Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Hunting the Elk Rut



Monday morning began earlier than usual for me with my alarm sounding at 1:30am. After a quick bowl of cereal I was on my way to meet my brother in Benezette Pennsylvania, a drive of some three and one-half hours to hunt the elk rut. This was to be my first ever photo-hunt for these magnificent animals.

This area of Pennsylvania is the home of a free-ranging herd of elk that is estimated to number 1000 head or more. Although this herd does not contain the number of truly large bulls that it did a few years ago, before a hunting season was established, there continues to be quite a number of beautiful bull available to the photographer willing to work for them.

Following a considerable predawn hike over rough terrain we reached a meadow from which we had been hearing elk bugling. While straining to see the source of the commotion this bull appeared like an apparition as he hove into view.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing Salty. Great capture. Now that is my kind of hunting!

photowannabe said...

Mike stole my words exactly. Amazing. What a photograph!!This is a proud trophy.

Tom said...

Beautiful. well worth the early morning, and long drive. I don't think you will ever need to view the photograph as something like this must stay with you for ever.

This as made my night Salty, it's a little before midnight here, and I'm about bushed and ready for my bed. This will be the last thing on my mind tonight and hopefully fill my dreams.

Shionge said...

Looks really really cold, can they withstand the coldness?

ASHE said...

I heard you were in elk country! These are beautiful stills - all I got to see this weekend was video :)

Also, congratulations on being "Mr. April" in the calendar!!