2tapcm,
I can only hope that when I start hunting again if/when I have the same kind of situation you did I react in the same way.
Ankeny,
Glad to see you found your Elk and took the actions you did. Hopefully the meat will come out all right. My old supervisor shot a elk south west of Laramie and it took them about 14 hours to find it, but it tasted great
How does your 30-338 compare to the 338 win mag. A gun shop here in town has a used Winchester M70 338 with weaver rings for $460.00 and it looks like it's in real good shape.