Seven Devils backpack elk hunt
Elk
My bro-in-law an I drew tags for the Hells Canyon Wilderness area in Idaho. We made a short scouting expedition in July which ended up being more of a goat watching/fishing trip. We didn't see much elk sign, but we were up in goat country for most of the time.
We planned to leave friday the 19th and backapck in and hunt till the following sunday, the 28th. This isnt going to be a semi live hunt, but I'll post up pics and each days hunt as I get to them in the next couple of days. The country is incredibly rugged and steep and they don't call it hells canyon for nothing.
We arrived at the trail head and loaded our gear and started hiking at about 7:30. We hiked for about an hour and then found a spot to crash for the night. here we are full of vim and vigor.
Digging the smiles. Just got back from my trip and wish I was heading out with you.
Have a great hunt! Be safe. Enjoy every minute.
We're pullin' for ya. And looking forward to updates.
Been looking forward to this! Remember, work can't wait. Bowsite can't....
Idaho will suck all that "Vim an Vigor" out of you faster than a cat can lick his butt with his tail picked up and his tongue already drawed back! Give us lots of details guys and GOODLUCK! Mike
After a quick dinner of top ramen, I bugled down into the canyon. Three bulls responded from the depths below and further fuled our enthusiasm for the next days hunt. Here is the view that greeted us in the morning.
Anybody who has been there will likely recognize these pics...here is the view that greeted us in the morning.
Only 8 more miles to go and this pack still feels really light. I didn't give my bro in law, whom I will refer to as G, enough help when packing and his pack ended up a little heavier than mine.
Here are the "Devils" in the background. In July we climbed the HeDevil which tops out right at 9400 feet. It has one continuous ridge with no saddles or interuptions that extends 8000 feet up from the bottom of Hells Canyon in eight horizontal miles.
Off to work, more to come later.
Work, schmerk, get typing and posting! LOL!
Lol...I don't have to many fires to put out this morning so on with the story and pics.
I had a couple of friends that rifle hunted this area and I was relying heavily on their intel as to where the elk should be. After about six miles in we saw the first good sign that some bulls were around.
A spruce grouse made the mistake of standing in the trail long enough for me to get my bow out and shoot him. A little extra protein to toss in with the top ramen.
We got to the end of 2 mile ridge about noon and looked down at the lower basin we intended to hunt. It was down...way down...another 1500 feet down. We decided have lunch, take a nap, and do an evening hunt on the nice flat 2 mile ridge.
super country!keep it coming!!
You and my son have the same nutritional regimen. I don't get it but, at least Top Ramen is cheap. On with the story.
great job on this thread thus far!
Keep it rolling!
Mark
Looks a lot like the country along the Middle Fork of the Boise River. About the same gradient too. I know you'll get to the really steep stuff eventually, Caddis. lol
Its kind of strange. Normally I despise top ramen, but it was by far my favorite food on the trip and we brought mountain house, Lipton sides, and lots of trail mix and protein bars. It must have been all the salt and msg in the ramen. On a side note the Costco protein bars taste like canine excrement. After three days it was all we could do to get one down the hatch.
The area we were hunting had a major fire in 2006 so there lots of pockets of timber surrounded by burnt blowdown timber. It really sucked to get through especially on the steep stuff, but it made for some really nice elk habitat.
Here is the nice flat 2 mile ridge.
Aaaahhh... blowdowns. The extra salt in the Rambo Noodles might come in handy.
Lovin' the pics!
About four in the afternoon we dumped out all our gear and just kept the essentials in our packs for an evening hunt. We hiked about half a mile out one of the finger ridges and bugled. Immediately a bull responded from across the draw about 600 yards away. Sweet!! we hoofed it around to the upwind side and set up about 100 yards out. The bull kept bugling on his own and I told G to get out in front about 30 yards while I called.
The bull bugled and I cut him off and started raking a tree. He started heading our direction after another bugle. Holy Crap! first day and a bull is coming in on a string?? I couldn't believe it. He came in to about 70 yards and started raking a tree. I backed up and kept calling. The bull came in to 40 yards, but G couldn't get a clear shot as the bull never stopped walking and finally he headed back the way he came. We kept working the herd till dark and I had a spike at 40 yards, but no way was I shooting a spike in here.
