5 Years . . . My First Elk
Elk
This is going to be incredibly long . . . so if you aren't into that much detail, I won't blame you for skimming photos and moving on.
I typed all of this up in an email to my Dad and a few of his friends on the East Coast that have never elk hunted and have no idea (for the most part) of what I'm talking about . . . so it's dumbed down and my best interpretation of what the bull was saying to me and how I should respond.
I'll start from the very beginning of that day.
This will be the first of several emails, 3 photos per email to ensure that they make it to your inbox. I'll tell the story as I work through the photos.
If you look way off in the distance on one of the mountainsides, you can make out a rock slide and cliff face on the left side of the photo amongst the timber. We hiked from the bottom of the valley where camped to the bottom of that rock slide in the dark. Our previous "map scouting" indicated that there was an old trail going up in the general direction of that rock slide and to the right. As it was pitch black and I could see Orion's Belt above the peak of the ridge we were headed for, we couldn't actually tell that there was NOT a trail at all and that in fact, it was an incredibly steep rock slide. After only a few yards, we all took off our packs and stripped down to t-shirts to keep from sweating too much in the brisk 28 degree morning air. It was pointless as in just a few minutes, we were all sweating like overrun race horses. As we ascended, we switched from hiking, to laborious climbing, then to hands in front of us scampering with toes digging into the loose mountainside for dear life. Again, had it been light, we'd have never done such a risky climb, we truly didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. As it started getting light, we could see that we were headed for a vertical cliff towards the top 1/3 of the face and knew that we'd have to alter our course. As the sun illuminated more details and features of our path, I called time-out to reassess our predicament. We couldn't continue vertically, and we couldn't descend safely. On our ascent, we'd used our tippy toes and strained every muscle in our calves to keep them dug into the mountain. If we'd tried to go back down the slope on our heels, we'd have assuredly lost our footing within the first few steps and slid/tumbled all the way to the trees at the bottom. It would have been ugly. We couldn't go to our right as there was now cliff adjacent to us, so our only option was to traverse sidehill about 100 yards across the slide. It took incredible concentration and effort of our leg, torso and arm muscles to keep at least 3 points of contact across the entire slope. I can safely say that I'll NEVER end up in a situation like that again. I wish I had taken a photo of us while we were on that slide, but I didn't dare to free both hands from the mountainside for that long. We safely made it to the edge of the slide and continued vertically through the trees. It was equally as steep in the trees, but at least we had places to rest and hold onto every 10 or 15 feet. Additionally, there was some comfort in knowing that if we had lost our footing in the trees, there was the potential to sprawl out in hopes of hitting and grabbing onto a tree rather than plummeting to the bottom. After another 25 minutes of strenuous effort, we were at the top of a very sharp "knife-edge ridge" with a HUGE basin on the other side. In total, the ascent from the bottom of the slide took a little over an hour. If you were to talk to my Dad, he'd probably tell you that I don't scare easy and that I love the thrills that are associated with my outdoor hobbies (Dirt biking, Mt biking, Hunting, etc), so I was a bit surprised at how uncomfortable I was on that slope. Part of it was thinking about my young family at home, but part of it was just that the sheer magnitude of our precarious holds on that mountain and the consequences of losing our balance. It makes me uneasy to keep thinking about it. Lesson learned. 
Keep it coming. What state?
Your photos aren't working bro!
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u258/lckytylr/7bb7a7c9-f13a-4809-8069-357580dca2a8_zps56a4f62b.jpg
Once we got to the top, the wind immediately cooled off our sweaty bodies as it was Howling up there. It's one of the golden rules of mountain adventures, never get sweaty when it's cold or windy . . . but there wasn't much we could do. We layered up and started hiking the ridge top, further up the slope and towards a large peak. In the photo below, there's a fairly well defined peak off in the distance with shadowed trees on the left and a bald spot on the right. We "summited" above the dangerous slope and on the unseen back side (much steeper than the sides you can see).
