I ran across some old pictures yesterday and they got me thinking about an awesome experience I was fortunate enough to have. Be warned, this will be long.
In the spring of 2010, I got a call from a buddy that I graduated college with. He told me about a program he found out about that let people apply for a lottery to take part in an elk population reduction program in Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Medora, North Dakota. The program was implemented to take out several hundred cows out of overcrowded population in the park. The "hunt" was free if your name was drawn. All you had to do was provide yourself with food, lodging and transportation. Naturally, I was all for it. We had 2 of our other buddies sign up with us as a group, so if one of us got chosen, we all got to go as a group.
Well what do you know? On August 17, I received an email stating that I was selected as a volunteer in the elk reduction program for November 15-19! I immediately called my buddies and they were extremely pumped to find out. Then the real work began. We had to figure out the logistics of how we were all going to get to North Dakota, where we were going to stay, what equipment we were going to need, etc.
Unfortunately one member of our group had to back out due to work conflicts, but we were determined not to let that bring our spirits down. Logistics on getting to North Dakota proved to be the biggest hurdle. I was down here in Fairhope, one of the guys was in Auburn and the other was near Chattanooga, TN. We decided to drive, because it would be cheaper and that way we'd have an easy way to bring the meat back. The guy in Chattanooga had a double cab truck, but with all our gear, guns, coolers and uncertainty about the weather, we realized we would need some more, protected space. Fortunately for us, one of the owners of the company I work for had an old luggage trailer that he let me borrow.
So, on Friday, November 12th, I left work at 2pm with the luggage trailer hooked to my Jeep. I drove to Auburn, picked up my friend there, and we headed toward Chattanooga. We crashed overnight at my buddy's house then all piled in his truck the next morning. We had decided to drive straight through the night, switching out drivers. It was a relatively uneventful trip, to begin with, except for the fact that we could never manage to get the luggage trailer balanced correctly and it started to wobble whenever we got above 75mph(we later discovered that the axle was bent). We stopped in St. Louis at Cabelas, since none of us had ever been in one, and bought a couple last-minute supplies. We stopped for gas in Sioux Falls, SD around midnight. I was woken up and informed (not so politely) that it was my turn to drive. It was cold and had started snowing off-and-on. Visibility was pretty low at times, but we made it to Fargo unscathed. Once we turned west onto I-94 and had just made it outside of Fargo, things went awry. It was sometime around 3am, I was driving in the left lane. I crested the top of the hill and saw a BIG dead deer laying half in my lane. The road conditions weren't great, so I wasn't going to risk swerving around it. I tried to get over far enough to miss it, but I didn't have room or time. BUMP BUMP BUMP! Turns out the sucker was frozen solid and I managed to hit it with all of the driver's side tires. My buddies both jerked awake and that's when we heard the THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. Fortunately we were only about a half mile from an exit with a 24hr gas station with lights. We pulled into the gas station and saw that the trailer tire had blown out. Good thing was that we had a spare tire for the trailer and the gas station had fresh coffee. Bad thing was the temperature was below 20 and the wind was blowing at least 20mph. It wasn't a great start to our first visit to North Dakota
Once we got past the frozen deer/flat tire debacle, the rest of the drive across ND was pretty pleasant. Once daylight broke, we saw pheasant, pronghorn and even a couple mule deer. We arrived in Medora around mid morning and were in luck in that we were able to go ahead and check into our hotel. Once we got unloaded and got the trailer unhooked, we headed to the ranger station to find out where we could shoot our rifles. They informed us that there was tons of National Grassland around and that we were welcome to set up a target and shoot anywhere. We made sure to ask lots of questions because none of us had ever heard of anything like this. After driving around for a while, we found a perfect valley to shoot across. It didn't take too long to verify our rifles were sighted in, so we went into town, got something to eat and rested for the remainder of the day.
The next morning (Monday), we had to be at the introduction meeting with all the other participants that were chosen for that particular week. We watched a couple videos, listened to a bunch of people talk about what to do and what not to do, and met with our "guides." Each group of 4 volunteers were assigned to an Elk Reduction Program "guide." These guides were responsible for being with us at all times, telling us which cows to shoot and providing a follow-up shot whenever one was required. It turned out that our guide was the only southerner in the entire program. He was originally from Mississippi, but had been working in North and South Dakota for a number of years prior to the Elk Reduction Program. It worked out well because he could understand what we were saying and we could understand most of what he said. The funny thing was that he had been in that part of the country so long that he had picked up on a little bit of that type of accent. He would be speaking typical southernese, then a Dakota/Minnesota word, phrase or accent would be thrown in the middle, which caused a tremendous amount of laughter over the course of the week. We ate lunch with our guide to get to know him better, then headed to the range for the shooting proficiency test.
The proficiency test was a cause for concern for all of us, until we found out that it only required placing 3 out of 5 shots into an 8" circle at 200yds. We weren't allowed to shoot off of a bench, but we were allowed to use bipods and lay prone. Then we became slightly concerned again when we realized we would be dealing with a 20+mph cross wind. All 3 of us passed the test with ease, but there were quite a few others that didn't. Our 4th group member (random guy from Minnesota) was moved to another group because so many people had failed. The people that had failed were not allowed to participate or even go out into the field with their groups.
We met up at daylight on Tuesday morning to begin our hunt. Some of the animals in the major herds had GPS collars, so we were able to find out where they were first thing in the morning. Even with that info, they move around a lot and we would have to hike to where they were. TRNP contains over 70,000 acres of land with only a handful of roads running around and through it.