I had a friend with a packstring lined up to pack us out at the end of the week assuming we had a couple of bulls down, but none were destined to die this night.
I'm in for this. Beautiful scenery !
It was very warm that night so we threw our bags on the ground and slept under the stars. The next morning we decided to hunt the lower basin. Which looked ok from the top but was full of blowdown and burnt timber...it became known as the Hole of Defecation. Absolutely miserable to crawl up out of.
We glassed a small bull up right away and dropped into the Hole after him. We came with a big fat zero, but found a nice wallow down in the bottom. There was a lot of old sign, and we found a really nice wallow in the bottom.
Left hand side of the pic is the ridge above the Hole of Defecation.
Snake River 6000 feet below.
I agree with Florida Mike!
Keep it coming!
About the end of the day we spotted a really nice 6x6 on the other side of the canyon headed down toward the wallow. We made a mad dash down the hill towards the wallow and set up. The bull immediately responded to a cow call and we could hear sticks breaking as he came down the hill. Unfortunately it as very open in the bottom and he hung up at 60 yards.
I know that trail pretty well. It's one of those that you swear is uphill both going in and coming out. I've done that hike a few times in the summer and I can barely get my own sorry butt out of there. I can't imagine hauling an elk out. Buddy's pack string = good idea, for sure.I won't divulge any secrets, but I usually bushwhack my way around the first part of that area by going into that lake just over the hump from the campground. Have seriously almost died both times I've done it,, and have broken fly rods falling down both times. The fish are tremendous, though. I have a geocache stashed at one of the lookouts way back in there. Can't wait to see how this turns out. I've seen some biggun's back in there.
We hiked back out of the Hole of Defecation and to our camp in the dark. We decided to move our camp down to the lower basin and hunt the Hole for a few days. It was another warm night that had me watching the stars and sweating like a sun of a gun in my 32 degree down bag.
Nij,
I know just the trail you are talking about. We went in that way in July and that "trail" will make you pucker up every time you look down. I had my 9 year old son with me and I was ready to tie him off when crossing some of those avalanche chutes. The fishing was very slow, but the few that were there were bigguns.
Day three dawned really warm again and it was dead quiet no bugles and nothing to find with the binos. We packed up and headed to the lower basin for an evening hunt. Water was really tough to find and fortunately in the lower basin there was a nice spring that was 100 yards from our camp. I killed some time by make a little drain spout from a chunk of bark so it was easy to fill up water bottles. I didn't bother with filtering this stuff either.
We spotted 2 bulls that afternoon, but I was getting a little bummed because I had a sinking feeling that most of the elk had moved to a different drainage and the few elk we had seen were cruising through looking for a slutty cow. On the other hand the bulls we had found were responding once we got in close to them.
We decided to drop into the wallow area and try cold calling. On the first setup it was dead quiet for about 20 minutes. Then G turned around and realized a raghorn had snuck in right behind him at 24 yards. Before he could draw the wind swirled and Mr. Raggy went bye bye.
We moved up the Hole about a quarter mile and I could smell elk really strong. I told G to move back and call. Immediately a bull fired back from about 100 yards away. After a few more cow calls the bull came crashing down the hill alternately mewing and bugling. I thought "oh man, this is it. we are gonna be packing elk tonight!"
Unfortuanely, there was a bunch of dead falls above me and the bull walked down the right side of them and all I could see was antlers at 20 yards. He was a small 6x6, but I was going to take him given the opportunity. He stayed behind the deadfalls for about 5 minutes before getting suspicious and walking back up the hill.
Back to camp and more Ramen for dinner tonight. Camp was a re purposed rain fly from a 4 man tent and my little ultralight tent.
Awesome hunt, I need one of those Grouse....
Rainfly tent worked pretty good.
The spruce or Franklin's grouse are really neat looking, but taste a lot like liver. The meat is very dark similar to duck.
That night we had a big wind storm and G got up in the middle of the night worried about all the dead trees coming down on us. One right by out tent had a big split up the middle. We survived the night and in the morning there was a rainbow at the top of the hill. It was kind of strange. I've never seen a rainbow in the morning and took it as an omen of good things to come.
