Middle-schooler shoots 800-pound elk

It was a hot summer morning when 13-year-old Carter Farella raced the sunrise with his dad, Chuck, and their friends, the Sweets, to get an early start to elk hunting south of the LAK Ranch on opening day, Sept. 1.
“We went with a couple of friends because we had the same tag,” Farella said. 
He and his dad went scouting earlier, and the pot to choose from looked promising. Farella said they saw a lot of elk, but he didn’t want to shoot just any elk — he waited until he could snag a big one. 
Although they saw a few hundred head in the morning, they came back later that afternoon and came across a sleeping herd of 250 or so elk. Farella and his dad strategically tried to push the herd toward their friends, but the creatures retreated into the safety of the brush and trees. 
The hunters waited patiently for the elk to return to the open space, but the herd sat contentedly in the waterhole with no signs of moving. So Farella and his company moved to get a better shot. 
After walking several miles in the 90-degree heat with elk bugling all around and making quite the stench, it would be easy to get discouraged, but not for Farella. When 4 p.m. rolled around, it was worth the wait. 
“We spooked them, and they came out running,” Farella said, adding that the elk were bugling all around them. “I was nervous. … My dad stopped them, and I shot my bull elk.”
His favorite part of the day was “getting to hear all the elk, getting to shoot the elk and getting to see all the elk.” This is the third elk Farella has shot, but it was his first bull elk. He took the 7-by-6 giant, weighing an estimated 800 pounds, down with a .30-06 rifle, according to Farella and his dad.
With all of that meat, Farella’s family will use some of it, but they plan to give the rest away. 
“We’ll eat some of it, but we’ll give some to our family and friends,” Farella said, adding that some of their friends hope to make elk sausage. 
Farella is grateful for his dad and his “papa” Randy Farella for all the wisdom and knowledge of hunting that they’ve passed down to him. Farella has a cow tag he needs to fill, and he is looking forward to taking another hunting trip with his family. 
“I will shoot one (an elk cow) whenever I get the chance with my papa and my dad,” Farella said. “It’s just relaxing, and I get to spend time with my family, see a lot of cool stuff and learn a lot from my family.”