Some pictures from the first day:
In the spring of 2010, I got a call from a buddy that I graduated college with. He told me about a program he found out about that let people apply for a lottery to take part in an elk population reduction program in Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Medora, North Dakota. The program was implemented to take out several hundred cows out of overcrowded population in the park. The "hunt" was free if your name was drawn. All you had to do was provide yourself with food, lodging and transportation. Naturally, I was all for it. We had 2 of our other buddies sign up with us as a group, so if one of us got chosen, we all got to go as a group.
Well what do you know? On August 17, I received an email stating that I was selected as a volunteer in the elk reduction program for November 15-19! I immediately called my buddies and they were extremely pumped to find out. Then the real work began. We had to figure out the logistics of how we were all going to get to North Dakota, where we were going to stay, what equipment we were going to need, etc.
Unfortunately one member of our group had to back out due to work conflicts, but we were determined not to let that bring our spirits down. Logistics on getting to North Dakota proved to be the biggest hurdle. I was down here in Fairhope, one of the guys was in Auburn and the other was near Chattanooga, TN. We decided to drive, because it would be cheaper and that way we'd have an easy way to bring the meat back. The guy in Chattanooga had a double cab truck, but with all our gear, guns, coolers and uncertainty about the weather, we realized we would need some more, protected space. Fortunately for us, one of the owners of the company I work for had an old luggage trailer that he let me borrow.
So, on Friday, November 12th, I left work at 2pm with the luggage trailer hooked to my Jeep. I drove to Auburn, picked up my friend there, and we headed toward Chattanooga. We crashed overnight at my buddy's house then all piled in his truck the next morning. We had decided to drive straight through the night, switching out drivers. It was a relatively uneventful trip, to begin with, except for the fact that we could never manage to get the luggage trailer balanced correctly and it started to wobble whenever we got above 75mph(we later discovered that the axle was bent). We stopped in St. Louis at Cabelas, since none of us had ever been in one, and bought a couple last-minute supplies. We stopped for gas in Sioux Falls, SD around midnight. I was woken up and informed (not so politely) that it was my turn to drive. It was cold and had started snowing off-and-on. Visibility was pretty low at times, but we made it to Fargo unscathed. Once we turned west onto I-94 and had just made it outside of Fargo, things went awry. It was sometime around 3am, I was driving in the left lane. I crested the top of the hill and saw a BIG dead deer laying half in my lane. The road conditions weren't great, so I wasn't going to risk swerving around it. I tried to get over far enough to miss it, but I didn't have room or time. BUMP BUMP BUMP! Turns out the sucker was frozen solid and I managed to hit it with all of the driver's side tires. My buddies both jerked awake and that's when we heard the THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. Fortunately we were only about a half mile from an exit with a 24hr gas station with lights. We pulled into the gas station and saw that the trailer tire had blown out. Good thing was that we had a spare tire for the trailer and the gas station had fresh coffee. Bad thing was the temperature was below 20 and the wind was blowing at least 20mph. It wasn't a great start to our first visit to North Dakota
Once we got past the frozen deer/flat tire debacle, the rest of the drive across ND was pretty pleasant. Once daylight broke, we saw pheasant, pronghorn and even a couple mule deer. We arrived in Medora around mid morning and were in luck in that we were able to go ahead and check into our hotel. Once we got unloaded and got the trailer unhooked, we headed to the ranger station to find out where we could shoot our rifles. They informed us that there was tons of National Grassland around and that we were welcome to set up a target and shoot anywhere. We made sure to ask lots of questions because none of us had ever heard of anything like this. After driving around for a while, we found a perfect valley to shoot across. It didn't take too long to verify our rifles were sighted in, so we went into town, got something to eat and rested for the remainder of the day.
The next morning (Monday), we had to be at the introduction meeting with all the other participants that were chosen for that particular week. We watched a couple videos, listened to a bunch of people talk about what to do and what not to do, and met with our "guides." Each group of 4 volunteers were assigned to an Elk Reduction Program "guide." These guides were responsible for being with us at all times, telling us which cows to shoot and providing a follow-up shot whenever one was required. It turned out that our guide was the only southerner in the entire program. He was originally from Mississippi, but had been working in North and South Dakota for a number of years prior to the Elk Reduction Program. It worked out well because he could understand what we were saying and we could understand most of what he said. The funny thing was that he had been in that part of the country so long that he had picked up on a little bit of that type of accent. He would be speaking typical southernese, then a Dakota/Minnesota word, phrase or accent would be thrown in the middle, which caused a tremendous amount of laughter over the course of the week. We ate lunch with our guide to get to know him better, then headed to the range for the shooting proficiency test.
The proficiency test was a cause for concern for all of us, until we found out that it only required placing 3 out of 5 shots into an 8" circle at 200yds. We weren't allowed to shoot off of a bench, but we were allowed to use bipods and lay prone. Then we became slightly concerned again when we realized we would be dealing with a 20+mph cross wind. All 3 of us passed the test with ease, but there were quite a few others that didn't. Our 4th group member (random guy from Minnesota) was moved to another group because so many people had failed. The people that had failed were not allowed to participate or even go out into the field with their groups.
We met up at daylight on Tuesday morning to begin our hunt. Some of the animals in the major herds had GPS collars, so we were able to find out where they were first thing in the morning. Even with that info, they move around a lot and we would have to hike to where they were. TRNP contains over 70,000 acres of land with only a handful of roads running around and through it.
Some pictures from the first day:
