After missing that monster, I gotta think of times like yesterday where it all just clicked and we got a nice one.
hi Mech - I think we all got a memory of an afternoon or morning hunt and that happened. it's something one never forgets. I have several I can still see as plain as day! even the one when I was 5 years old and mountain hunting elk with my dad. thick woods. steep terrain. high up... cold. we were together. he said, son... why don't you go around that down pine (big un) and go up that ways and I will go this ways. I was just about in my boots! 'no-o!', I belched out to my dad. just about that time loud cracking noise and... a monster female elk jumps up from the other side of that big downed pine... and thunders on up the hill! OMG!.. and it was mid to late afternoon... and light snow on the terrain in the forest.
the ol' man swings and puts the barrel and scope right on that animal and follows it up the slope. 8 mm Mauser, scope, custom hand loads... he built the sported deer hunter from a stock German Mauser... but doesn't fire! tells me later... "didn't shoot it, too far from camp, too late in day... and din't want to hike it out with snow coming in!"
one of those moments a young kid never... I say... never forgets!