# Trophies! Of Ivories and Lead!



## trackerputnam (Dec 21, 2014)

This year has been a busy one for me. Lots of fishing and hunting has gone on since the beginning of spring. An unexpected funeral also added to the lost time at home. I got a call the other day informing me that my motors had been sold and I needed to get the boat into the dealer to get them off and mounted on the new owner's boat. Problem! Work has been very busy, which is good, but I have been out of town a lot. But more importantly, the shop is a mess from the accumulated debris of nearly eight months of neglect. 

As I peered into the shop, it was hard to see the boat for all the items stacked and thrown around it. Sleeping bags hung from the railing to dry. Action Packers full of camping gear from the latest hunt were stacked on the tongue of the trailer. A wall tent was precariously balanced on the edge of two folding tables ready to fall at any moment, and when it fell the two lanterns below it would not survive the encounter. Not only that, it was cold in there.

Time had slipped by, and to pull the boat out of the shop was going to take a monumental effort. But even before I could begin, I needed to replace some sections of the wood stoves piping that had rusted through. As I said it was cold in there and I needed to get a fire going to make it comfortable enough to get started on the cleaning. 

I had hardly begun "Operation Boat Rescue" when I found myself in the house taking a shower. Seems replacing chimney pipe is a dirty business, and I was black as coal, like the chimney sweeps in the movie "Mary Poppins." The wife had made me get undressed in the garage before entering the house. She said something about throwing away my clothes instead of washing them. Although I was taking a shower and not cleaning the shop, there was a fire going, warming things up so another assault could be made on the shop.

As I got out of the shower I could smell bacon cooking in the kitchen below. I had begun early this morning with the boat rescue before anyone had been awake and had not eaten anything. I was hungry and the smells from the kitchen were inviting. As I was dressing, I vowed not to try and do so many cheers each time the SeaHawks scored or made a good play. They have so many good plays and watching a game is hazardous when you are trying to out cheer your cheerleader daughter! It was truly hard to move today.

Two hours later, I was back in the shop putting more wood in the fire and enjoying the heat the stove was emitting. I carefully removed the two lanterns from their dangerous location and put them in the action packer they should have been in. That packer went up on the shelving where it should be. I found a box of my daughters 7mm-08 ammo and walked around the boat to the reloading/fishing bench, just to find another victim of the apparent disaster to have hit the shop. 











Fishing lures and gear covered every available space on the bench. They had been thrown there at the end of the season to be cleaned and then put away. And what the fishing gear did not cover, other various items not belonging there were piled. The place where I needed to put the ammo I was carrying was covered. So as it turns out, to clean up the mess around the boat, I needed to first clean the work bench. 

The fishing lures were on the fishing end of the bench and in such a tangled mess I decided to only get the reloading side of the bench straightened out. With each small item put away, some order began to reappear around the reloading side of the bench. I eventually cleared away enough items to get the ammo put away.

It was then that I saw the small black cotton drawstring pouch hanging there. It reminded me of the Elk ivory in the ash tray of the truck from this year's elk hunt. I walked out and removed those memories from the truck. I turned them over in my hands remembering what a great hunt it had been. Remembering and reliving the entire hunt on the short walk back to the shop. 

I removed the small pouch from the nail where it was hanging and went to put the new items in it. But the draw to look inside was just too great and I emptied the contents on the table in front of me. I pulled over my stool and sat down to look over the items there. As I got to thinking about it, parts of nearly 35 years of my life were recorded here in this pouch. 35 years of trophies gathered that only I could decipher. 35 years of hunting memories!

I shut the door on the car as quietly as possible. My best friend got out the other side of the car. We were in Idaho on a long abandoned road I had found while scouting earlier in the year. Slowly in the dark we worked up the road. The first bugle broke the silence of the night and alerted us of the elk ahead. We waited for the first light of morning. A few minutes later my first elk was on the ground. It was a nice spike. One of its ivories can be found here. The other being hollow shattered as I was trying to pull it out. A bullet I recovered from it is also here. It did not perform like I would have liked it to and I have never again shot a 105gr bullet from that .243 again.




















21 days is the longest hunt I have ever been on. That is unless you count the year I guided. Myself and two friends headed off to Wyoming with a total of 18 tags in our pockets. 1 any deer and 2 doe/fawn tags each. A cow elk tag and two doe/fawn antelope tags. We had horses delivered and traveled many miles on horseback. In the end we tagged 15 animals. It was over 1000lbs of meat when picked up at the butcher and $705 bill for the butchering. 






























During this hunt we had a wildlife biologist stop at our camp every couple of days. He had us pulling the teeth of our animals so he could get the age of each. We would keep track of where we had shot them and so forth. My friends elk turned out to be 15 years old. My elk, was ear tagged. We did not see the Bio again after I shot my elk so I kept the teeth. I shot my elk less than two miles from where it had been tagged. I got the report after calling in the numbers from the tags. She was just 2 1/2 years old. You can see that in the ivories!





















I have so many forgotten memories in the bag. Bullets whose linage is long forgotten, teeth from cows who filled the freezer. I was lucky and drew a cow elk tag my first year in Washington. I had no idea where to go and had no one to go with. I looked at a map and drove up to a likely spot in the dark of the night. At first light I started up a ridge and it was not long before I saw a meadow of "Ears". Elk ears to be exact. Spooked by some other hunters, I was none the less able to take a nice cow that I almost left because no blood was present at the point of the shot. It was here that I learned that elk can take a tremendous shock and not show a reaction. I retrieved this elk and got it back to my truck whole. I do not think that could happen now, I was much younger then! And with the help of a couple of guys, I got it into the truck. For some reason I remember those teeth! 










My dad has shot many elk in his lifetime growing up in Wyoming. So how was it possible that he never shot a bull? I did not know this small bit of information till he tagged a bull in Utah a few years ago. His only bull. I guess when you are eating the animal, antlers are not so important. Also this may be the reason I do not wish for huge antlers to call a trophy but rather it is the small things that please me.




















Sixteen years is a long time between children. I did not think I would have another, in fact I did not want one. But come she did and I could not be happier. She is spoiled and she knows it. She loves hunting and loves her guns. Her brother often complains that I never bought him a gun. I guess he is right. But that is ancient history. Yesterday, we went to the store for some bread and milk and came home with a new shotgun for my daughter. Not sure I am out of the "dog house" for that one yet!

Hunting with my children is beyond explanation. A first deer or elk is something to remember. Her first elk this year really got the heart pumping and it was great to be able to share it with everyone. 





















This year I am writing the year on the ivories. I am guessing it is going to be harder to remember each set going forward and will try this to help out. 











So many stories left untold! The ones where the story is unwritten! Some of the bullets would be from deer. I know one is from an antelope. Most though would be from elk, since they make such a better bullet stop!










I have the little black bag back in the shop hanging from the nail where I found it. Next year, if we are lucky, I will open it again, and put more memories inside. And just maybe, dump them all out for another look! I think it is time for dinner. Where did the time go? I guess the cleanup will have to wait for another day! I hate seeing the boat without her motors anyway!


----------



## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

Careful. Goob will post up a recipe of teeth sausage if he sees this thread!

Great "trophies." Thanks for sharing.


----------



## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Great post, thanks for sharing.

.


----------



## goofy elk (Dec 16, 2007)

Very nice write up and pictures.....

Well done..:!:...


----------



## N8ON (Oct 7, 2010)

Thanks for taking time to post the pictures and share. Great memories!!


----------

