This is a rewrite of my 2018 thread, "A Bowsite Story". If you remember the thread, I hope you enjoy this reflection, and if you don't remember the thread, then enjoy the bowsite story of a kid's first elk hunt.
It turns out the post was made by Eric Bachofner, a guy from Montana that, little to my knowledge, was quite the adventure bowhunter himself. My dad got a call to make sure it was alright if I was sent the bow, and before long the conversation changed to discussing Mountain Goats. My dad had previously made me a deal that if I managed to get a scholarship that covered all my college expenses, I could go on whatever adventure hunt I wanted. One lucky ACT Test later and I was booking my first “adventure trip” to British Columbia to chase goats with Dustin Roe. As it turns out, Eric had quite the history with goats, killing the #2 archery goat in Montana a couple of years prior. The recurve giveaway soon turned into a connection, and after swinging by Kalispell to show off my (unfortunately, rifle killed) goat the following fall, the connection turned into a friendship. Eric and I continued to stay in touch through my senior year of high school, swapping trophy pics and hunting stories as we would accumulate them. The spring of 2018, after we had discussed last season’s trips and were discussing plans for the 2018 season, I got a text that changed that year’s plans altogether.
“You mentioned that you were gonna try and line up an elk or muley hunt this fall, is that still in the cards? If you can get a general elk tag in MT and get up here for a hunt I’d be happy to take you.” After years of sitting in a treestand daydreaming of screaming bulls, that message was all the arm-twisting I needed. A week later and I was in the drawing for a MT elk tag.
That summer’s tag lottery soon shrunk the window for my elk hunt. Eric ended up drawing the best Muley tag in the state, and both his dad and his brother drew the best Elk tag in the state. The hunting window for my general tag was beginning to shrink, for all the best reasons. We planned a small window between his muley hunt and his dad’s elk hunt and the countdown began. Let’s just say this summer crept by pretty slowly after I got a package from Montana FWP in the mail that was physical proof that I would be chasing elk that fall. Countless hours were spent hiking the steepest hills I could find in MO, and countless arrows were flung into targets, I was feeling confident and the anticipation was building.
The next morning I woke up and departed for Bozeman. 20 minutes after I left the hotel, on only the second day of mule deer season, I got a picture message. Eric had filled his muley tag on the first day of season and it was a giant. Well, the trip took a turn as I unfortunately wouldn’t be tagging along on a muley hunt, but it widened the window for me to have a bow in my hand chasing elk. After a beautiful trip across Wyoming, I had officially hit the mountains and rolled into Bozeman, Montana. I had a few free hours before dark and managed to stop at a few stores and enjoy the town of Bozeman, a great town to stretch the legs in after over 20 hours of driving.
The next day I made the drive of a lifetime north out of Bozeman, taking the slow way up to Kalispell and enjoying the landscape of rural Montana. I spent the third night in Kalispell and woke up ready to meet Eric and discuss the adventure that lay ahead. I sat down to some Biscuits and Bison Gravy at the coolest hotel I’ve ever seen whenever I got a text that read “Better eat a good breakfast, crossfit at noon.” Well, that’s certainly one way to get acclimated! We met at the local crossfit gym, and after storming full speed through the first leg of the workout, the altitude hit me. I was smoked, but I only took one puke break, so I think that’s something to be proud of?
We went back to Eric’s house to get settled in and I quickly realized that he had the physical proof of his wide knowledge of bowhunting. A quick glance around his living room and I’m staring at a Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Goat, Moose, Elk, and soon to be a Muley all killed in Montana, and all well into Pope and Young territory, and this guy is only in his 30s. More excited than ever, I go to sleep that night ready to wake up in the morning to chase elk.
