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So backing up to 2014, I’m doing my usual overindulgence in stats and maps that is my October - August daily routine and I’m bouncing a few of my ideas off of some super famous, but top-secret trophy elk hunter who will remain anonymous. Yeah, so, it was Will. Anyways…

I’d narrowed down my choice of units to three units that I felt held what I was looking for in a balance of deer and elk hunting. I’d then scanned the units on GE and topographic maps for dozens upon dozens of hours to find what I was looking for. And there it was: That sort of thing, where you go up to a thing and then all of this and that and it’s the perfect spot for unpressured elk (details omitted so that Will doesn’t kick my ass). I send Will a PM and ask him to look at a certain locale in a certain unit that just looks like it’s exactly what I’m looking for. “You’ve got to be (edited because Will said a bad word) kidding me.” Turns out, it was (one of) his honey holes.

September came and I left SoCal on the evening of the 8th with plans of hunting on the evening of the 9th. It’s always so exciting when you finally start heading to the elk mountains after months of anticipation – the beginning of the highs and lows of elk hunting!

Will and his buddies were based out of a certain area and I wanted to give them room so I set up camp about 45 minutes away near a spot that I’d scouted. Road work ended up making travel from CA longer than expected, so I ended up only having time on the evening of the 9th to quickly climb a cliff near camp and glass the area. I heard and saw nothing.

The next morning, I’d decided to hunt my spot near camp. This was not a place that Will hunts and from my scouting, it was the kind of place you’re looking to hunt in a CO OTC unit for reasons that other people don’t hunt it *wink*. It was a few miles hike to where I wanted to actually hunt and there really was no discernible trail, but the terrain wasn’t too bad and the vegetation wasn’t completely Amazonian most of the way there. I got to my target area a few minutes before sunrise. From my scouting, I knew that there was an area where a creek flattened out and made a sort of swampy-pond off to the side of the creek and although the water was clear as crystal when I was there in June, it just seemed like the kind of spot where a rutting bull elk would like to bathe in his own urine.

I was right. There were bull-sized tracks and the smell of bull elk urine. The water in the swampy parts had been mixed into a mud-urine soup, the kind of mud-urine soup that gets your heart pounding and the hairs on your butt standing on end. That is, if you have hairs on your butt. I don’t.

I put my bugle to my lips and gave out the first locator bugle of the season. The sound echoed off the walls of the canyons for a second and then all was quiet again. I listened. The reply rang out above me like a jet streaking overhead: Tweet tweet, tweet tweet. It was one of those grey medium sized birds that come and hang out 10 yards away while you quarter an animal waiting to peck on the carcass. The only elk sounds were the ones from the imposter. I spent about 20 minutes doing the occasional bugle before deciding to settle in for the day down wind from the mud-urine soup and throw out an occasional splish-splash I’m-a-takin-a-bath and see if someone would come see what my urine smelled like. I was less than 1 hour into my hunt and my deer hunt had officially turned into an elk hunt. I’d made the effort but I wasn’t fooling myself.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Despite hammering that muck with a stick like Moses on a bad day till I had completely hosed myself down with speckles of urine-mud, nothing came in. A few minutes after sunset, I decided to call it quits since I had a pretty good walk back to camp. It was only about 15 minutes into my walk and starting to get darkish, but still well within shooting light, that I rounded a turn and there was a black bear, sitting on his haunches, chewing who-knows-what. He wasn’t a big bear, maybe 2.5 feet tall sitting on his butt hairs. He looked undisturbed and nonchalant looking back at me and continued to chew whatever he had in his mouth.

So all that thought process was probably like 2 seconds. I decide I’m going to shoot this bear. I nock an arrow, but he’s sitting right behind a 4 inch wide pine so I need to move to my side to get a shot. I draw and take a step back which is of course, sideways to the bear. It isn’t enough, I take another step back. I settle my pin on his heart and all the sudden, he gets up and starts galloping towards me. Not a bat-out-of-Hell gallop, but just a gallop. I start yelling at him, “hey, hey, hey, don’t do it!” My warnings went unheeded. I kept expecting him to stop or veer off, but he didn’t. Before I could even finish yelling, he was at 10 yards.

It’s funny, because it all happened so fast, but time slowed down to the point that I was able to consider a few things besides aiming my bow for a shot. First off, I considered the irony of the fact that I hunt Grizz country in Wyoming every year, but here, I was about to get mauled by a 130 lb black bear. And where was this bear’s fear? He “should” be afraid of me. I noted that I had neither bear spray nor side arm along, after all, this was friggen Colorado! The other thing I thought of was my next move after the bear and I made contact; what would be my next move? Could I grapple this little guy with both hands, or should I go for the Havalon?

This may seem odd, as most of you probably would have just kicked him and been done with it, but I’m a pretty slender guy. He was definitely a small bear, but I think that he and I both thought that he could kick my ass. Maybe he was just young and used to deer and elk running from him. But nonetheless, I’m no Hulk Hogan. To give you guys an idea, Bigpizzaman’s forearms are about the same diameter of my thighs. Imagine that Lou Phillippe and Dwight Schuh had an anorexic love child. Wait, don’t imagine that. That’s disgusting. Why would you imagine that? Gross. Get that out of your heads.

The hairs on my… arms, were standing on end. I immediately sat down and I decided to wait ½ hour, which was kinda ridiculous because I could hear exactly where he went. It got dark. I got my headlight out and walked the path he had blazed through the tall grass. Not a drop of blood. I had the entire arrow. There was blood on the broadhead and no blood on the shaft. I thought about it and decided that I knew this bear would live and that following him in the dark was foolish. I took a 90 degree turn to where he went, hit the cliff and side-hilled all the way back, doing my best to avoid his general direction. I honestly believe that every wounded animal should be given a shot at tracking, no matter how dismal the prospects of retrieval. But right or wrong, I decided that this was an exception. The next day, I did do a search of the area that I last heard him and never found a drop of blood. I was able to follow his tracks for quite a ways as he charged through some pretty thick grass and then willow, but I never found even a drop. I don’t know, but I think he’s still alive and I think he’ll run the next time he sees a human. I got back to camp well after dark and fell asleep instantly. For the moment before I fell asleep, I had a good feeling about the hunt.

I decided to glass while the sun rose and go down to where I’d shot the bear after sunrise. I saw nothing which is pretty typical for my style of hunting – the style where you don’t see anything. I went down to where the bear was shot and found nothing. I could follow exactly where he ran, not because of my finely tuned tracking skills, but because it was almost as if someone had taken a bear and shot him in the arm and he’d run like Hell through whatever was in his way and it sorta made a path that Stevie Wonder could follow. After deciding that the bear was alive and I was alive and the elk were all alive, it was clear that the morning hunt was pretty much done so it was decided that I could either go back down into the pit with the urine-mud, or I could head out, eat, and hit up another spot that I’d scouted that Will had also told me held good deer numbers and occasionally some elk.

Eating was done and I was off. A 1200 foot climb was made. Nothing was seen, Ike-hunt-style. I decide to come back in the AM to this same spot since I found some deer poo-of-the-day on the way out.

