So often, our outdoor experiences prove to be much more than we ever dreamed. That certainly proved to be the case for Dr. Scott Tynes during a recent elk hunting trip in Colorado.
Tynes, who calls Waynesboro home, is a family practice physician at Internal Medicine Clinic in Meridian.
Originally, the hunt was going to be a buddy trip, however, when those plans changed, Tynes said that he and his wife Angi decided to turn it into a getaway. They broke up the drive out, stopping first in Wichita Falls, TX, and then in Santa Fe, New Mexico, overnighting to visit Angi’s uncle Johnny.
Early the next morning, they headed out for their destination just south of Gunnison, Colorado.
This was Tynes’ second elk hunt. He had been 14 years earlier without success; nevertheless, he had a good feeling going into his hunt. “I had read that the average success rate for Colorado elk is 50 percent, so I felt like the odds were in my favor this time,” he said, adding, “I had made up my mind that if a shooter elk presented itself, I was taking the shot.”
“We hunted hard in the mornings, making a lot of stalks to try to catch the elk in the big parks and in the evenings the elk were in the timber so you were still hunting, waiting for them to come out until dark, much like we do deer hunting here at home,” Tynes explained.
As is often the case with hunting, Tynes said that they saw numerous elk over the first two days, but he didn’t have a clear shot on any of the bulls until the third day. The hunt was during Colorado’s second rifle season which is a combination elk and mule deer hunt, but, as luck would have it, he had been unable to draw a tag for muleys as he lacked the number of preference points needed to successfully draw.
On the third day, he and his guide were back in an old makeshift blind in a spot they had hunted the first day, a spot known as “Earl’s.” “This was a special day, a lucky number three day,” Tynes said with a smile, explaining how luck seemed to come in threes on the trip.
Early in the hunt, Tynes had lost a Case pocket knife that had belonged to his father. “I didn’t think I cared that much about the knife, until I lost it,” he said. He had knelt down on the way out the first day and, apparently, the knife had fallen out.
When he found the knife on the way back through the next day, Tynes says that he thought to himself “How lucky is that!” Little did he know at the time that more luck would soon be coming his way.
“There was a guy in camp named John. John was an older guy and he never told me himself, but the guides told us that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer,” said Tynes. John had finally drawn the coveted mule deer tag that year and, after hearing his story, Tynes and the three other elk hunters in camp made it their mission to help spot a mule deer for John.
Coming down the mountain that afternoon, Tynes spotted a trophy mule deer and his guide relayed the location to John’s guide. When he received word back later that John had been able to get his muley, he knew that luck had struck again. “I felt like that was the second lucky thing, that I was able to spot that buck for him and be a part of his hunt,” he said.
As the evening hunt approached on the third day, Tynes was hopeful that luck would strike a third time. Around five that afternoon, his guide caught sight of a bull moving in the timber. Tynes watched through his scope as the bull stepped out of the timberline 150 yards away.
The guide alerted him that another bull was following, however, he soon determined that the first bull was the better of the two and Tynes steadied his 300 Winchester Magnum for the shot. His first shot found the mark, but, somehow, the bull stayed on his feet. He quickly chambered another round and, although his followup shot missed, his third shot dropped the bull at 170 yards.
Luck had made a third appearance and he and his guide made their way to the elk, celebrating along the way. After posing for a few photos and field dressing the bull, the guide gave Tynes the traditional “first elk face painting” and the two then made their way off the mountain.
With the five day hunt ending two days early, Dr. Tynes and Angi were able to spend the rest of their time sightseeing, hiking, and fishing. In fact, it seems that luck actually came in fours as Angi caught her biggest brown trout to date, a seventeen inch beauty.
With a major snowstorm rolling in, the couple began their trek back to Mississippi with an elk on ice and memories of a week in the mountains that they will never forget. Until next time, here’s to mountain memories, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.
Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.