We climbed the hill at the end of the rainbow and glassed a little and made a few cow calls. A few minutes later a spike came out of the timber and started walking side hill below us. G said "If he comes close enough, I'm going to shoot him." Ok, I says and backed up and started to cow call a little. The bull started zigging the wrong way so I zagged the opposite trying to pull him past G. I dropped down the hill forty yards and looked to my left and there was the spike 40 yards out looking at me. He walked directly down wind of me and made I circle sniffing the wind. I don't think he had ever seen or smelled a person before. He finally took off while G watched from 80 yards away.
The rest of the day was uneventful. The Hole was dry and the only other options were uphill. We decided it was time to pull camp and try a new spot.
We packed up and started up the 1500 foot climb at 8pm and hiked to the trail junction by 10:30 and threw up the tarp tent.
This is awesome! Bowsiters are the best!
"The spruce or Franklin's grouse are really neat looking, but taste a lot like liver. The meat is very dark similar to duck."
Ewww, maybe not! Lol...Beautiful bird though!
This pack horse wasn't going to do us much good.
Breakfast of champions....
The sun had just come up and was reflecting off my arrow knocks.....making for a lovely photo of "The Chosen One"
The view was great to go with the coffee.
Man, that is some rough country!
We hiked out the remaining 5 miles which took about 2.5 hours and got to the truck about 1030. It was then I noticed we had left the truck unlocked and the window open for the previous 5 days. Good thing Idahoans don't have sticky fingers as everything was as we had left it.
The Devils Tooth. We passed it on the way out. It's about 500 feet high, but it doesn't look much like a tooth....
"On a side note the Costco protein bars taste like canine excrement."
I don't know if I am more disturbed that Costco produces a bad protein bar or that you know what canine excrement tastes like.
st vipers? im thinking of switching to those from the mags if I ever go on an elk hunt again. they look like they might go through a big animal a bit easier. hoping you've got a chance to find out.
They are the regular 100 grain slick tricks and I've had excellent results in the past with them on elk. I switched to them a couple of years ago.
Ok... on to the good stuff. We spent the driving roads in the north half of the unit. We didn't see much interesting except other hunters. Around 4, as we were contemplating the evening hunt, G realized his Sitka jacket had fallen off his pack somewhere along the trail. So back to the trail head we went and arrive just at dark in the pouring rain. Both of us were beat and the prospect of walking down the trail in the dark to look for a jacket that probably had been picked up wasn't appealing.
We decided to spend the night in the truck and G would run down the trail in the am while I made breakfast.
Sleeping in the truck was a terrible idea. The Mountain House gas was vile which required the windows to be open which then allowed the rain to blow in. Wont be doing that again.
The morning arrived at a chilly 39 degrees, but what do you expect at 8000 ft. G didn't find his jacket, but we could hear a couple bulls sounding off in the depths on the north side of a drainage we had not yet hunted.
The fog and rain were blowing in and out as we descended to the depths.
The bulls quit bugling, but we were finding lots of good sign. This was clearly where they had been hanging out for the last week. This pic is of the Mother of Wallows. There were multiple wallows in a 50 yard radius around this one.
I hope you guys packed matches and a fork to assist with the packout. YIKES!
Nothing worse than MH Chili Mac, post consumption! Worse than cleaning a gut shot duck.
About 2 pm the bulls fired up again and we closed the distance to what I thought was about 100 yards. After 5 or 10 minutes it sounded like the bulls were moving away from us.
There at least 3 different bulls including a mean sounding growly one. We moved up about 150 yards and I told G to cut the bull off every time he bugled while I moved up 75 yards cow calling softly. It worked perfectly. After about a minute I could see antlers coming up the hill towards me. The bull wasn't bugling at all but he closed the distance quickly to 30 yards. I drew as he went behind some trees expecting him to sidehill below me for a broadside chip shot. Instead he came straight at me with his head down. Crap, he is going to run me over pretty quick, I thought. Frontal shot it is I thought, and as soon as the bull lifted his to expose the sweet spot, the arrow was on its way.