I arrive at o’dark 30 and make the 1200 foot climb again. As I approached the precipice, the unmistakable sound of a rutting elk bugling his balls off was heard. Access to this spot was difficult. There was a smidgeon of land along the road that was public, but it was a cliff. It accessed another area that was public and bigger, but you had to side hill a pretty sheer face that was pretty jungle-like before you got to the semi-cliff where the elk were. Of course, this was one of Will’s spots, so you could expect to spend some time using 4 legs to get up instead of 2. I wouldn’t describe hunting the places he hunts as “hiking in.” It’s more like “scrambling in” or “crawling in.” On the way up, in the twilight, I bumped a fork horn buck and a doe with fawn. As I approached the top, watching my GPS, a sinking feeling crept in. The elk that was bulging every 2-3 minutes was on private land. I got as close as I dared, about 100 yards inside the public, leaving room for a death run, and set up to try and call the elk in. I estimated the bugling bull to be about 200 yards onto private land.

Elk butt decoy deployed, calls ready, arrow nocked, here we go. I’m about to start calling and out of the corner of my eye, uphill to my left, I see elk brown through the scrub oak. This area had burned several years ago and the oak had grown in a huge swath and was about 4-7 feet high and thick as willow. Along the upper edge, a cow and rag horn were feeding on the oak, picking the leaves off of the ends of the branches like mule deer.

Instantly, my thoughts of the bull on the private land were gone. I would kill either of these elk. The bull was a 3x3, but had legal brow tines and was still in velvet. As I looked uphill, the private was to my right and the elk were feeding to my left. I was directly below the swath of oak which was probably 80 yards deep and 120 yards from my left to right, ending shortly before the private land. The entire area was on a very steep incline. Above the oak was the precipice.

I collapsed the elk butt decoy, got on hands and knees, and crawled to my left to try and cut the cow and raghorn off. I got to the edge of the oak, looked up, and they had turned around and were feeding down the far side that I had just left – dammit! I got to hands and knees again and crawled the 120 yards back. I got up, and the cow was still along the top, but the 3x3 had reversed course and gone all the way back to the left and was probably 60 yards from where I’d turned around. Son of a..

I went back to my knees and crawled back a 3rd time. I peek up and they’re now moving back to my right again and go bed in the direction of the elk that’s on private that’s been bugling every 3 minutes the entire time this has been going on which has only added to the tension of this hunt. After they’re gone, it’s now about 8 or 830 AM. I’m pretty sure I won’t call him in this late, but it’s worth a try. And a try it was. We bugled back and forth for about 30 minutes, then everyone went to sleep; myself included, after a few minutes of glassing.

I nock an arrow and I’m already in good cover that’s waist high, but I never got a chance to replace the rock so I’m standing there, trying to slowly move into position to shoot while avoiding standing in my own poo. The deer are feeding through the aspen. I see antlers. I range the area, 55 yards. They keep feeding in. I follow through my range finder. There is a doe and a buck that is definitely not a fork and you know what that means! Knees a-nockin! The wind is on my left cheek. I’ve already positioned my bow in the firing position and attached my release and ranged a few trees. All I need is for him to look away, feed below the grass, or move his eyes behind a tree. He feeds to a tree I had definitely ranged at 45 yards.

He’s feeding and suddenly looks up. I get a good look at his antlers. He’s a mainframe 3x3 with eye guards. He’s not alarmed, but is looking around. This gives me time to look him over. He’s not a big bodied deer. He has poor mass and his unbranched G2s are about 9 inches long. He’s definitely a 2.5 year old buck. I had decided before this hunt that I would only kill a 3.5 year old buck or bigger as I can kill forks at home for meat. Of course, I’d sorta given up on deer for elk and I thought that I might just kill this deer for meat and hunt over him for bear since I’d decided not to notch my bear tag as I was sure the bear I’d shot had lived. I had a long time to look at him. His eyes went behind the aspen. At one point, he scratched his offside face with his offside hind hoof and I could easily have drawn on him then, but decided to just watch them instead. They fed towards me and angled by, walking 20 yards in front of me, never knowing I was there. After they were out of sight, the meat hunter in me cursed the trophy hunter in me, but such is the debate. From the precipice, I could glass two drainages and that’s where I spent the rest of the day. With 1 hour of shooting light left, I still-hunted down the slope and bumped a doe and spike due to my stealthy still-hunting skills. I slowed down and came upon a cow with a spike in another aspen thicket. They were bedded and I came upon them side hilling. They heard, but did not see me at about 20 yards and stood up suddenly, looking my way. I already had an arrow nocked, but I had no idea they were there before they stood up. The cow was in front and facing me, 20 yards away. An aspen blocked her chest. After a long, tense standoff, she took one step forward and peeked around the aspen. At this point, her chest was out in the open. I thought, “well, I may as well try to draw because this is going to end one way or the other.” I drew back and they blew out of there like a fart in church. The rest of the skid down the mountain was uneventful and I got back to the truck well after dark.

I’d been texting with Will the day prior while glassing as I had some reception up at the top – he’d been having a heck of a hunt thus far as I’m sure you’ve all read. Things were looking good, except for some nasty weather on the horizon. I had high hopes for the next day and had 3 places in mind. My spot from day 1, the same spot from the day prior where I’d seen elk, or another spot that Will had told me about. I don’t like to go to the same spot two days in a row unless I have undisturbed elk patterned. The nice spot that I’d found originally that I mentioned in the opening was where Will and his friends were hunting and I decided not to hunt there as Will was already putting himself out trying to get several other guys an elk and if I went in there, I would only add my own scent which is known to be distasteful to women and elk. I know he would have been fine with me heading over, but I’d been in animals every day and I figured I could give him room.

I decided to go back to where I’d gone the first morning. I woke up 45 minutes earlier so that I could get to the crossing before legal shooting light. This area was basically where one drainage met another. The mud bath I mentioned was near the bifurcation of the two drainages, but the bedding was up the other creek drainage. In the pitch black, I got to where the two creeks met, positioned myself up on the downside cliff to try and get my scent cone out of all 3 valleys, and waited.

About 15 minutes after legal shooting light, I heard the unmistakable sound of a bull elk, but not the typical bugle that you usually hear. I’d heard this sound a few other times, always in pressured areas. It’s hard to describe, but it’s just a short bugle without going into the high pitched sequence and it only lasts about a second. I believe it’s just bulls wanting to bugle, but at the same time, not wanting to bring too much predatory attention to themselves. The bugle came from down valley of where I’d come in and I was surprised they hadn’t winded me when I came in, although they may have and they also could have been a mile away or more when I came in since they were moving the opposite direction I was and I’d gotten in so early.

Where is he? They come through about a 30 yard opening and head back into timber. At this point, they’re 250 yards away and 200 feet below me, heading towards me, but angled to my left about 45 degrees heading for the slope that’s across the drainage from me. Where’s the bull?

He trots through, but on my nearside of the opening. I only catch sight of him for a second. I get a quick glimpse of headgear. He’s a shooter. Of course, for me, that means legal. What I mean is that some of you reading this would shoot him too.

