By: Mic McPherson

Synopsis: The best-laid plans can be thwarted by the inconsequential: Nothing bigger than a thumb-sized root or a tiny "O" ring can do the job. Yet perseverance, sometimes, pays off.

I just finished reading an article written by a friend of mine. The gist of his account was why back-up iron sights are a good idea. He offered suggested back-up sight options and several anecdotes illustrating what can happen to optical sights: Things that can necessitate the existence of alternative sights. His article reminded me of something I had tried to forget.

I was nineteen and had hunted like a slave the entire season. Somehow, I had managed enough time off work so that by the last day of season "the entire season" had begun to seem like an eternity. It had been several years since I had taken my first elk, a yearling spike, on my first elk hunt.

I had borrowed Dad's 244 for that hunt and had used my own handloads with Nosler Zipedo bullets (an early solid-base bullet designed for vermin!), because those were the only loads I had had.

As a herd had run under me, I saw one sporting short but "bull legal" spikes. My only clear shot was at the little bull's spine, near his hindquarters. Likely by pure luck, the bullet found an artery. But, whether luck or skill, I filled my tag.

This year was different, I came prepared for bear, so to speak. Had my new 270 Pump, loaded with 130-grain Sierra spitzer boat-tail bullets launched at a blazing chronographed 3260-fps, via a stiff charge of N205. The $25 Tasco 4X – back in those days Tasco was trying to make a name for themselves – was set to zero that load at around 380 yards and I had been shooting, a lot.

I even had a fancy looking, bone-handled German-made hunting knife in a not so handsome homemade sheath. Dad had found that knife the year before and I had since sharpened it within an inch of its life and made a sheath for it – those endeavors helped me endure the seemingly impenetrable wait before hunting season!

Came time to call it a season, or close to it, I decided to give it one last try. The day before, I had found a small herd down in the junipers, lower than everyone had been hunting. Those elk were down where the flanks of Grand Mesa (east of Grand Junction, Colorado) flared out to a shallower slope, compared to the aspen, buck brush, scrub oak, and wild rose infested areas higher on the sides of that majestic 11,000 foot, flat-topped mountain but still well below the pine-covered top.

That day, I had dropped just into the top of the juniper zone mainly because of the easier walking I knew I would find there. Miles from the truck I was enjoying hunting in new snow that was beginning to drop with noisy plops from the juniper bows. The melting snow made it possible for me to walk in almost complete silence. The dropping snow was providing plenty of cover for any modest noise I did make.

Suddenly I was in the middle of a bedded herd. Elk were everywhere. I could hardly breath for fear of spooking them, already several had risen, evidently sensing something amiss, and were looking around warily. I slowly turned until I spotted a good spike at close range. Ever so slowly I laid down – for no good reason, except perhaps because I was shaking so hard – got the crosshairs lined up on a spot calculated to put a bullet into the boiler room and prepared to fire.

That young bull stood facing away from me at a quartering angle. I carefully squeezed the trigger and with the report, I knew with complete certainty: That bull was dead.

I jacked the action and had the crosshairs on him as he turned and took stride, another perfect shot at nearly pointblank range, right into the heart lung area. I started to squeeze the trigger but then this fleeting misappropriate thought came through, "Why bother, that elk is dead, only it just doesn't know it yet! Believe I'll save a dime [the cost of the components in that long-ago handload]."

I set the safety and started tracking him through ankle deep snow, no blood! A mile or more of tracking and not a drop of blood nor a falter in the tracks. Unbelieving, I headed back whence I had come, hoping I had found and followed the wrong tracks. I carefully circled the area, so as not to disturb any evidence, and came in from behind, to find a spot where it looked like someone had been trying to do a distorted snow angel. Since I was still wet and getting colder it was not hard to remember how that person-pattern had gotten in the snow.

I did not have to investigate for another set of tracks because right there was the explanation. The bullet had shattered an exposed root, no bigger than my thumb, which had been not more than a few inches in front of the muzzle. The root was so close that it was invisible through the scope. I even laid back down, reenacting the incident. Peering over the scope, I saw the shattered ends of that offending root directly forward of the muzzle.

