the trip was over.
The next year, things got busy at work for both of us and Dad couldn’t get the time off that would coincide with the elk rut and my schedule. This bothered me because I felt like I owed him an elk after the troubles we had the previous year.
Finally, this year things came together. Dad booked his holidays early and I made it clear to everyone that I would not be working during the first week of rifle season... PERIOD!
We got to camp a day early to hear stories from our buddies of elk bugling and close encounters with the bows the previous week. My business partner Allan had gotten his elk with the bow and was trying to help his buddy Dave with his first elk. I had gone out that night as a caller for our trapper friend and had a bull bugling back at me but we couldn’t close the deal.
The next morning, my expectations were extremely high. I had decided before we left home that I was not going to shoulder my rifle this year until Dad had his first elk on the ground.
Dad and I set out early the next morning. We walked mile after mile calling and trying to get some action. We did get into some elk calling back but nothing was interested in coming in to play.
As we walked back to the cabin for some afternoon grub and comradery, I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed with the morning action. That evening was much the same with a glance at some moose and some faint bugles off in the distance, but not the hot and heavy action I was hoping for. Back at the cabin that night, Allan and Dave celebrated the end of a good hunt and decided they were headed back to reality in the morning.
The next morning came and Dad and I headed out early with heavy heads but high hopes. We were putting on the miles, working along the upper riverbank when we got a bugle from down the banks of the mighty Peace. We set up and I called some more.
A few minutes later, two bull moose came running into my call. Dad looked back, snickering, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing,” he said. I just shook my head and figured if you can’t beat them, join them, so I started moose calling just for fun and sure enough, the bulls were getting all worked up. A second later, much to my surprise, while I was moose grunting a bull elk let out a bugle much closer than before. By this time, Dad was chuckling to himself and I was a little confused to say the least! Then the two bull moose got smart and ran off. The elk seemed to hold up and lose interest before he slowly worked himself downwind farther and farther away without actually showing himself. After that, Dad was giving me a hard time about my calling abilities (all in good fun) but we were both pumped up and high on life.
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| Dave Dusterhoft poses with his first bull elk. |
We kept on traveling south along the river and had started getting bugles from another area. We moved in on them and a couple of them seemed to back out but one kept getting closer. We played a game of cat and mouse for a quite a while. About that time, I realized we weren’t too far from an ATV trapping trail. Dad and I came up with a game plan. We hightailed it to the trail in the direction of the last bugle and I let out a call. Almost instantly, we had a bull in sight (well, actually we had his antlers in sight). He was standing in a small draw about 35 yards in front of Dad. All we could see was the tops of his antlers through the brush. I backed up and began breaking trees and bugling. I was watching Dad and waiting for the bang for what seemed like an eternity but the elk wouldn’t move. Finally, the bull came out of the draw and BANG!
“Did you get him?” I asked Dad. He was busy trying to shove another 350-grain bullet into his 45-70 when he looked up with a funny look on his face and said, “Did I get him… of course I got him! You practically delivered him to my dinner plate.”
With all the commotion, neither of us saw where the elk went. We ran about twenty yards down his trail to get ready for a second shot if needed. We scanned the nearby trees and underbrush looking for him. “He’s right there!” Dad hollered, pointing about ten yards in front of us and only about ten feet from the trail. Sure enough, there he was lying on the ground. The growing smile on Dad’s face made all the effort worth the wait.
After some congratulating and pictures, I told Dad to get back to the cabin and see if Allan had left for home yet. Luckily, the headaches on the other guys prevented them from getting an early start for home and we received help getting our elk the 500-kilometre journey back to the cooler.
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| The remains of the author’s quad seat after its bear visit. |
That evening, we split up and went our separate ways to try to find more elk. At dark, I headed back to my ATV and as I got close, I could hear something in the bush next to the trail. I tried calling and got no response. I turned the corner to my quad and found that a bear had eaten the entire seat off it. This made for quite a rough ride back to camp. When Dad saw my quad and heard the story of the bear, I thought he was going to die laughing. We replayed the day’s events around the fire with Dad’s excitement only adding to the fun. It was just days after his sixtieth birthday that “the now sixty-year dry spell” had finally come to an end, as did the seat of my quad.
For the next couple of days, we both continued to search for an elk for me. Temperatures got hot and the hunting had slowed big time. It seemed like the elk had gone down the banks of the Peace and anyone who knows the Peace River knows that’s not a good place to shoot anything.
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| The author with the last load of his elk from the river bottom. |
On our last morning of the hunt, I decided to go down the bank after a distant bugle and as luck would have it, I got a satellite bull to come in to about eighty yards. I shouldered my 357 mag and pulled the trigger. Straight down the banks he ran for another 150 yards and then piled up.
As I met Dad back at the cabin and told him the story, he was even more excited than I was. This was clearly because he hadn’t seen where the elk was lying yet! It took us about seven hours, two ATVs, two tanks of chainsaw gas, winches, slings, bumps, bruises and a lot of hard work to finally retrieve my elk.
At the end of the day, I can say without a doubt that this was the most memorable elk hunt Dad or I have ever been on. I’m looking forward to many more great outdoor adventures, although they may pale in comparison... ■
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