I know where they’re going to bed. I know exactly where they’re going up. There’s only one spot. The rest of it is a cliff. If I can get down there, I can cut them off and they’ll walk right past me. The only problem is, they have to walk up my drainage as they’re coming from downhill and so I have to stay on my side of the drainage or else they’ll scent me.

I get down to the bottom and it’s perfect. I get to an outcropping and I’m 20 feet above the creek behind a boulder that’s directly above the creek. It’s a perfect pinch. The elk are going to come right by me. I could kill anyone of them at 30-40 yards. Here they come. They’re walking on a line and then the unthinkable happens: They turn right and head straight up the friggen cliff. WTF!!! If they’d have just come another 60 yards, it would have been easy to go up the drainage, but no, they have to take the hard way and bypass my ambush. You’ve got to be kidding me. The cows go up and the bull follows.

I decide to call him down. But I know that if I do it right now, right as they bed, that they’re just going to bolt. I’ve spooked enough elk in this scenario that I’ll just never follow them right into bed right as they settle in. I think that the cows know that there weren’t elk around and if all the sudden, elk waltz in right as they go to bed, that they just take off because they know it’s a human. It’s shortly after sunrise right now and the days have been hot. I need to wait till the cows are sleepy and the bull is horny. I sit down and wait. After about 45 minutes, I can’t wait any longer, I know the wind will shift before long, and feel they’ve been up there long enough.

There’s an unmistakable sound when a bull elk decides to go from point A to point B through thick timber as fast as he can do it and it sounds like a huge boulder is rolling down the hill. He’s coming down the mountain, unmistakably, and this is going to happen. At this point, I’ve moved quite a distance away trying to sound like a herd on the move. I thought I had a lot of time because I figured the elk were near the top, but all at once, I can hear that he’s almost on top of me; almost at the opening. They had not bedded up as far as I’d assumed. I sprint back to the opening, nocking an arrow while running, but it’s too late, I can hear him just 20 yards out of sight in the woods. I’m running as fast as I can and I’m completely caught out in the opening except for the thistles and so, without any other choice, I plant my feet in the shooting position, put my bow forward, and duck. I’ve learned to never kneel in rough stuff because then you’re committed and if you can’t see to shoot, you’re screwed. My butt is almost on the ground, my bow is canted, my head is down, and thistles are in my face. He crashes out of the woods and into view, but I’m obscured by the thistles. He stops, about 10 yards inside the opening. He’s 15 yards from me. All I can see are the tops of his antlers out of the corner of my eye. I wait.

He looks around. He’s looking for elk. He chuckles and goes into a bugle from his chuckles. I’m still squatted, pinned in the middle of the meadow. It seems like hours. I’m in the shooting position with my bow forward, but I’m not drawn. But if I stand to shoot, he’ll bust out. He’s facing me. He starts sniffing the ground. He moves around, sniffing the ground like a dog looking for the scent of the elk he thought must be here. He moves sideways, slightly quartering to, but almost broadside, taking one step, sniffing, another step, sniffing. He looks up again and gives out a bugle. He’s 15 yards from me and I can feel my lungs rattle in my chest from the bugle and my ears ring afterwards. I decide that the next time he puts his head down, that’s got to be my chance and hopefully the thistles will block my movement enough. His head goes down and I draw, still squatting. He didn’t see me. He’s still got his nose to the ground. I find my top pin, rise, find the shoulder. I’m looking for the triangle. I find it. I’m in a ½ crouch. My arrow is clearing the thistles and I’m finding a lane. I see the top of the leg now. Straight up the leg. Squeeze.

He lifts his head right at that moment, but it’s too late. The arrow is on its way. He whirls and runs, not up the hill, but along the edge of the embankment, headed downhill. At the end of the opening, 50 yards away, there’s a lip. As he gets to it, I’ve recovered my bugle and give out the poorest replication of a bugle you’ve ever heard in the elk mountains. He stops, looks back, heaves, coughs, and I see a mist of blood spray out of his nose and I know he’s mine. He takes one step and crumbles, stumbling down the lip and out of sight. There’s a crash and then silence. I drop to my knees and the shakes start.

The bull was down sometime after 730. It took me a bit to get on him. I sat and admired him for a bit. I took a few pictures. Then I set about breaking him down. I don’t know exactly what time I finished breaking him down because I didn’t check the time, but I think it was about 1030; it takes me about 2 hours to break down an elk. I moved all the meat 80 yards from the carcass and fortunately, had a nice north facing rock cliff to put the meat on, and started the first trip out.

The problem was that I was 3.25 miles from camp by map. As I broke down the elk, I did the math in my head. 6 round trips is 12 total single trips x 3.25 miles each way meant 39 miles total traveled; with ½ of that distance being weight bearing loads. I knew I couldn’t do that. I also knew that there were a lot of bears in the area, seeing as I’d just shot one in the arm a few days prior not too far from here. To tell you the truth, I usually don’t like to hunt this far in. The unit and spot made it necessary, but I knew that I had Will, who is a badass, who would be more than happy to come help me pack my elk out. He offered as much on more than one occasion. So I pondered that, half intending to call him to help.

I finished breaking the elk down and decided to bone out the shoulders since they go to burger anyways and it doesn’t matter if you hack them up. I generally don’t like to bone out animals because I feel that leaving the bones is a waste. I have 2 Labradors and they will even eat an elk femur. The big bones can be used for soup and there are ultimately a lot of calories and nutrition in the bones. Still, I had to get the trip count down, so with boning out the shoulders, I was able to get the total trips down to 5: Ham, ham, both shoulders, neck meat, head and gear with some trim.

The first trip out, I had my Badlands 2200 so I took out both shoulders because I was able to put most of it inside and a small bag attached to the outside. I came back with my bigger pack next and took out both hams the next two trips. After the 2nd trip out, I was feeling good and still marching full speed. I thought about calling Will, but pride/stupidity got the best of me and I decided to go back in. After the 3rd trip out, I’d done 19.5 miles on the day including the walk in and it was getting dark, around 730 PM. I was pretty damn tired. In fact, I was done, but wouldn’t admit it. I’d been riding high on adrenaline and I’d been sucking down sugary foods to keep my energy up, but I was starting to hurt. I always bring two pairs of boots on any hunt because I like to let one pair dry out for a day and switch. This ended up being key, because I was able to switch back and forth between boots to prevent blistering. Still, when I came out after the 3rd trip, I had a decision to make: I had two trips left. I could a) go back in with more para cord and tie the meat/antlers up better than I had them and come back the next day, b) call Will and have him come help me, or c) just go get it done.

Here’s the thing. If I was going to go back in, I wasn’t coming out without meat or I’d have to sit there and wait for Will. If I was going to call Will, it was already 730ish and I didn’t have cell reception at camp, which would have meant driving a ways to get a hold of Will, then ask him to come help me pack one load of meat in the middle of the night which means waiting for him to drive over and he’d have been getting to bed at midnight and would have screwed his next day’s hunt. Or I could just go back in.