My bullet had not a chance of getting the thirty or so yards to the bull and, if it did, it certainly could not have found its mark; even I knew that. Nevertheless, I spent miserable hours scouring that mountainside as the snow melted away, all the while fondling a cartridge, the cartridge, I had not shot, just to save some ounces of meat and a thin dime.

I finally tossed the miserable thing toward infinity, as a good lesson to myself. Believe me, I have never since saved a shot because I "knew" it was not needed.

Well this day was different. I had headed into the junipers early, hoping to find elk down there again. Hunting was still damp because of the moisture of the day before and, though it had turned cold enough to freeze the ground fairly solid overnight, the going was not as easy as it could have been. Season was ending, the day was ending and so was my patience and energy.

Toward evening, Dad wisely suggested it was time to head back to the truck, several miles away, but I had a "better idea". "How about you head that way and I'll just mosey down off this mountain and meet you at the road, across the bottom. Can't be too much further to the road down there than the truck is from here and I'll not have to fight any brush, might even find elk." Dad was skeptical but reluctantly agreed.

I headed off, angling down the mountain and away from the truck. As the sun neared the horizon, I was still in the junipers and still a long way from the bottom of the slope – the road down there was a lot further away than it looked!

When I came to the edge of a deep draw, I instantly spotted an elk herd. Several were casually feeding in the sparsely vegetated bottom of that little canyon. Perhaps five hundred yards away. With my good eyes, I spotted a big spike, maybe even the one from the day before. Perhaps I was getting a second chance, after all.

Near the precipitous edge, I found a good rest, over a handy boulder. I took careful aim. Actually, that is an exaggeration. I should say more correctly, I tried to take aim. The scope was hopelessly fogged, both ends, but especially the back end. Not a chance of seeing through it. Cripes!

No iron sights, since I had removed those when I mounted the scope, but I did have some time. For lack of a better idea I pulled the scope from the gun and for ten minutes tried to warm it under my arm. No change.

I carefully unscrewed and removed the eyepiece end, what could I hurt? I tried everything I could think of, short of building a fire – even if I could have found anything dry enough to burn it would have taken too long, to dry that scope out. Nothing helped, not even shoving the cold piece right into my armpit. Finally, in desperation, I stuck the only clean soft cloth I had, a silicon-treated lens cleaning cloth, down the eyepiece tube, hoping to soak up some dampness. Of course that did nothing because the cloth was treated to shed water!

Desperate, I tried twisting the cloth against the inside surface of the lens. That worked great, smeared the lens coating in nice distinct concentric rings, little improvement in clarity though.

Finally, in greatest desperation, I decided to try to get close enough to the feeding elk to literally shoot over the barrel, or beside it. Not so outlandish as it may sound, I was then pretty good with a shotgun and had done considerable hip shooting with various rifles and pistols and I was desperate.

I took the long way, down the ridge, half a mile or more, moving with the slight breeze. Then into the bottom. I headed up that canyon, which, since I had first seen it, had somehow grown from a slight little thing into a major geologic feature. I moved into what I hoped was a slight headwind, though I could not really tell.

Long "years" of sneaking later, as the day was growing dim, I came to where the herd had been. Nothing. Looking around I soon found them, now traversing the canyon side and literally walking past the rock over which I had intended to shoot when I had discovered the fogged scope!

I found the spike, last in line. Instinctively, I pulled the gun up to my shoulder. Low and behold, if I held my eye slightly to the side, I could see something around the edges of the ruined lens. Not much came through and what picture I did have was in dim black and white but I could see the crosshairs and some detail.

Until you have tried to spot game in a dim colorless field, you have not lived. I would lower the scope and there they were, casually walking up the hillside, raise the rifle and there they were not. Finally, at the last hope, I saw – using the term loosely – the bull, slowly walking up the mountain, approaching the top and certain safety.

Owing to the steep upward angle, I had to shoot from a standing position. I located the best rest in the entire area, a stem of buck brush about finger diameter and extending from the ground. Not the steadiest possible rest and I had to hunch over quite uncomfortably to use that!

