Home 
Features Outdoors Union man's 2010 hunt is one for the records
Union man's 2010 hunt is one for the records
 N.W. Head & Horn competition ranks 81-year-old Union man’s elk #1 bull in 2010
UNION — Time was not on the side of Dick Veenhuizen, but fate was.
The
Union resident was nearing the end of a 20-day hunt near Yakima last
November and had every reason to have a long face. He and his partner,
son-in-law Jake Emerick of Yakima, had been hunting 18-straight days but
had not spotted a single elk after seeing three on Day 1. The men had
not even seen a single fresh elk track since then.
“We were pretty discouraged,’’ Veenhuizen said.
Then it appeared.
A bull elk that would define Veenhuizen’s hunting legacy.
At
7:15 a.m. on Nov. 4, less than 36 hours before their hunt closed,
Veenhuizen and Emerick spotted six to eight cow elk accompanied by a
branch-antlered bull on the top of a ridge just under 400 yards away.
“We’ve got to get him,’’ Veenhuizen told his hunting partner.
Minutes
later Veenhuizen had the elk. He first fired from 374 yards, hitting
the elk in the leg. Veenhuizen found the wounded bull minutes later
lying in sagebrush and then quickly dispatched him with another shot.
The Union hunter did a double take when he took his first close look at the elk.
“I knew it was a good bull, but it was a lot bigger than I thought,’’ Veenhuizen said.
It
was bigger than possibly any bull taken in Washington, Oregon, Montana
or Idaho in 2010 based on the results of the Head & Horns
competition run in part by Northwest Big Game Inc.
Head and
Horns ranks big-game animals hunters have entered in the competition
based on their Boone and Crockett measurement score. Veenhuizen won the
category for Rocky Mountain elk taken in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and
Montana with a rifle in 2010.
Veenhuizen was awarded a plaque
commemorating his achievement earlier this year at the Pacific Northwest
Sportsmen’s Show in Portland.
His elk, scored at 3725/8
points, is the 14th largest ever taken with a rifle in Washington,
according to the Northwest Big Game Inc., which is based in Roseburg and
publishes books on Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana big game
records.
Veenhuizen took the elk in the Alkali Unit, which
covers a U.S. military base. On the first day of the hunt Veenhuizen and
Emerick spotted two cows and a bull. Emerick fired at the bull but
missed.
The hunting partners had agreed that Emerick would
fire at the first bull and Veenhuizen would try to take the second. They
had no idea that they would go 17 days before seeing an elk again or
even one fresh elk track.
The only evidence of elk Veenhuizen
and Emerick found during that time were several day-old tracks of a
small band of elk that headed down a draw to get water.
Veenhuizen and Emerick did not see any elk during the 17-day stretch for want of effort.
“We hunted all-out every day,’’ said Veenhuizen, who at 81 appears to be picture of health.
Veenhuizen
has since had the elk mounted. Several local residents got their first
look at it during an open house he and his wife, Rose, recently
conducted. The Veenhuizens have lived in Union County 17 years, the past
eight in Union and the first nine in Cove. The couple moved to Union
County 17 years ago from Sandy.
Dick Veenhuizen will not be
returning this fall to hunt in Washington but instead will elk hunt in
the Huntington area. At 81 he has no plans to cut back on his hunts
anytime soon.
“I just want to keep going as long as I’m healthy.’’
|
blog comments powered by Disqus