After an hour or so of going straight up the mountain we came to a clearing, where I was welcomed by him and his dad pointing to a peak that looked like it was a lifetime worth of walking away from us. “Yeah we are gonna head up there and see if we can see any sign or run into elk.” That was certainly a wakeup call to me, as there wasn’t a place in Missouri that you could even see that far, let alone just nonchalantly mention running up there for a morning hunt. We covered ground quicker than I thought and made the summit just as the sun was cresting the mountains. A Montana sunrise over a mountain lake?! That set in stone that I was officially not in Missouri anymore. We put on a few miles that morning and I was met with the reality of early season elk hunting in general units. No bugles, but beautiful views. Even though I ran often in Missouri and believed myself to be physically fit, I was smoked after a slow 3.2 miles and 1200 feet of elevation after that morning hunt. That would have to change, and change fast, whether it meant acclimating or just flat out forgetting about how much my legs and lungs burnt. I couldn’t live with myself if the reason I left Montana empty handed was because of physical or mental weakness.
We planned to spend the next day at Eric’s butchering his mule deer, and I wasn’t complaining about a day of rest after the physical gut check the first day in the mountains. We spent the morning running errands around town and getting to know each other, and butchered the muley buck that evening. Since the extent of my butchering experience was quartering out hanging deer and driving them to the local processing plant, it was definitely a learning experience for me to be a part of the process from quartering the deer to breaking it down into the various cuts of roasts and steaks.
The second summit of the trip was just as awe-inspiring to a Missouri boy as the first, and it was just beginning to set in that I was actually chasing bugles in the Montana elk woods. We made it to the top without getting a response to our bugles and decided that the best play was to head to the other trail of Eric’s that evening to try and locate some bulls for the next morning’s hunt. “Well, do ya wanna go straight back to the truck, or take the trail?” Fully trusting Eric’s truly countless miles of experience traversing these mountains, we decide to head straight down the mountain in hopes of reconnecting with the trail right at the trailhead, my first experience with trying to take a Montana shortcut. We headed straight down the mountain for what seemed like a long way through some thick, steep, lodgepole timber. I’m beginning to doubt Eric’s navigational ability, thinking to myself that we should’ve hit the trail by now. After what seems like way too long of a distance, Eric turns around with a nervous look on his face. “Hey man, I think we’re gonna have to go back up to the trail… This isn’t looking right.” He had me hook, line, and sinker. I got a sort of uneasiness in my gut and realized we would have to spend the remainder of the day climbing straight up the mountain through what we had just spent an hour maneuvering down whenever he cracks a smile and takes one more step… right out to the trail a half mile from the truck… I’ve never been so relieved to have been on the receiving end of a prank.
That Saturday morning we went on our furthest hike, and even though I was beginning to acclimate nicely, it was still a grind. 6 miles total that morning, but I got some extra motivation near the top. Laying 5 steps off the trail, was a moose shed, barely touched by the squirrels with great color on the bottom. This was probably the coolest thing we could’ve come across aside from a bull that was willing to cooperate, and I happily added some weight to my pack in order to bring it back to MO with me. Unfortunately, like a skipping record, no bulls. I did get my first scare from a grouse, with 3 of them blowing up about 3 yards from us, but being early in the morning I didn’t want to have the distraction of worrying about messing with a grouse all day, so they would live to scare another hunter.
That evening we went to another one of his friend’s leads, this one a mountainside that had burnt over the summer. He had noticed elk using this mountainside burn to get down to the lake, which they were using as a water source. This evening my definition of steep would once again change. It was 1.5 miles to the top and we gained 1600 feet. “Steep” is a vast understatement and my flatlander calves were absolutely screaming not too far after we started up the mountain. We made it to the top and let out a bugle down the backside of the basin and something unusual happened. There it was. My first bugle! Now, it sounded like it was weakly muttered by an elk the size of a muley, and he was definitely not interested in coming up the mountain to challenge us. He never bugled again and no other elk answered the two of us. We started down the mountain through some lodgepole timber on top of the burn and I grabbed a pinecone, the biggest pinecone I had ever seen, as I thought this would be a cool keepsake along with the moose shed from the day before. I didn’t fight my way straight up 1600 feet to come back empty handed! This was short lived, because the second we started down that straight-down burn I ditched the pinecone. I needed every ounce of focus I could muster to prevent falling head over heels straight down the mountain.