The arrow hit right where I aimed and penetrated a solid 20 inches. The bull whirled and ran 30 yards and stopped behind some trees. The shot looked good but I quickly nocked another arrow and drew. The bull stood there for about 30 seconds and then ran down the hill. I sent arrow 2 on its way, but it missed by inches. As the bull ran downhill the woods erupted around me with running bulls. There were at least 6 different bulls harrassing the herd bull
I was really stoked, I couldn't believe after 7 days of hunting that we had finally got a shot at a bull.
A spike came running down the hill and came in to 35 yards after a few cow calls. G shot but a tree jumped up and saved the little spikers life.
About 2 pm the bulls fired up again and we closed the distance to what I thought was about 100 yards. After 5 or 10 minutes it sounded like the bulls were moving away from us.
There at least 3 different bulls including a mean sounding growly one. We moved up about 150 yards and I told G to cut the bull off every time he bugled while I moved up 75 yards cow calling softly. It worked perfectly. After about a minute I could see antlers coming up the hill towards me. The bull wasn't bugling at all but he closed the distance quickly to 30 yards. I drew as he went behind some trees expecting him to sidehill below me for a broadside chip shot. Instead he came straight at me with his head down. Crap, he is going to run me over pretty quick, I thought. Frontal shot it is I thought, and as soon as the bull lifted his to expose the sweet spot, the arrow was on its way.
The arrow hit right where I aimed and penetrated a solid 20 inches. The bull whirled and ran 30 yards and stopped behind some trees. The shot looked good but I quickly nocked another arrow and drew. The bull stood there for about 30 seconds and then ran down the hill. I sent arrow 2 on its way, but it missed by inches. As the bull ran downhill the woods erupted around me with running bulls. There were at least 6 different bulls harrassing the herd bull
I was really stoked, I couldn't believe after 7 days of hunting that we had finally got a shot at a bull. Yippe kiyay, I just shot a 6x6!!
A spike came running down the hill and came in to 35 yards after a few cow calls. G shot but a tree jumped up and saved the little spikers life.
I was a little worried that maybe the shot hadn't been as good as I thought, but we found good blood within 10 yards of the hit.
After 10 yards down the trail, blood was dumping out of the bull.
About 75 yards down the trail I spotted the bull tipped over by a log.
What a great thread! Congrats on a nice bull! Oh BTW, I love MH Chile Mac! The next day...not so much! Mike
Congrats! Great bull! Were you walking around that nasty country with one of your arrows backwards in your quiver? You're more graceful than me... That would have been my blood trail!!!
Oh and Chilli Mac is banned in all of our camps...
Lol....no the broadhead was a photo op.
Loaded up and ready to go.
Awesome story! Keep it coming and here's to hoping your buddy connects as well.
Very nice shot on the frontal. Effective.
congrats to you guys earning i the hard way. HUNT
We started boning and quartering the bull about 3:15 and 2 hours later we headed down the hill to a trail in the bottom about half a mile down. We thought it would be easier, but it took 4.5 hours to go 4.5 miles climbing 2500 feet up to the other trailhead.
Oh yeah, say no to crack
Congratulations on a fine bull, Caddis.
What a great hunt and write up...
Needless to say we were beat, and the truck was parked at the other trailhead 2 miles up the road. The guy manning the fire lookout was camped close by and agreed to give us a ride to the truck. We said thanks with a couple of pounds of backstrap and swapped hunting stories. He was a real nice guy and an elk hunter to boot.
We built a big fire, roasted some tenderloin, and celebrated with a couple of beers then went night night.
The next morning we hit up a horse camp to see if they would pack out the remaining quarters, but they said no dice. Not even for a couple hundred bucks. I didn't blame them at all. They were trying to kill some bulls too.
So we drove to Riggins, ate a ginormous breakfast (no more instant oatmeal!!) and got psyched up for a long pack up hill.
We arrived at the kill site about noon and boned out the hind quarters.
Great hunt and great write-up. Congrats on the bull.
And Mountain House didn't invent gassy chili mac. I remember Camp Philmont in 1977. We had eaten freeze dried chili mac the night before we went on our pre-dawn hike up old baldy mountain. Walking up narrow trials single file in the dark someone would occasionally yell out "chili mac" and everyone behind them in line would have to walk through a fragrant cloud of chili mac gas.
Ken, thats hilarious. I was usually in front on the trail, so G was subject to a lot of clouds of chili mac gas.