Half way back to the meat with both packs, I started to get the idea that I’d made a mistake. I went from “done” to “really done.” I was still marching full speed, but my energy level was tanking. When I got to the meat, without any extra para cord, I was screwed. It was 845. I looked around at the trees, considering tying everything up, but the area was old growth fir and there were just not any reasonable branches at 20 ft. I looked at what I had and realized I couldn’t get 2 bags of meat and antlers and head high enough into a tree to keep a bear from getting it with my one strand of paracord. I considered making a fire and sleeping with my meat. I’ve slept out in the woods before with nothing but a fire and that was the most miserable night of my life and I didn’t want to repeat that – plus, the forecast called for rain some time in the morning and I knew that if I was out there and it started raining, that it would just be better to fall on an arrow.

So, I loaded up both packs and started hop scotching. I’d go as far as I could, then drop the pack and go back for the other. When I got the rear bag, I’d force myself to pass the forward bag and drop it when I couldn’t go any further. I can’t even begin to explain how tired I was. I kept checking my gps and I wasn’t making any progress due to short trips, 2 back packs, and long rests between. It was late, dark, bears were around, so I sang to let the bears know I was available to eat and to keep my spirits up.

I got to the point that I truly didn’t think I could take another step. I was walking with the heavier load, the neck meat, which is actually a really friggen heavy load if you cut it all out including the rib meat/briscuit, and I tried to stand and just couldn’t. I had to lift the back pack for 15-20 feet at a time till I found a rock high enough to put the pack on so I could back into the pack and walk away. From then on, I would only put that load down in a place that was up high because I couldn’t stand up with it. I checked the gps and I hadn’t even made it half way.

Half way was a big deal when I finally made it, but was also pretty depressing because it seemed like so much work getting both loads that far that it would be impossible to do the next half. I kept telling myself, Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Those are words that have motivated me through a lot in my life and I’ve been on a lot of long trips where it’s been “one foot in front of the next;” the job at hand only one step at a time. One thing I’ve learned is that, until you fall on your face and die, you can always take one more step, so take it. Then worry about the next step. And so it went.

I thought about my kids. I thought about my dad and the hunt in WY that we were going to have. I sang “Old Man” by Neil Young and thought about how my dad had followed me into the WY elk mountains over the past few years with a bum hip. How I’d drug him over dead fall and up mountains with a bone-on-bone hip joint that put some people in wheel chairs. I felt guilty for being such a pussy and more so, for feeling sorry for myself and the last several miles I got my pace back and moved the packs twice as fast as I had the previous few hours.

I got back to camp at 3:43 AM with the last of the meat, 17 minutes from when my alarm was supposed to go off to hunt the next day. I looked at my phone and laughed. I should be going back in there to hunt bear over that carcass. I considered it for an afternoon hunt. Problem was, I knew I couldn’t haul a bear out because my feet were eggs sunny side up. So I slept in. By the map, I’d done 32.5 miles that day. The gps said it was closer to 40, but I don’t trust gps mileage and elevation measurements; I think they overestimate a little.

I woke up just a bit before 9 and tried to move. I then tried to laugh at my stupidity and that hurt too. I was not going to hunt today. I lay there pondering how dumb I was, but a satisfaction came over me because I had my elk in the back of my truck and I didn’t have to go back out there. I grabbed a Cliff Bar, a gallon jug of water, and my bottle of pain pills and consumed all three. Very soon, the sun would creep over the mountain into my freezing-cold crack in the Rockies and my elk meat needed to be somewhere else.

I still had deer and bear tags. I still had 5 days till my dad’s plane landed in SLC where I’d pick him up on the way to WY. I hung my antlers higher than was necessary and was on the road to the meat cutter’s.

The rain started. It came down in buckets. As I drove to the meat cutter, I cursed the rain for making me use my leg to operate the gas pedal instead of using the cruise control because my damn legs were so damn sore. I smiled. I thought about Will. I knew that poor guy was out in this crap right now while I was in a heated truck headed to the meat cutter’s. And afterwards, I would go to the restaurant and have a country skillet with potatoes and eggs and sausage and country gravy. Mmm, country gravy. Best not to text Will about the country gravy, I thought. I sorta felt bad for Will, but I also sorta smiled. Sorry Will. I know you got rained on that day. If I’d have kept you up all night packing elk, you probably wouldn’t have hiked around in the rain all day. But I know that there was no other place you’d rather be than under that tree anyways.

I got back to camp early-afternoon with a 6er of IPA. Usually I don’t drink in elk camp, but I was hoping to help my pain meds work better and I knew I had some time on my hands. It was partially cloudy and I decided to hang out in camp and put up a ground blind not far from camp where I’d found a good deer trail coming off a cliff along a small drainage. After a couple of IPAs, I decided I may as well shoot my bow a little because I believe in the virtues of combining drugs, alcohol, and shooting sports and by this point in the hunt, I was full of good ideas. My shot was dead on. While shooting, a guy came down the road in a side-by-side ATV with blaze orange on. He was hunting bear with a ML. We got to talking and he was the son of a land owner up on one of the nearby ridges. I showed him my elk and when I told him where I got it, he was pretty surprised. His dad later told me that “no one hunts down there.” For good reason: there was no way to get an elk out of there except on your back and only crazies like me would consider it.

I told him I still had a deer tag and he offered to let me hunt his 540 acres. I went up and met his dad, also a really nice guy, and he gave me a tour of the property. It was getting late in the season now and the bucks had long since shed their velvet. He told me that before they shed, that he had good buck numbers on the property, but they disappeared after they shed. His dad ended up driving me around the property in the side-by-side and showed me all the boundaries. I checked out the property and decided on a spot for a blind and spot to glass for spot and stalk. It turns out, this guy reads Bowsite and saw my elk on the meatpole a few days later. He and his dad were both great guys. Often times, when people out of state see my California license plates, they’re suspicious and sometimes downright rude. But these two were as nice and hospitable as anyone I’d ever met.

I parked off the road next to the gate. This was odd for me because I’d never hunted private land before in my life. Believe me, I’ve tried! But in Southern California, my attempts to get private land access have always been responded to with either “no” or “hell no!” I felt odd, like I needed to get my truck farther off the road and out of sight and had to tell myself it was ok, that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I climbed to the property’s high point and sat down to wait for first light. It started to rain a little so I parked my rear end under a juniper and watched the sunrise.

Back to the spot with the 1200 ft climb. Boots hit cliff obnoxiously early so that I can be to the top before legal shooting light. I’m getting to know the climb better and know where not to go so I don’t have to walk through the worst of it. This climb would be so much easier if I could walk on private land. It’s amazing how all the flat stuff is private and no one owns the cliffs.

I no longer have an elk tag in my pocket, so the hunt has once again turned to mule deer and bear. I get to the same glassing spot and watch the sun light up my view. No deer to be seen. All the sudden, from behind me, a bugle rips through the silence not 100 yards away. Scared the chit out of me. I recognize this bugle. I’ve heard it 100 times from my hands and knees. It’s him. I don’t have a tag, but I’m going to check him out.