Halfway back to the truck and we both freeze, grouse, right in the middle of the road. After being scared to death by them Saturday morning, I was out for vengeance, as well as a meal! I pull back and remember Eric mentioning head-shooting them. I estimated them at 20 yards and let the arrow fly. A 20 yard shot should have been a sure meal, but the grouse were very, very safe that day. Turns out Grouse heads are harder to hit than I thought. I go retrieve my arrow and all of a sudden another grouse appears! This time in the brush no more than 3 yards away! No way I can miss this one, right? All I’m saying is don’t use your 20 yard pin for a 3 yard shot…. You will be embarrassed… trust me… We head back to the truck and roll into Kalispell empty handed. I shot a text to a friend of mine from college who had recently moved to Missoula and told him I have a couple of extra days in the schedule. He was just back from a Colorado hunt and had a couple of free days as well, so I decided to make the trip down to Missoula the next day to see him.
I leave early the next morning and decide to roadtrip up through Libby and down Highway 200 to try and see some Bighorn Sheep or Mountain Goat along the highway. I swing by Libby Sports Center to pick up some souvenirs for the family and go on look-out mode, stopping at every “Wildlife Viewing Area” I could find. On my second stop I notice something a lighter shade of off-white than anything else, and waaaaay up on top. After 10 minutes of staring through bino’s, finally it decided to reveal itself by hopping up onto the next rock. It was super cool to see some alpine species and made the detour through the NW corner well worth the time and fuel.
He decided to give me the full Montana experience, so after a quick “how have you been” convo we headed to the National Bison Range. I absolutely cannot recommend this stop enough. Screaming bulls in every bottom, not to mention big muleys, pronghorn, and countless bison. Previously, I had just come down to catch up, relax, and maybe do some trout fishing, but after seeing all those giant bulls in the park, our bugle-chasing itch needed to be scratched. “Hey man, you think there’s any general units around Missoula?” We get back to his apartment and start sifting through GoHunt. We found a trail in a general unit he’s been on that looked elky and decided to go for it the next morning. Garrett also pointed out a unit that he thought would be an absolute honeyhole closer to the middle of the state. “Dang I want to chase elk in there, that basin has GOTTA be loaded.” Not thinking any more of it, I agree and move on to browsing draw odds for pipedream tags that we probably won’t draw for 30 years.
I get set up peering down one of the very few openings in the area and Eric begins a calling sequence. No answer. Crap, we gave him 2 days of rest, and I had hoped that had been enough to get him fired up. I was anxious and was getting annoyed that this bull wouldn’t cooperate. We hear him bugle again, this time 100 yards beyond his initial bugle. We decided to close the distance, so we began up the trail when we heard branches break. Eric looks up above the trail, and I look down. Sound bouncing off of every tree on the mountain made it hard to pinpoint where the sound came from, but we agreed and were pretty sure it was below the trail, so we turned our attention down hill. “There he is!” Eric says. “I’m pretty sure I can see him” I say as I try to focus through the alders surrounding the trail. “Alright, I’m gonna go back and try to make him follow me, get set up here.” Knowing I couldn’t shoot through the barrier of alders, I decided to inch my way forward through the wall of brush in hopes of having an ample supply of clear shooting lanes down the mountain.
We made our way to the top of the mountain and thought we heard a bugle back towards the truck. We began to creep through the timber but the bugle was a lone one, and we didn't hear any elk from then on out. About halfway back to the truck and I hear all sorts of commotion right in front of us. Elk! Not 40 yards away! They must have been bedded and heard us coming down the trail. We got set up and tried to call them back in, but it wasn’t productive, apparently the elk knew we weren’t one of them and had no intention of making the quartered out ride to Kalispell. Getting dark in Grizzly country, we figured the best bet was to quit the pursuit, get back to the truck, get some rest, and hit the road early for his dad’s hunt the next few days.
