Keith Krebill of Lakeview poses with his 285-pound elk cow he downed during a hunt near Johannesburg Dec. 8. — Courtesy photo

LAKEVIEW — Keith Krebill bagged a 285-pound elk cow while hunting just south of Johannesburg Dec. 8.

The 30-year-old Lakeview man, accompanied by his father and father-in-law, downed the two-year-old elk after five days of tracking a herd.

“We walked a lot,” Krebill, said. “On opening morning, we set up on a clear cut where we had seen a lot of elk sighted in the days prior while we scouted.

There were elk all around us, had a couple shots nearby, but never spotted the herd,” Krebill said. “We drove to different spots where we knew there was elk sighted and walked those areas a lot for the next five days.”

Finally, the next day, the three-man group spotted elk after following tracks into a meadow where they spotted the cow with two other elk grazing. Krebill took a shot from 118 yards away.

“What was going though my head was ‘a mature cow is giving me a clean, broadside shot; don’t rush and make it a good one.’”

It was Krebill’s biggest harvest of any animal since he shot an 8-point buck in Frankfort a few years ago.

Krebill was among 15,940 hunters this year applying for an antler less elk hunting license. There were 31,778 applications for an “any elk” license. The state holds a lottery for elk hunting in which licenses are awarded using a random weighted drawing system, a system that began in 2003.

Krebill had applied for an elk hunting license every year since he was 17. He won’t be able to apply again until 2022.