I crawl to the edge of cover that I’m in and see a cow and spike, presumably the two that I had the stare down with a few days ago, heading over to the same north slope with the aspen grove. Close in tow is the bull, but I can’t see him yet. What I do see, is an aspen, about 15 feet tall and 5 inches in diameter enjoying the last roller coaster ride of its life. I decide that since nothing is going on in the deer department, that I might as well stalk this elk for the heck of it. I leave my bow, pack, and glass and quickly close the distance to 40 yards. At 40, he’s still giving this aspen the ol’ in-out in-out, but I haven’t gotten a visual on brown or antler. There’s a lot of cover, so I work my way around brush and I’m soon at 20 yards. There’s still a lot of aspen and brush between the two of us so I really can’t see him; I can just see the tops of the aspen dancing. I try to move closer and a good sized stick under my foot cracks. Of course, this was between plays from scrimmage and the whistle is blown. The gig is up. I’m frozen in one of those “oh chit” stances where I was trying to take a step and got caught so I’m in an awkward position and I lose my balance and fall with complete lack of grace onto a bush. Crash! He’s out of here. Without regard to small sticks lacerating my skin, I try to get a glimpse of the bull as he thunders off. I saw some brown and part of one antler. It was big. Bigger than anything I’ve ever shot, although I didn’t see enough to put an inch estimation on him.

Back on the private. I’ve brought a ground blind and I’m going to set up in the only drainage on this land where it runs into the cliff where the deer bed. The best way up is past my blind and the sign proves it. I put my blind in some oak scrub and the shots are 20-40 yards. Now all I need is a 250 inch atypical mule deer to walk through my shooting lane.

That didn’t happen. In fact, I saw no deer. I did hear an elk bugle off across the far valley on another ranch’s property, but that was the extent of my wildlife encounters on this morning. So I pack up and walk out. Into town for a shower and meal. I’m back for an afternoon hunt, but where do I go? I had a few spots I knew of. Making the climb again was pointless for the afternoon. Did I want to spend another afternoon sitting the carcass? It hadn’t even been touched. I decided to put my ground blind on the spot with the deer path coming off the cliff by camp. I actually had two deer come by, but I had positioned the blind for the late evening hours when the wind shifted and it hadn’t yet when they came in and they blew out like a firm loogie behind a hearty sneeze. I never saw them, but I know it was two mule deer because if there’s one thing I know about hunting, it’s what the sound that busted deer make. I’ve got that one down.

It’s my last day. I’m going to leave at dark and drive till I get too tried to drive anymore, then sleep in the truck and finish the drive the SLC to pick up my dad at the airport. I decide to go to a new spot since I’ve not seen any good bucks. I had another area scouted that Will had told me about. At o’dark 30, I have to cross a river then climb a cliff. At legal shooting light, I’m to my approximate destination and end up seeing/hearing nothing. Back down, meal in town, and I’m back to the bear carcass by 3 PM. And it’s gone. I mean gone. Not even bones. It was completely gone. A few years prior, I’d seen a grizz drag my elk carcass a ways, so I circled around a bit with an arrow nocked till my courage ran out, but I never found a thing. Amazing. It didn’t get touched for 2 days and then in two day’s time had evaporated.

Oh well, at least I didn’t have to pick up my meat at a late hour. The meat cutter had a shop next to his house and said I was good to pick it up whenever, but I felt better getting there at a reasonable hour which then allowed me to get a good meal before getting on the road. I slept somewhere in the badlands of southern Utah and got into town early enough to drop my antlers off at a taxidermist and take a shower at a truck stop before picking up my dad. From there it was north to Wyoming. We had new dreams and leftover tags. I’d hoped we’d have made it to our destination early enough to hunt the morning, but that was not the case. We rolled in around midnight and decided to sleep in the truck and organize in the morning.

We’d gotten in pretty late and the unit we had tags in really didn’t have any good hunting options for hunting near the road. We had breakfast, packed our stuff in our packs and began the trip in. It was a couple miles into camp. We camped against a cliff right around the corner from a drainage to keep our scent from going up into it with the thermals. The plan, as is typical for our spike camps, was two nights at this spot, then back out. The day was taken up packing in, setting up camp, filtering water, etc. We did find some fresh sign. We glassed the evening till dark, but saw nothing.

We were up and on our way into the drainage before first light. It was damn cold with the morning thermals bringing air down from the high country from well above tree line. We’d climbed about 800 ft of elevation when first light appeared. We stopped and I ripped off a locator. Nothing. Bummer. If we hiked all day, we would barely get out of this drainage so if there were no elk here, this part of the hunt would be a wash. We hiked on.

We hiked another 10 minutes and stopped for a breather and a locator again. No response. We’d had fresh sign so we assumed there were elk in the area, but with 2 locators that definitely lit up the entire drainage and no response, things weren’t looking good. After a couple minutes, we were climbing again. Another 10 or 15 minutes later and it was time to bugle again. Seeing as this was a leftover/general zone and high pressure by WY standards and I’d had so much success with that short bugle the year prior in another high pressure leftover/general unit and had gotten a response in CO with it, I figured I’d try that bugle instead. A quick wimpy low pitched bugle and we got a ½ hearted locator from up on the ridge, far above us to the left. Game on.

The bull was at least 400 yards away from us on a small lip off the ridge, but it was a cliff to get there through nasty stuff, so getting up there would have been pretty rough. I traded bugles of increasing intensity with the bull with raking mixed in for a few minutes till he was finally responding with full sequence bugles, but he was staying put, announcing he was king of the mountain from his perch. Time for a change in plans. The ol’ kicking rocks, breaking sticks, and herd talk while moving away routine. It worked. Luckily for us, the cows were all down in the ag fields and the mature bulls were wisely hanging out where they were less accessible so they were without herds. I’m making herd sounds and the bull starts down the mountain. Even from 300 yards away I could hear him crashing through the woods.

So we’re setting up. There’s a nice log at waist height to stand behind right at the bottom of the drainage so I have my dad stand there and I move up the other side of the drainage about 50 yards away. When I get there, I make a few more cow sounds and a spike bugle. The bull keeps coming in. It took a long time, but he’s coming straight for us. I set up behind some trees where I can’t see my dad just below me, but I can see the semi-open area the bull is going to come into that is full of waist-high brush; ferns, those bushes with the little oval leaves that turn yellow, etc.

He gets close and, oh man, it’s not a bull elk. It’s two bull elk! No wonder it was so loud. The front one is a 5x5, probably a 240 inch bull. The 2nd elk was a legit 310 inch 6x6. They pop out 90 yards or so beyond my dad. I’m pumped. It’s finally going to go down. Three years elk hunting with my dad, all the opportunities, all the encounters, all the things that went wrong, but finally, on the first day of our hunt, he’s going to get a shot. I sit there waiting for the “pop – thock.”