I don’t think he was thrilled with the idea of me running around on my own in Montana, but loved the fact that I was going to do everything in my power to kill an elk. I show him the unit and he says “Hmm, I’m pretty sure my dad’s friend worked for the Forest Service in that unit… Let me give him a call.” Bingo. I was going to get my boots on the ground in Garrett’s unit and I was going to get intel from someone who has spent countless hours there beforehand? This seemed too good to be true! I called Garrett and informed him of my plans, we briefly brainstormed some trails that looked good and I downloaded some OnX maps of the area I was planning to focus on. It just so happened that the trails we decided on were almost directly where the Forest Service buddy of Eric’s dad told him would be a good spot. Okay, so I might not be done chasing elk after all…
The next morning I followed him and his dad around for the last time. Again, we see a couple of giant bulls, but none in a good enough spot to make an immediate play on. We made it back to the lodge and the time had come to make a decision, but really the decision was already made. I knew I had to go. The 20 hour drive home would’ve felt like an eternity if I was asking myself “what if I tried it” the entire time. A 19 year old Missouri kid going out on his own to the elk woods of Montana, and did I mention the kid didn’t own a bugle tube until the day before? I had 3 hours to practice my bugle before I would be at the trailhead me, Garrett, and Eric decided on. The idea was almost laughable. I put myself in the mentality of “C’mon Chase, you know you won’t kill anything, but you might at least glass up some elk and at least you will know you will have done everything in your power to get it done” Off to the general unit I went, leaving Eric and the countless screaming 300 inch bulls I had seen the previous two outings…
I pull into the new trailhead and there are no trucks… A much needed boost of confidence after seeing the other trailhead teeming with people, now it's time to take a more serious look at this thing… Looking at the satellite map I notice a meadow up at the very top of the trail overlooking the whole basin. Perfect, I’ll just make the 4.5 mile run up to that meadow, glass for a bit and get a feel for the layout of the basin, and then come back to the truck for a dinner of Clif Bars and Huckleberry flavored water before making one last effort tomorrow morning. Seems simple enough. I slowly make my way up the trail, after all, I figure being at the top by 6:30 will give me plenty of time to glass and be back to the truck just after dark, leaving a 3 hour window to cover the 4.5 miles to the top of the draw.
I figured I would chalk this trip up as experience and move to the other trail the next morning when all of a sudden I hear a bull scream right below me. I peered off the edge of the meadow into the bottom. My definition of steep had once again changed, as this was by far the steepest terrain I have had to go down yet…. The topo said it was over 1000 feet down to the creek and he was at the very bottom. I shoot a text out to Garrett. “This place is awesome. Glassed two elk and heard one bugling right below me. Gonna try to make a play.” “Heck Yeah Bro! Go for it!” Looking back down at the canyon I remember how steep it was… I also sent a text to my best friend from Missouri. “Hey man, I’m being serious here. Don’t worry or anything, but this stuff is getting steep and I have a bull bugling. Going down to the bottom so I won’t have any service but if some freak deal happens then it’s been fun! Love ya bro.” Down the cliff I went at 6:40pm.
A creek ran through the middle of the draw where I heard the bugle. On one side there was gently sloping lodgepole timber and the other side was the steep open hillside I had just traversed, with conifers spread out incrementally. The bull has got to be on the lodgepole side, everything I knew at the time pointed to him being in the cool temperatures and cover of the lodgepole timber. I let out a bugle, my first ever bugle outside of my truck… somehow I didn’t completely mess it up. He answered immediately. “Holy crap. This is happening. Ummm… Ummm… Okay… I guess I’ll bugle again?” I let another one go and again, he answers right back… “Crap, don’t forget the fundamentals. Check your freakin wind!” One puff of my windicator shows that my wind is blowing right to him.. Okay, so the only play I have is to somehow try to get deeper in the lodgepole timber and leapfrog him, hoping he hasn’t already winded me, then call him back down whenever I get the wind in my favor…. I start heading farther into the lodgepole timber down around him when I catch a glimpse of tan hide out of the corner of my eye…
I get settled behind some brushy cover as soon as he steps out from behind the conifers. I range him, but I’m confident that he’s gotta be no farther than 25 yards. I’m glad I did, because it turns out that elk look a lot closer than they actually are, especially if your only range estimation history has been whitetail deer… The rangefinder reads 42 yards, and he gives me the luxury of dialing my sight to exactly 42 yards. Despite the grouse incident from earlier this trip, I knew I had a summer of great training behind me and was more than confident out to 60 yards on calm elk, so this was well within my wheelhouse. He is 100% broadside and turns to browse on some shrubs on the other side of him. Holy crap is this really happening right now?
