Elk hunting is something DH talked about wanting to do for many, many years. How many, many? At least 25. When he was a very young child, his father and uncle and some friends of theirs would occasionally go out West and go hunting. Apparently that made a big impression on him; and, when his dad died when DH was only 24, DH inherited his dad's hunting rifle. I didn't know it at the time, but back then DH set a goal for himself: to one day harvest an elk with his dad's rifle.
In 2021, for the first time, DH had the opportunity to go out to Colorado and go elk hunting. So he did. And he came back empty handed, with the desire to go again in the future.
In 2022, DH again went to Colorado and went elk hunting. He didn't get an elk, in fact he didn't even hardly see any elk, but he was able to harvest a mule deer (the owner of the land he was hunting on had permits for mule deer, so DH bought one of his permits.) He was really happy about the mule deer, but he still wanted to harvest an elk.
This year, DH again went to Colorado (to that same land owner's property) and went elk hunting. This year, he returned home with an elk!
As elk go, it wasn't a huge one, but it was decent sized. It's what they call a five-by-four: five antler points on one side, and four on the other.
Success!
Even being not a giant elk, it is a whole lot of meat! DH quartered it, and brought it home packed in dry ice in two enormous coolers. And then he and I spent probably somewhere in the vicinity of 10 hours over four days (around work and meeting schedules) getting it all deboned, cut, and packaged for the freezer.
We forgot to weigh the meat before putting it in the freezer, so not sure of the total yield, but one hind quarter alone gave us 16 packages of steaks, and we ground over 50 pounds of burger! The day after DH got home from Colorado, we had three of four kids and all the grandkids over for an elk steak dinner (so that meat never got weighed either, as it didn't even make it into packages for the freezer). He also made a batch of elk jerky in the smoker out of at least two pounds. As a rough estimate, DH thinks we ended up with a minimum of 150 pounds of meat. Our freezers are full, for sure!
In addition to the jerky, steaks, stew meat, tenderloins, backstraps and elk burger we have, DH also made a 15-pound batch of elk summer sausage. It's delicious! In the picture below, notice the slice of sausage; we of course had to sample it while getting the majority of it vacuum sealed for freezing.
DH is very excited about his dream of shooting an elk with his dad's rifle finally coming true. Twenty-nine years in the making. And I'm really glad about all the meat in the freezer!
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