I know my dad. Even though the 2nd one is bigger, he’s not going to notice that and he’s going to shoot the first one. I don’t care, but when the first one starts angling to our right, I’m worried it’s going to be a long shot. The bull stops for a few seconds, then moves on down, crosses the bottom of the drainage and heads up above me to my right. The second elk does the same thing and is about 30 or 40 yards behind the first elk and I’m just waiting to hear the shot. But it never comes. What happened? Why didn’t he shoot? As I’m thinking this, the elk walk right past me. I already have an arrow nocked. The smaller elk angles down closer to me while the bigger elk takes a left and there’s not going to be a shot on him. The smaller elk catches me somewhat by surprise because I thought they were going to be thundering off after a shot from my dad so I didn’t turn to my right for a shot. The bull walks past at 25 yards, angled sharply above me. I had to turn my body to the right to shoot, which he saw. I turned and drew in once sequence. Pin on the heart, squeeze.

Right as I shot, he bolted. Coupled with the fact that my “25 yard shot” was really 33 yards (angle mod and underestimation) and my low shot hugging the bottom of the triangle like I like to, I missed low as he jumped the log in front of him. Both elk bolt. I stopped the bigger one at 100 yards with some cow calls, but it was just postponing the inevitable.

I meet up with my dad and asked what happened. “They walked by at 70 yards.” I’d known it was going to be a longer shot, but I figured it was less than 50. I’m proud of my dad for passing up both those elk. He has a 70 yard pin, but that’s beyond his effective range. It was the right thing to do. We know the morning hunt is pretty much done, but we walk on further since it was so early and throw out more locators up the valley, but hear nothing. We retreat back to camp, eat, and take a nap. For the evening, we head back into the same area, but hear nothing.

Since we’ve pressured this drainage so hard and probably the only two bulls in it saw humans, we figured we’d move further. We wake up extra early and hike past the width of this drainage, which is a good mile wide down where we’re camping, and head around the far point to the next drainage. We climb up in the early hours of the morning and after reaching a lip with a park in front of us, I throw out a locator. Nothing. It’s been a long walk and it’s already 60 minutes past legal shooting light and we decide to rest for a few minutes since we just did a mad scramble straight up a long incline. I throw out some cow estrus calls and we sit down behind the lip.

It’s been a good 3 minutes and we’re just about to get up to continue the hike and a bull bugles right over the lip from us, I mean, he’s right on top of us. I can’t believe it, a bull came into the cow calls and we’re not ready. Fortunately, we have cover from the hill and my dad nocks an arrow. He peeps over the hill, ducks back down, draws in a crouch, then stands up, aims, and releases. “pop – thwack!” Yes! Dad is nocking another arrow, I scramble up and peak over and see a bull running away. My Temptress is in my mouth and I give out the “cow-giving-birth” call. He stops and looks back. My range finder is up to my eye. I call out to my dad “83 yards,” but the arrow is away while I’m saying it. It just misses low dead on to the heart, grazing fur. The bull runs up to the top of the park, about 180 yards away. This time I give out a round of “cow-with-bad-constipation-and-a-wasp-stuck-in-its-throat” calls and he slows down and looks back before going out of sight. I’m thinking “Die die die, please die!” But he walks into the woods. I note the spot, check the time, then go over to my dad.

I note that I didn’t see the shot, but I heard a shot and impact. It sounded a bit like a shoulder blade hit, but I definitely heard an impact. My dad relates the story, so I have him stay standing right where he took the shot. I go over to where the elk was. It’s obvious where the bull took off because there’s 4 hoof marks dug into the ground where he took off. I range my dad: 30 yards. In a loud whisper, I force a whisper back as loud as I dare, “30 yards.” My dad gives me the “I can’t hear you” look, which is him turning his head to his side, as if he can hear better with that ear. He can’t.

Turns out, my dad was using brand new arrows and an almost brand new string. The nock had popped off at the shot and even though he’d taken a 30 yard shot on a 30 yard elk, the nock popping off had deflected the arrow enough that it was a clean miss. We were pretty bummed. We’ve had a lot of close encounters trying to get my dad a bull over the past few years, but something always seems to happen. If it isn’t stepping on a stick or the bull going right around him, which has happened too many times, then it’s a damn nock popping off and messing up a chip shot.

So we went my way. And we got cliffed out on sand stone in absolute sheep country. At one point, I looked back at my dad inching his way down with his trekking pole and he gave me the look of, “yes, we should have gone my way, but it’s alright. This is nothing like that 3 miles of chest-high deadfall you drug me through last year before I got my hip replaced.” At least that’s what I interpreted the look to mean. He was actually a great sport about it as he always is. We should have gone his way and I told him that, but he never played it up. And I sure would have. If you’d have seen what we had to go down, you’d have probably never let me hear the end of it. It was a real avalanche chute. Near the bottom, we had to walk down about 80 yards of scree and it was really crappy scree. Near the bottom, my dad took a pretty bad tumble into the ditch and broke his quiver. “Well good, now you can justify buying a Tight Spot,” I told him.

We’re accessing a drainage that’s off the road that is an absolute cliff of a drainage. It was a real Will Towle hunt, but in this unit, that’s the only place there was going to be any elk this close to the road. We climbed and bugled and climbed and bugled. There were no elk that close to the road.

So, another bite in town and a shower. We needed to move across the unit to an area where there were new possibilities. We got there early afternoon, but there was no hunt to be had in the afternoon. We had some beers and sat in the shade of some cottonwoods as it was hotter than hell. There were no trees at the trailhead so we had to go down the road and post up by the river on the road to get out of the sun. The local rancher drove by and stopped to chat with us. He was a really nice guy. He also told us about the ½ dozen grizz that he was seeing every morning in his oat fields that were leaving every morning after sunrise and going up the drainage that we were planning on going up. No problem! We’re going before sunrise, we’ll beat them up there!

“Stay here, I’m going to run and see where the go up.” I left my bow with my dad and took off on a mad dash up and down the small drainages coming off the cliff to stay on public land so that I could get around the corner and see where they were going. There were two different places to go up and I wanted to know for tomorrow where the right place to be was for an ambush. I rounded the biggest point about 10 minutes later just as they disappeared up the closer drainage, which was the smallest of the two and never a place I considered hunting. I got good glass on the herd. I counted 20 cows/calves to the head. There were two bulls. I was looking at them through 8s about ½-3/4 mile away so it was tough to judge, but the small one was about 3 cows back from the lead as they walked and looked to be a 5x5. Oddly, he was doing all the bugling and the big bull was silent. The big bull was obviously a 6x6 with big swords. He walked in the back of the herd and if a cow or calf slacked off and he caught up to them, he horned them in the rear end.

We got up into the drainage and climbed a very sheer area to get into the closest spot that had some north facing bedding. We climbed over the lip and set up to call. My dad nocked an arrow, then noticed he didn’t have his release attached to his bow. His hunt was done. Nothing responded to the first bugle, so I told him to just hang back as there was no reason for him to climb into the next draw. I walked in, it was still early, around 7. I wanted to get over the next lip before I did a locator and before I get there, I cross a huge pile of grizz poo. It’s solid oats and it’s steaming. I had to do it, I put my finger on, then into it. It was not cold on the outside and warm on the inside. The entire thing was hot, even the outside. This was fresh-baked grizz poo. I wondered if the elk would hang with the grizz – doubtful. I walked on. I only needed to get another 100 yards where I’d round the lip and be into a new drainage.

