Back around 1976, we were hunting elk right next to Mt St. Helens in WA state. We were probably 1/2 to 1 mile from the mountain with nothing blocking our view of the entire mountain and it's glaciers. I wished I had taken some pictures because this was before the volcano happened.

Anyway, it was right after daylight on opening day. My hunting partners Bill, Joe, and myself were sitting in Joe's truck over looking the somewhat foggy hillside. We had been there about 5 minutes when bill got out of the truck and the said "there are the elk". I got out and saw 21 elk including one nice spike standing there less than 50 yards away. I quickly loaded my gun but I couldn't shoot the spike because a cow elk was just behind it. We noticed that Joe was still in the truck and told him again that the elk were right there. He thought we were joking and didn't get out until we told him again.

Just about that time the elk started moving into a small area of trees. Joe got back into the truck and started driving around to the other side of the treed area. Bill followed the elk into the trees, and I stayed there in case the elk came back to where we were.

Joe got to the other side of the trees and got out of the truck. He grabbed for his shells, but there was only the one that he had in his hand. The rest of the shells had fallen out of the truck when he got out earlier. He loaded the one shell. The elk started coming out of the trees in single file about 100' away. Here comes the spike but again it was behind a cow so he could't shoot. Finally the spike stepped in front of the cow and Joe was able to shoot it. The elk went down, but got back up again. Joe didn't have another shell. He hollored at Bill to hurry, but luckily the spike dropped.

After Joe shot the one shell his gun was empty so Bill and I accused Joe of emptying his gun shooting at the elk.

During the next several weeks we saw about 75 elk - all cows. Most likely some of them were the ones we saw on opening day.

In 1979, I moved to Eastern WA and have never gone back to that area. Still wonder what it looks like today. now you have to pay a lot of money to Weyerhauser Timber company to go on their property.

Another story is when I was elk hunting in Eastern WA with other hunting partners. One of them emptied his gun two different tines. The first time he shot 15 times at a spike. After loading the third clip his gun finally jammed. He didn't hit the elk. Several days later he and I were at our camp when 7 elk came running across a clearing about 200' in front of us. He shot 5 times and missed. About 5 minutes later they came back again and he again missed after shooting 4 times.

In December my son was home on leave from the Air Force. A group of us were standing around when he started telling us that when he was in Korea the military was running low on ammunition. He said the reason was because some wild hunter in WA was using all the available ammunition! We had a good laugh at that.