We wanted to comply with the law so we made sure we had evidence of sex attached
It was a major grind climbing the 2100 feet up to the trail head. We ended up splitting the meat into three loads and leapfrogging it up the hill. It still took 5 hours to make the 4.2 mile round trip. We decided to just pack up the hill and not use the trail in the bottom.
We got to the truck at around 4:30 and after a quick dinner of ramen and backstrap I got psyched up to get the last quarter.
The night before we stashed on the of front quarters about a mile and a half down the trail, because our progress was so slow. And now I had to go and retrieve it.
The last quarter!!
I was back to the truck by 6:30 and we rolled outta there. All day long G was saying how glad he was that he had missed the spike the day before. We had to be home the following day and if he had killed that spike it would have meant another full day of packing and missing a day of work on Monday.
Wow!! Loving it so far!! Congratulations on a fine bull!! I need to see that country sometime!
Great write-up!!!!!!
Oh, and Ken.......... You and I have been on those same trails @ Philmont, except I wasn't on them until several years later.
Now I'm worried why one of you had a condom in the wilderness :)
Don't go hunting with Caddisflinger :)
Bake
That he had a condom "handy" is kinda scary...note to self, don't hunt with single guys! Mike
Awesome! thanks for sharing
Lol...I was waiting for that. Last time I used my pack was on a backpack trip with my wife, and apparently I left a spare in my pack.
"Last time I used my pack was on a backpack trip with my wife, and apparently I left a spare in my pack."
Isn't THAT a likely story....
Nice write up and congratulations on a hard earned bull. You know as well as I do that Hells Canyon is a man eater.
Yeah, they don't call it Hells Canyon for nothing. This by far was the most physically demanding hunt I've done with thousands and thousands of feet of elevation gain. The pack out alone was 13 miles total and 5200 feet of elevation gain. I was in decent cardio shape, but didn't do near enough training with a pack on. I'm not a big guy and I lost 4 pounds over 7 days while eating around 3000 calories a day.
I would do this hunt again, but not without horses in camp.
It really was a spare. Honest...;)
One more sunset pic.
Great hunt and accomplishment. God Bless
If you had a spare it wasn't much of a backpack trip with your wife ;)
...and great elk hunt!
Great memories of a great adventure. The best part is you get to do it again next year!!!
Congratulations... nice trip for sure!
What kind of packs were you guys using?
Sounds like a rough hunt. Real rough. It seems like it would be real easy to loose some meat if the temps were hot. Long was to pack.
Yes, TBM, "long was to pack"....Temps were very cool at night so I wasn't worried about the meat. Earlier in the week it would have been an issue. We would have had to pack the meat down to a spring where Temps were 40 to 50 at niht.
I used an rei xt85 pack Tha worked very well as a day pack. It sinches way down. And is right at 5 lbs empty. G used an older cabelas pack frame. Definitely not the best for a day pack, but it worked. I wanted the kuiu pack but my gear budget was shot for the year. The rei pack is fantastic for the price.
I picked up some of the solid kuiu pants and jacket and they worked very well...elk don't care if you wear camo. Although my hat was camo.....that must have done the trick.
All the new gear i buy is in solid colors that way I don't just wear it during hunting season.
This is kinda funny but I know where that wallow is. I had a ball down in that area a couple years ago. So just to back you up on how steep it is, I didn't shoot one in there because I didn't want to pack it out. Lol called in a few Bulls in there but was still trying to find a big one. Congrats on a good hunt!
Mr. Wapiti,
Yeah, that's quite a wallow. I wasn't as smart as you, but I won't be forgetting that hunt any time soon.
Congrats to your boy on his deer! Must have been a great hunt.
Congrats and great story!
Great hunt and bull, Congrats!
CaddisFlinger: Congrats on an awesome hunt! I know how steep that Hell's canyon is. You got to be a born again stud to hunt that country. Thank you for sharing.
Bump....good times. Took me a while to find this old thread.
Hit the green cross once you pull up the thread and save it to your favorites. Then you’ll be able to easily bump it as often as you’d like.
Damn link. You’re a smart one! Thanks for the tip!!
Ucs I’m not often accused of being smart but I did stay at a motel once. I’m also only 34 which helps. ;).