Size 12 boot.

We have a plan. We know exactly where we’re going. We’re going to intercept elk that are coming up from the ag field. We’re going to be sitting in the crack where they came up on the side of the cliff and rain fire down on the unexpecting herd. Talk of doubling up happened. We got up extra early. The GPS and the rancher’s barbed-wire fence agreed exactly where the property line was and we followed the fence 1 yard into public land all the way across two miles of sage. When the GPS said it was time, we hung a left towards the mountain and followed a drainage up and found what we were looking for, the perfect ambush. Now all we needed was a herd of elk to walk up here. We waited in the dark. As the very first light of morning came, my 8s scanned back and forth. Where’s the herd? I kept looking. It didn’t take till sunrise to realize that the elk were not here and weren’t following the script.

We had two options: We could turn towards the mountains and head in and try to find them. The problem was, I already knew where they were bedding. It was a good two miles up the drainage where it turned and there was a big north facing slope. If we killed an elk in there, we’d have 4 miles to the truck in grizz country and after last week, I knew that this was a bad idea. We talked it over and decided to pack in. There was a better way to get to the bedding area and that was going up an established trail on the drainage over and not walking over all the crap we’d just clamored over to get here.

Back to the truck. Showers, a meal in town. There was nothing to hunt that evening so we got our packs ready and got to bed early.

We were up early and on our way with full packs. Up the drainage next to where we were headed, it was easy, till we got to the switch backs about 1.5 miles in. Before we started up the switch backs, my dad took a downwind break. After he got back, we hit the switchbacks and climbed. And climbed. It sucks climbing straight up with full packs. As the sun came up, we had climbed an entire mountain and before rounding the corner into the next drainage, I wanted to camp out on the lip to keep our scent out of the drainage we would be hunting, so we started looking for a spot to camp that was flat enough for a 2-man tent. We found a general area that was sorta flat so we dropped our packs to look around. Before we could start looking around, my dad has this “oh chit” look on his face and is looking through his stuff, looking around on the ground. Obviously, something is gone.

“I lost my bear spray.”

“Oh, crap.”

“It probably fell out of my pack when I took a crap at the bottom of the mountain.”

“Oh, crap.”

“I’ll go get it.”

“No dad, it only makes sense for me to go get it.”

I get back up top and we move on as there’s no good place to camp here. We move about another 200 yards up and are about to drop the packs again when all the sudden, up above us about 300 yards, I spot a bull. I snort at my dad to freeze, but he’s already seen us. This is a south facing slope and there’s not much on it besides sage and some juniper. We can’t believe it. Here we are, late morning – it’s gotta be 830, maybe 9. And there’s a bull walking a south facing slope.

“Do you believe that?”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Where’d he come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s so late, what’s he doing climbing up here so late?”

Again, I hiss at my dad to freeze. He can’t hear me; he can never hear me. The thermals are going up the hot southern face now with some movement and the wind is a bit loud. “Freeze!” He freezes and I nod my head in the direction of the bull which is still heading our way, quickly closing the distance. Holy crap, this is happening again – bulls are wandering out of nowhere in the middle of the day.

Foomp. The elk butt opens and we’re both behind it, but the bull saw the movement of the decoy deploying and he’s zeroed in on us. He’s about 100 yards away. My dad is behind me as we’d shimmied together as I deployed the decoy and he’s nocking an arrow behind the blind. The bull is not sure what’s going on. My Temptress is around my neck and I give out a cow call. He just stands there. Then he starts walking up, but quartered to. He’s getting closer, but the window is closing because he’s not coming to us. Every time I give out a cow call, he stops for a second, then resumes the same route which is going to put him 50 yards away, but there’s an outcropping of rocks that’s on our same elevation so when he gets into shooting range, we won’t have a shot.

To make it even worse, it took him about 2 minutes to do the entire climb up and over the top. We decided to follow and go back to our original plan and get over the top and try and call the first bull up (or the 2nd bull) and it took us half-an-hour to get up there. The bull did the same distance in literally 2, maybe 3 minutes. This is why we use bows, cause we sure as Hell can’t run em down!

We found a spot for camp and set up, gathered some dead sage and juniper for a fire, and set up for an evening hunt. Perhaps the elk would come back down this way? Unlikely, but we found the two best ways for them to come down and one of us posted up in each of them. After dark, we met back at camp.

The picture is from near the top after we'd decided that they'd given us the slip.

The elk decided to go elsewhere – we didn’t see anything. The mid-day was spent taking a nap. The other side of the mountain was north facing and had nice bedding so what we decided for the evening, since it was a long way around and into a hole, that my dad would post up in one of the escape routes/chutes, and I would sidehill around the mountain and hunt the north-facing bedding once the winds shifted down on the north side. I got to the far south rim and waited on the sun and wind.

After the sun set, the wind took a shift from up the bedding to down. I was around the other side of the mountain now, going up an east-west facing drainage. The whole idea was that I’d either call elk down or push them up and over into my dad who was waiting in the escape route on the south side of the mountain. As I got into the drainage, there was elk sign everywhere. Every tree less than 6 inches in diameter was scraped clean of any bark between 6 inches to 6 feet off the ground. I worked my way into the center of the drainage and called, but got no response. At that point, I worked my way up the drainage hoping to push elk into my dad, but I never saw or heard a thing. I got back well after dark and neither of us had seen or heard any elk.

On the way back, I noticed that the moon seemed to be getting smaller. We had no idea it was coming, but over the campfire that night, we watched a complete eclipse of the moon.

We knew that on at least two of the three days we’d been at this spot, that the elk had come up from the ag fields to bed in the mountains. We decided to try and ambush them again as they came back up. From what we’d learned from walking the mountain, there were basically two areas they could come up. Both areas had two pinch points that had impassable cliffs on each side. I offered my dad the one that was closest to camp and I took the 2nd one. Well before first light, we were in position.

I had about a ½ mile walk to my spot. It was on the far side of the mountain and my dad was essentially right in the middle. My spot was out on a little finger that would allow me to glass and maneuver back against the mountain and to my right or left depending on which way the elk came. First light came and I couldn’t see any elk from the ag field 1500 ft below and 2 miles away all the way up to where I was, nor could I see any elk across the canyon to my left that I could glass from my perch. Only a few minutes after sunrise, I knew my spot was a bust so I decided to move in the direction of the bedding I’d been in the night prior.

The last I saw him, I’d crawled well into the area in front of the lip and had spotted his antlers through some sage sill bobbing left and right as he fed. I was sure I was out of sight and there was enough wind, which was quartered to me, that I could belly crawl then crawl on hands-and-knees to the lip. After the crawl was done, I slowly peeked up through a sage at the edge of the lip. He was gone. Had he heard me? Had he seen me? I know he hadn’t winded me. I didn’t think it was possible for him to hear me with the stiff wind I now had, coming up the south-facing slope and across the saddle we were in.