I guestimated the range, took dead aim near the top of the elk's shoulder and a few feet forward, as near as I could see, and (likely) yanked the trigger. The gun fired. I know it did for I heard the sound but there was no other evidence.

The next round had chambered itself, or anyway it seemed to have done so. I aimed a bit higher and close to the point of his nose. Boom. Nothing. Knowing the hold was good, the range estimate was close enough and the squeeze that time was perfect I had to do some quick thinking. What was wrong?

Parallax! I wasn't shooting 100 yards, the range where most scopes are designed to give zero parallax error – since that is the range at which most rifles are sighted in – and I was deliberately looking through the perimeter of the objective lens. That was certain to move the target relative to the crosshairs. Fact.

The question was, what to do about it in the seconds that remained? Eureka, I got the sight picture on a handy dark spot and then deliberately, though awkwardly, moved my eye from one side to the other. Image moved several feet. Now I had it, I had been shooting in front of the bull.

I found the target again and aimed right over where I wanted to hit, letting the parallax error correct for windage! However, the sight picture was not quite right, too high when the gun fired. I tried the same hold, just over the top above the ball of the shoulder. Again, nothing.

With the fifth, and likely last, shot I tried it the same way. As I was dropping the clip to insert the spare, my bull simply collapsed. Crunch, never even twitched. If it had kicked much, it would have come right down off that steep hillside.

Bullet had taken the spine right over the shoulder. It was not dead but he was stopped. By the time I got there, it was dying and another shot was not required.

I then had the pleasure of field dressing a large spike bull by myself. I had had help on the baby spike taken two years before, which had had the decency to expire on the flats. This was not so good.

First thing I noted was that this bull had dropped literally where I had earlier been kneeling, while trying desperately to see anything through a fogged scope. Certainly, our friend Murphy has a sense of humor!

Second thing I observed was the sun was fully set.

Third thing I discovered, as I tried to cut the throat, was the reason Dad had found the so-called knife I was using. It obviously had not been lost, as we had assumed, but rather carelessly discarded by some mean-spirited individual who hoped it would be found by some unsuspecting person he did not know but nonetheless obviously hated – the act of a genuine sadist.

Although that blade had started the hunt sharp as a razor, it somehow had dulled to something more like a butter knife during the hunt, in spite of never having left its sheath. Evidently, it did not appreciate my not so fancy workmanship with that leather and therefore managed to dull itself appreciably while just hanging around in there. Exposure to air was a further insult and by the time that blade contacted hide – of course, I am always careful to cut as little hair as possible – it was already duller than my wit. As I later proved to Dad, and he will back me up on this, long before I finished field dressing that bull it had stopped making any real difference which edge of the blade, front or back, was forward.

All that was bad enough, but trying to turn that critter over so I could start the important work was even worse, it was resting on his belly and sternum, lodged solidly between a rock and a very hard place.

Though, at the time, it seemed to have taken much longer to finish the job, I am sure it only took about three weeks. By the time I made the three or four-teen mile jaunt, in the moonless dark, off that mountain, to the road below, Dad had driven back and forth between the hunting parking area to the planed pickup zone several times and was certain I had made just the mistake I had.

As I stumbled through the darkness, I carried the heart in one hand and the rifle in the other. I had my elk. I intended to eat its heart. I did.

I have exaggerated liberally here, actually it was a lot worse. The trip off the mountain nearly cost me my life. As I stumbled down through the blackness, I almost walked off the only cliff on that entire side of the mountain. Literally caught myself at the last instant, perhaps one more step. Something in the darkness changed, don't you know!

We borrowed a horse and used the better part of a very long day to get that bull out of there. I have hunted most of the thirty-odd seasons since (until this year, 2001) and have not again managed to kill an elk, or anything else for that matter, so far from the nearest read, so I guess I did learn something.

I learned something else and the iron sights always stay on my hunting rifles now.

Oh yes, just before entering the Air Force that December long ago, I sent that scope to Tasco's repair facility, along with a letter that I hoped explained what had happened and what I thought about it. Dad soon got the scope back, no repair because of "Unauthorized tampering." Imagine that! He called and read them the unabridged version of the riot act. They fixed it, after all.