As you can see, we continued on up the ridge to gain a better vantage point, mostly to find a better (safer) way off that mountain. I knew that I wasn't going to draw my bow on an animal until we found a safe way down. At the bottom of this featureless (but steep) slope on the right hand side near the bright green trees, I'd looked across a vast canyon on photo-left and saw a very large 5x5 bull chasing a cow and a calf. In an effort to evade the bulls advances, she was heading up the drainage towards the saddle into the next canyon over. We quickly determined that we'd be able to safely navigate the drainage that they were currently in all the way back to our camps. It didn't take long for us to decide that we'd found our exit, and also found a bull that I'd dearly love to put my tag on. The only safe way to get to them or to a point at which we could intersect there path was to go all the way to the peak of the ridge we were on. Reference first photo. In that photo, if you look above the rock slide that we ascended, you will see a very pointed peak that is skylined. We quickly climbed up that bald ridge to the summit of that peak and then turned right towards the saddle ("V" of the mountain skyline) where we expected that bull the push the cow and calf. If it looks large and impressive . . . it was! The photos don't do the scenery justice. As we were quickly descending the ridge toward that saddle, my buddies Matt and Dax heard a bugle on the other (far) side of that ridge. I didn't hear it because I was nearly running/sliding down the loose rock ridge towards that bull. They had assumed that we missed the bull and that he'd already made it over the saddle and was headed down the other side. As neither of them are bowhunters, they asked me what our next "move" was. I told them that we needed to be quiet (meaning we would Not call to the bull, not necessarily that we'd be sneaking around on tippy toes). What I have learned over the years is that it's best to get within the "red zone" of a bull before making any elk sounds. The red zone is often referred to as being within 100 yards of a bull and preferably down wind. If you start calling before the red zone, the bull is likely to ignore you as they are opportunistic . . . but extremely lazy. If you are an advertising cow . . . but further away than a bull is willing to walk, then you have simply given away your location and he will continue to bugle in hopes that you will come to him. It's difficult to call a bull in from more than 100 yards, especially if the bull already has a harem. With that in mind, we kept quiet and waited for the bull to give away his own location with each bugle.
As we tried to get a fix on where the bugling was coming from, we quickly determined that there were two bulls in this canyon and on opposite sides of the valley. I decided that I'd play the most favorable odds and picked the bull on the side of the canyon where the prevailing winds also matched the late morning thermals (the right side). We were on the left side, so we quickly dropped down to the valley across the stream and up the other side to the top of the timber where I figured the bull was holed up with his cows. We'd move through the sparse trees about 50-75 yards each time he'd bugle until I thought that we were within the red zone. I positioned Matt and Dax behind me about 50 yards and upwind of me. With this setup, ideally, a bull would come looking for the cows (Matt and Dax). Generally, a bull will try to sneak in quietly and down wind of the sounds. In a perfect world, that would put the bull right in my lap and Not looking for me, rather looking for the source of the calling upwind of him. He'd never catch my scent and he'd be focused elsewhere. As we were positioning on this bull, the bull on the other side of the canyon would sporadically, and unprovoked, sound off with bugles. I told Matt, since he wasn't a very experienced caller, that I'd do most of the calling to get the bull interested and separated from his cows if possible. I left him with instructions that if I quit calling for more than a minute, I wanted him to start sporadically calling. That would mean that I'd have the bull curious enough to come check out the situation, but I'd rely on Matt to draw the bull past me for a broadside shot. After 10 minutes of calling, I could tell that bull on our (right) side of the canyon was pushing his cows further and further down the canyon to water and to bed for the day. There's no hope of catching a moving herd, they are way too fast.
I decided that it wouldn't hurt to try to call to the bull on the other side (left) of the canyon in hopes of drawing him over to us. In the photo below, looking across the canyon from where I was calling, the bull is somewhere in the upper right corner in the dark green timber. I figure that he was likely already bedded as his bugles sounded "sleepy" and lazy. It's nearly impossible to get a bull out of his mid-morning bed . . . and even more difficult to get a bull to cross a steep canyon in 70 degree sunny weather (and rising). We had nothing to lose.