To my right was a steep and narrow drainage into the creek bed below, which was down about 200 feet. To my left, was a north facing bowl that was probably 200x200 yards and wooded. I looked to my right off the edge and didn’t see him. I looked to the left, but it was deep timber. So I decided to throw out a locator into the timber: nothing. I waited a couple minutes and tried making herd noise. I tried estrus calls: nothing. What the Hell, where’d he go? I guessed that he’d seen me and was ½ mile away by now. I got to the high point in the lip and sat down to glass. I glassed for a good 5 minutes and didn’t see a thing.

He was marching up with determination, straight for me. I’m concealed by the lip of the drainage and he’s got to come up a 45 degree angle to get to me. He gives out a bugle and I know he’s committed. Trouble is, if he comes over right where I’m at, I’m going to have a 2 yard shot so I backed down the lip about 10 yards and out of view, preparing for a frontal shot. About the time I expect him to come over the lip, I draw and hold. And I hold. And I hold. Where is he?

About the time I need to draw down, I hear a full sequence bugle and can tell that he’s stopped short in the drainage. I crawl up to the thickest sage on top and peer through. He’s directly below me, maybe 50 yards. I back down a bit and come back up a foot to my right so I can range him, crawling with my range finder in front of me. Click, 41 yards. I back down again, crouch, draw, and stand to shoot him. No dice, there’s a dead snag covering his vitals on my side of the drainage and my arrow just might hit the top of the burm – I’m not high enough. I inch forward at full draw maybe 6 inches and he catches movement. He takes a few quick steps forward which really doesn’t get him any farther away from me since he’s broadside and I give out a cow bark with the diaphragm in my mouth and he stops right out in the open. 45 yard pin right on the top of the bone, straight up the leg. You should have run. Now you die. Squeeze.

The arrow sailed just under his armpit, missing leg and shoulder by no more than an inch. I was in such shock that I didn’t even stop the elk till he’d run quite a ways. He’s running on a 90 degree angle from me because to his right or left is straight up a cliff. He finally stops when I give out the cow-giving-birth call and looks back for a second. I range him at 88 yards – a shot I won’t take. I expected him to turn and run off, but he just stands there, barking at me. He barked probably 20 times but there was no way for me to get closer so I just waited till the inevitable turn and saunter off happened.

What happened? How’d I miss? He was at 41 yards, broadside. That’s not a difficult shot for me. I pull my range finder to my eyes and find the area he was standing. 66 yards. Wait, what? I range again and again the entire area, 65, 66 yards. Then I realize it. I range the snag – 41 yards. The electronics are only as good as the idiot operating them.

I go down and recover my arrow. There’s brown hair on the sage above it. No blood on the broadhead or shaft. I missed by that much. Time to head back to dad.

Dad didn’t see anything. I tell dad the story and we both regret him not coming with that morning. He’d have probably arrowed that bull as I could have sat back and called him right into him. We talk it over. We have one day left in the hunt, but we decide to pack up. We’ve pressured this area a bunch and odds of seeing another bull here are low. I was done. I missed my kids. We were both tired, but satisfied. Time to head home.

-Ike

The bull was officially measured by the Pope & Young Club at 264 5/8ths inches net (270 3/8ths inches gross).

I struggled with telling the story of wounding the bear. Originally, I’d considered omitting that part of the story. In fact, I never told Will that I’d wounded a bear. I’ve read other stories where folks have told about wounded/unrecovered animals and I thank them for having the courage to set the precedent to do that which encouraged me to do the same and tell the whole story, as it’s part of the story. Still, it’s not an easy thing to do.

I would discourage anyone from taking a frontal shot on a bear that is on all 4s. An elk has a spot that is almost 90 degrees from the shooter that makes up the frontal shot target. That’s not really the case with a bear on all 4s. The target slants away from you a bit more and is very small. In the end, I believe I took this shot more so in self-defense, even though I’d planned on shooting him for meat. Still, I don’t think it’s the shot to take on a bear.

I realized the shooting mistake I’d made right as I released the arrow on that bear. When I made those two steps backwards to obtain a shooting lane, in order to hold my bow in let-off more securely and not draw down, I’d extended my wrist and the grip sat in the web space between my thumb and index finger, which of course torqued my bow when I fired, sending the arrow wide into his front leg. You can be the best shooter in the world, but when you release that one arrow on an animal, if your form isn’t perfect on that one arrow, you’re going to miss.

Thanks for sharing Iddy---

Good luck, Robb

I had to share some of your story with those around me in an attempt to explain my outbursts of laughter. I think that I'll forever think of you as "the love child"!

Thanks for sharing......

Joe

I had the same deal with my Dad . Lots of blown chances. Lots. But then it all clicked and he killed 4 in a row. And a couple of big ones. It will happen this year. Best of luck and enjoy the time In the field with your Dad. Hunt

ElkNut1

FWIW, I'd shot that bear too. And, never lost a second if sleep about it.

You did a great job of writing this. My wife now thinks there is something wrong with me. I laughed out loud, belly laughs at that, all through this thread. Good stuff.

God Bless

Well done.

I had the same deal with my Dad . Lots of blown chances. Lots. But then it all clicked and he killed 4 in a row. And a couple of big ones. It will happen this year. Best of luck and enjoy the time In the field with your Dad. Hunt

Best Wishes, Jeff

Congratulations.

Hoosier, to answer your question, I don't really know. More than 5 and less than 10 I'd say.

Great write up Ike. Congrats on the solo CO bull and the WY adventure with your dad!

Do not drink anything that you don't want to clean off of your monitor. Ike has a way with words.

" I settle my pin on his heart and all the sudden, he gets up and starts galloping towards me. Not a bat-out-of-Hell gallop, but just a gallop. I start yelling at him, “hey, hey, hey, don’t do it!” My warnings went unheeded. I kept expecting him to stop or veer off, but he didn’t. Before I could even finish yelling, he was at 10 yards.

It’s funny, because it all happened so fast, but time slowed down to the point that I was able to consider a few things besides aiming my bow for a shot. First off, I considered the irony of the fact that I hunt Grizz country in Wyoming every year, but here, I was about to get mauled by a 130 lb black bear. And where was this bear’s fear? He “should” be afraid of me. I noted that I had neither bear spray nor side arm along, after all, this was friggen Colorado! The other thing I thought of was my next move after the bear and I made contact; what would be my next move? Could I grapple this little guy with both hands, or should I go for the Havalon?

This may seem odd, as most of you probably would have just kicked him and been done with it, but I’m a pretty slender guy. He was definitely a small bear, but I think that he and I both thought that he could kick my ass. Maybe he was just young and used to deer and elk running from him. But nonetheless, I’m no Hulk Hogan. To give you guys an idea, Bigpizzaman’s forearms are about the same diameter of my thighs. Imagine that Lou Phillippe and Dwight Schuh had an anorexic love child. Wait, don’t imagine that. That’s disgusting. Why would you imagine that? Gross. Get that out of your heads. "

Great imagery while ready....especially the pain part and hopscotching the loads...

This is one of the most entertaining things I've ever read on Bowsite! Even though I was out hunting and was running the battery down to very low levels while reading it, I couldn't stop myself until I finished. Outstanding job of writing and hunting!!

Marvin

Inspiration to keep us going until next September

Im kidding. Kind of.