Chris Farris

Shooting from the side of a mountain across a valley and creek to the side of another mountain can be tricky.

I know its always closer than it looks but it still messes with me. I've seen people miss animals time and time again when posed with this scenario and that was in the back of my mind for my first attempt at doing it. Lucky for me my hunting partner had packed a laser rangefinder.

This elk appeared to be further than I felt comfortable with but with no more cover to conceal us and a small river/creek dividing us we had only two options.....put them to bed and come back with hopes on finding them or putting the rangefinder on them and take a shot. I was using a Swarovski 4-12x50 equipped with the bullet drop TDS reticle and I knew what my drops were....but man it looked like he was 500 yards away to me. A quick press of the button revealed he was much closer (300 yds.) We set up, took the shot by holding on the second line of the TDS reticle and down he went.

Then the real work began!

Chris used:

• Talley Lightweight Aluminum 1" Scopemount