Although the expression “take your best shot” has meaning for most of us who hunt, it can have a different meaning for those who hunt the wide open spaces out West.

In Maine’s cedar bogs, fir forests and beech ridges, a hunter’s first shot is usually his best shot. That second shot at a departing whitetail deer more often than not winds up taking out a small beech tree or a spruce as the missed deer disappears into a thicket.

Not so in the mountains of Colorado, where elk and mule deer are the big game of choice. There your “best shot” might be one of five, or even one of 10.

Let me explain. During October, my wife and I cooked for a Colorado elk outfitter out of a spike tent “on the mountain.” This was a working vacation that allowed us to hunt elk in between our morning and evening cooking chores. As you might guess, you learn a lot about a place and its customs when you live for a month with the wranglers, the hunt guides and the livestock.

We learned early on that elk hunting with firearms is all about killing game from astounding distances. When outfitters tell clients to arrive in Colorado with rifles zeroed for 200 yards, they are not kidding. For us, and other Eastern hunters accustomed to kill shots in fir swamps at 50 yards or less, the Western style of big game hunting can be a departure that presents a daunting challenge. In some special cases, the “shot opportunity” can be downright intimidating!

As you know, it takes much practice and intimate knowledge of your gun’s ballistics to maintain accuracy beyond 200 yards.

Although Diane and I were lucky last year and bagged our elk at 70 to 80 yards by reverting to our Eastern upbringing and still-hunting the black timber, we came this time around to understand and appreciate the skills involved with the Western style of hunting.

Colorado elk country is mountainous and relatively open. Although the elk bed down in the pockets of dark timber and aspen groves, they water, graze and roam the endless stretches of open mountain grasslands called “parks” and “meadows.” The classic Western hunting tactic is to find a good meadow overlook, sit tight and wait for the game to come to you.

And when they do, the first order of business is to size up the animal: Is it a bull or a cow? How big? Is it legal? A 4×4? Does it have at least a 5-inch brow tine? In many instances, there is a “shop-around” aspect to this first undertaking, so good, high-clarity field glasses are a must. Step Two is to determine the range. Without a reliable optical range finder, this can be pure guesswork that can result in overshooting or undershooting the animal of choice.

One aspect that makes this style of hunting interesting and uniquely different from pursuing Eastern whitetails is the time factor. That is, spotting an elk or a big mule buck coming your way from 500 yards allows time for some decision making. At these distances, the prey often is unaware of the hunter’s presence.

Once the decision is made and range determined, the hunter adjusts his “steady stick” or rifle bipod.

If the animal is at a distance beyond 200 yards, the experienced hunter knows that nothing less than good breath control, a steady gun and a carefully squeezed shot will bring down that trophy bull.

In our cook tent each evening, we listened as the hunting stories flowed.

Two of our eight hunters took animals at distances in excess of 300 yards. These two men told of putting in hours of range practice at home before the hunt. They knew their guns and their own capabilities. There were also many hard luck stories of trophy bull elk missed at distances much closer than 300 yards.

I bagged my elk at first light on the last day of the season. There was nothing classic or Western about my last-minute success, except for the fact that I had just tied my borrowed quarter horse, Old Spot, to an aspen tree when the doomed elk trotted across the basin trail about 200 yards from me. Kneeling, I put the elk down with two out of four shots from a Remington .270.

No time for rangefinding or erecting the steady stick. Truth be told, the elk did itself no favors when it elected to run sideways to me instead of bailing into the adjacent timber.

Every hunt camp has its mentor: the experienced hunter who is known and respected for his knowledge and track record. For Diane and I, this man was Richard Kendall.

Tall and blue-eyed with a handle-bar mustache, Kendall has seen it all from coal mine cave-ins to shootouts with bad guys as a Mofatt County deputy sheriff.

Born on the Western Slope, Kendall is a true modern cowboy and consummate hunter and marksman.

He has trophies in his Craig, Colo., home to prove it: big trophies of elk, many-antlered mule deer and mountain lions. Kendall has made a science of long distant shooting, which may explain why he is asked to train law enforcement sharpshooters.

When Kendall takes his best shot, it’s usually at a mule deer, sometimes at a range in excess of 500 yards. His fiream is a .270 Weatherby equipped with a quick, adjustable scope.

His method is void of guesswork. A rangefinder tells him the distance of his quarry. From a distance scale taped to his gun butt, he reads off the number of clicks up or down, makes his appropriate scope adjustment, takes a breath and barely squeezes a trigger with less than a 2-pound pull.

So if you ever plan to motor West for an elk or mule deer hunt, think long-distance shooting and spend some advance time at a rifle range.

And pack plenty of ammunition. In Colorado elk country, unlike the Pine Tree State, there often is time to work up to your “best shot.”

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WCME-96.7/FM) and former information officer for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].