Knowing that Matt would start calling if I stopped, I decided to let the bulls curiosity grow. After a minute, Matt started calling and I started chiming in with my own mix of "herd talk" (cows, calves and excited cow mews). The bull continued to bugle at us from his bed, but he never got very excited. I knew that I'd really have to start pushing his buttons to get him up and out of bed, so I let the herd talk die off and went silent. Matt took the que perfectly and also went silent. The bull would typically assume that when the cows go silent, it's because they are on their way to his bugles and he'd be very pleased to keep bugling like a homing beacon. He did just that, so I let him think that. After another 5 minutes of silence, I (and Matt) started in with more herd talk. He responded quickly and I could sense that he was frustrated that "the herd" hadn't moved towards his location At All. After just a few minutes of excited herd talk, I turned up the intensity and threw out my first few bugles of the morning to simulate an excited herd with a bull mixing in with a few hot cows. This would really paint a picture for him that there's a lot of cows on the other side of the canyon . . . and one or more of them are "hot" and that a bull is getting after them. This would be like a teenage boy hearing a rumor of a cute cheerleader flashing everyone on the back of the bus . . . it's time to go investigate! His bugles immediately intensified and I was almost certain that he was on his feet and on the move. Less than a minute after my two bugles, I looked through the trees I was concealed in and could see him in an open park on the far side of the canyon. His stare was fixated on my location. He looked down into the bottom of the canyon, then back at me, then back down at the canyon and back again at me. He was trying to decide if it was worth the effort to hoof it all the way down and back up the canyon to pursue these "cows" that already had an unseen bull with them. I could sense him evaluating the situation and offered one last tease, a long whiny cow mew. With that, he put his head down and started trotting down the canyon at an angle. Ut oh . . . he was angling towards Matt and Dax . . . Not towards me. Elk have an AMAZING ability to detect the exact location of sound. Even from across the canyon, I knew that he'd be able to pinpoint (within 15 yards) the sound of the "hot cows" he was searching for. The first cows he'd check out would be the closest, Matt and Dax. If I didn't move, he'd run right into them before he'd ever get to me. At this point, Matt and Dax hadn't seen the bull step out or start down the opposing canyon wall, but they heard him roll some rocks in the bottom and figured that something was coming in. As I picked up my pack and tried to get on the other side of them, they were both frantically signaling me to sit down and stay still as they could hear something coming. They must have thought I was crazy to keep moving against their direction. I knew what I needed to do, so I pressed on. Unfortunately, I didn't make it. When the bull was about 75 yards away and angling up our side of the canyon, there was a clear sight path from him to me and I was caught out in the open sunlight with the bull headed directly at me. I couldn't move any further as the bull was advancing and I was still 30 yards from Matt and Dax sitting in the shade of some brush on the hillside. I slowly dropped my pack, knocked and arrow and attached my release as the bull quickly trotted up the hill from 50, 40, 30 . . . .
At 30 yards and less than 10 yards directly down hill from my buddies Matt and Dax, the bull stopped. I'd already had my arrow knocked, release attached and bow up at arms length, but I hadn't yet had a chance to draw as he was headed straight at me and I didn't think I could get away with the movement. The late morning thermals were carrying wind steadily up hill, as was the prevailing wind, but he stopped at 30 yards directly downhill of Matt and Dax who were sitting on the uphill side of some very short scrub pine trees. After talking to Matt and Dax, we determined that as Dax was looking at me trying to figure out why I was repositioning, he was also looking back and forth at the general direction of where I was pointing my bow, and the bull saw his head turning back and forth. Matt still hadn't seen the bull, only heard him a few moments prior when he was in the bottom of the canyon. When the bull stopped and turned his head towards Dax, I thought about drawing, but quickly ruled it out as elk have eyes on the sides of their heads leaving them with excellent peripheral vision. I figured he'd see the movement and spook. Dax later told me that when the bull first started looking at him, he started to hold his breath and didn't breath again… The bull soon turned his stare directly at me and locked onto me. I was caught directly in the sunlight with my bow in the air and shaking slightly with adrenaline. I was . . . screwed. I knew that I couldn't draw without being detected, and I knew that the bull was locked onto my bright figure wondering what I was. The situation was hopeless and I knew it. I was only waiting for the game to be up and the bull to turn on his haunches and bound away. He continued to stare at me with a puzzled look and flaring nostrils trying to catch my scent. Without too much thought, I decided that since I was in a losing battle with my current un-drawn position, I really had nothing to lose. I decided that if I didn't draw . . . the bull would eventually catch my own or Dax/Matt's wind and he'd flee to safety. If I DID try to draw, the result would be similar, either way, the bull would run off and my opportunity would be over. Then again, there was a very slight, nearly impossible, chance that I'd get away with drawing my bow as the bull stared directly at me. I had nothing to lose, so I slowly drew my bow straight back with as little motion as physically possible. The bull slightly canted his head to the side in puzzlement, much like a confused puppy. I quickly settled my pin on the part of his chest where his jugular passes through his rib cage and to his lungs. I took one last half breath and released that breath as I squeezed the trigger of my release, reminding myself to follow through and NOT try to watch the arrow. The release of the arrow was a surprise and my follow through was good. I heard an incredibly loud crack as the arrow impacted the lower part of the brisket opening and crashed through into his lungs. He nearly fell over from the impact and wheeled around and scampered back down the hill in the direction that he approached from. After only about 50 yards we heard a loud crash and knew that the bull had fallen and attempted to regain his footing. As soon as he got back on his feet, we could hear the labored breathing and gurgle sounds we knew to be that of a bull with blood in his lungs and esophagus. He only made it another 30 yards before he passed out unconscious and soon thereafter died where he fell in the meadow. In all, he traveled about 80 yards straight down hill and died in less than 2 minutes. We didn't see him go down, so we waited 45 minutes (my personally imposed time limit before recovering shot game) prior to getting on the blood trail. We only went about 10 yards on the blood trail before I looked into the valley below and saw my bull laying on his side and very much dead.
