mystery solved
November 17, 2005
Last modified November 17, 2005 - 12:04 am
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Off-Trail: Mystery of cartop elk solved
Brett French
OFF-TRAIL
Bonnie Potter was "tickled to death" when she saw two pictures of her bull elk, tied awkwardly across the top of a small Dodge Colt, printed in The Billings Gazette's Outdoors section last Thursday.
"It was so cool," she said. "It was my first bull, and I wanted to bring it home whole to show my daughter. You wouldn't believe how many people took pictures. So many people were smiling, and others were flipping us off, too."
The photos were sent across the country via e-mail to friends and family, a copy of which ended up in the Gazette newsroom. The Gazette's caption on the photos asked for more information on who the photographer was and if anyone knew the occupants of the car.
Joe Hughes, an engineer at Micron in Boise and former Montanan, called in to take credit for the photo. He snapped it on Oct. 30 on his way back from hunting with his father and brother near Winifred.
"My sister gets the Gazette and she called me up and said, 'Hey, your picture is in the Gazette,'" Hughes said.
"It was pretty interesting," he said of seeing the big bull motoring down the highway atop the tiny car.
Potter, of Roundup, said her truck was in the shop the weekend she went hunting, so she and her boyfriend had to make due with the small Dodge. It was her first big bull, taken on a private ranch north of Roy in hunting district 417.
Potter's friend, Garth Bascom, a foreman at the ranch, loaded the five-point bull atop the car using a front-end loader, she said. The group laid two 2x6 planks across the length of the roof to keep it from caving in, placing the elk on top of the boards.
"It was sagging but the boards held," she said. "I sure as heck wasn't going to sit inside there when they loaded it."
With all the weight, Potter said the car was topping out at about 45 mph on the ride home. "The back wheels were hitting the fenders on almost any bump," she added.
She's already purchased a new freezer to hold all the meat.