It's been a 5 year quest, to kill my first bull with a bow, my first elk ever . . .
My promise to myself when I started hunting elk was that I wouldn't kill one with a rifle until I took one with a bow. I had no idea, at the time, that it would take so much effort and research. In the end, I (we) did it. The pack out was on our backs and about 3.5 miles each way, about 750 vertical feet up to the saddle and 2,300 vertical feet down to camp. I carried out two hind quarters and scrap meet, Matt and Dax carried out a load of gear and a load of front shoulder and backstraps. I'm extremely grateful for their help and company. It was an experience that I'll never forget.
Matt and Dax as they were sitting when the bull came in. Matt didn't see the bull through those little trees until about 2 seconds before I released. He was so surprised by the sudden appearance of the bull and my release that immediately after, he blurted out "Oh F#*k Yeah!". Matt rarely ever swears, so it completely caught me off guard as I was trying to knock another arrow for a possible follow up shot when I hear "commentating" on the hill side. We repeated the phrase "Whack . . . Oh F#*k Yeah!" multiple times on the pack out and drive home. It was very funny and an even better reminder that I had two friends with me for my first elk . . . and they had literally a front row view.
The bull was bedded in the timber on the far side of the canyon behind this old dead tree in front of me. It took about 25 minutes of various calling sequences before I finally got him up on his feet with two bugles and then some chuckles . . . had to convince him that he was missing out on the fun.
All in all . . . 5 years is a LONG time for someone like me to go without reaching a goal. It made it all the more frustrating that the deer continued to offer themselves up to me each year . . . nearly begging me to kill them with my bow. Elk . . . they are a different animal I have a LOT of respect for them. They are such amazing animals and I feel very fortunate to be among the 10%-er's this year. I hope I can repeat next year. :-)
Thanks for reading.
Congrats Lucky! Your story is like reality 101. I always feel a little bad... but also kind of chuckle when I see first time elk hunters who are positive they are going to kill a bull on their first try. After all if you've mastered whitetail (and turkey) hunting you shouldn't have too much trouble right? :-)
Way to put it together. Congratulations!
Thanks Guys.
Mule Power . . . that's EXACTLY what I had thought . . . I can kill whitetails every year (multiple) with a bow . . . and I'm a heck of a turkey caller . . . so, mix a turkeys eyes, ears and propensity to come to calling with a whitetails nose, instinct and sneakiness . . . add a few hundred pounds and what do you have . . . an ELK! Should be easy right? Past experience hunting ANYTHING in NA doesn't mean a hill of beans from what I have learned, nothing can truly prepare you as a match for the mighty wapiti.
Knowing that, it makes it all the more Glorious to have finally put it together as AZBUGLER said . . . now I just need to keep studying and train harder for next year.
Wait . . . I'm not done yet, I still have an Idaho rifle tag!!! :-)
Persistence pays large dividends, congrats!
Wow, awesome write up! Elk has been on my bucket list since I was a teenager and started hunting deer. That was 10 years ago but, this is some serious motivation to just go! I keep on saying "Next year" and every year here I am living vicariously through guys on this site and in magazines. I actually have started getting back into "fighting" shape training for it but still have a lot of research to do and supplies to buy before I go. Also taking off work is difficult for me, so I have been on and off looking into outfitters to help with the learning curve.
Congrats, Great Story!
Congrats! That first archery elk is an incredible thing! Enjoy it.
Awesome! Congratulations on that first bull!
Congrats on your success & thumbs up for your persistence. Well done!
Congrats! Average is close to 1 every ten years. You only took 5! Sure that includes some tags where guys only get out a couple mornings or never venture more than a few hundred yards from the truck, but it also includes outfitted hunts and hardcore experienced elk hunters.
Thanks for sharing your story - very cool!
Great Job !!! Thanks for sharing you hunt!!
Congrats to you! Great adventure! Mike
Huge congratulations. Thanks for sharing, great story and amazing scenery
congrats Sir,,,,thanks for sharing,,,,,,,I'm still in an off and on quest for my first
Well written buddy. Good job!!!!
Thanks Everyone. I have been reading success stories on this (and other) forum for years . . . hoping some day I'd be able to write my own story.
I could have written until my keyboard started smoking, but figured you all have bulls calling to you . . . ;-)
Good luck to those of you with tags still in your pockets.
I'm buying my ID Elk and Deer tag and going to, scoff, rifle hunt my home state this year. Should be more pics to come. Deer . . . almost a certainty . . . elk . . . we shall see.
Thank you all for reading and the compliments.