Most of his vitals are blocked by the tree, but I had been studying elk vitals on bowsite and knew that the “V” that their front shoulder bone makes can deceive you. I knew his heart had to be exposed as he stood, but as calm as he was at the moment I wasn’t wanting to rush anything whenever he was one step away from exposing a perfect broadside double lung shot. Textbook, I would draw, wait for him to take another step to open up a whole, picture perfect target, and then let the arrow fly. Perfect! How was this happening? I don’t know, but it was!
False. Big no no. What looked like gradual hills on my topo map were actually big brushy flats with 15 ft. cliffs on each side. Each flat was full of alders and laydowns. I was eventually blocked and forced to the bottom, where the creek I shot my bull over ran through. What I was expecting to be open lodgepole timber leading down to a creek was the farthest thing from reality. The lodgepole timber soon turned into a mess of laydowns, and the mess of laydowns was soon complimented by the same alders I was running into up above the creek.
Those 4 hours and 6ish miles back to the truck were probably the longest 6 miles I’ve covered in my life. My boots got wet almost instantly as I was forced to cross the creek multiple times, which led to discomfort that stretched into the next day. I kept thinking back to the text I sent my buddy from Missouri. Surely he was smart enough to not do something stupid like call search and rescue? I didn’t have any cell service down in the bottom, so all I could do is hope. Every plane that flew over made me cringe. “Well, if it is SAR, maybe they can help me pack this thing off this godforsaken mountain!” My phone battery was fading fast, and the only map I had of the area was on my phone. I knew following the creek would eventually lead to my truck, but that was slow going and uncomfortable is an understatement. I eventually break free from the creek bed and laydowns and end up in the meadow that I had glassed the bulls in earlier that evening… I heard cows blow and “mew” within a mile of my truck and realized how silly it had been to blindly run in and shoot the bull where I did, but I wasn’t complaining. I soon realized that sidehilling my way around above my truck was an impossible feat, as it was a pure cliff and laydowns. I linked up with the original trail I had planned to come in and hunt off of and satisfyingly strutted past all the campers and horse trailers with a pack full of elk meat.
The next morning I woke up to a text from Eric, saying to call him on the lodge phone as soon as I woke up. Bittersweet news, his dad shot a giant bull, but they were gonna give it some time before taking up the trail. Once again, I was making a call to Missoula. Garrett must’ve been anticipating the call because he picked up on the first ring. “Hey man, I really hate to ask this of you, but Eric’s dad shot a bull and I’m gonna need your help with mine…” “Dude, don’t worry about it at all, I’m stoked. I’ll be there in 3.5 hours.” Now THAT, is a solid friend, gentlemen!
We make it to the top meadow and I warn him. “Hey man, now I told you that this was down a steep canyon, but this thing is down a STEEP canyon.” We get to the edge and he peers over the edge, “ummm, yeah, yeah that’s a steep canyon!” What took me a matter of minutes to drop down the night before was going to be a little more planned out today. We look at OnX and see a bit of a secondary draw leading down the basin just to our right, heading straight to the bull, and decide that’s the smartest way to get down to him. About halfway down I realized just how stupid it was to run down this thing the day before, but it paid off. Garrett, a little fresher than me, beat me to the bull. I didn’t realize how big bodied elk were until the day before, but seeing them in the mid-day light made it look even bigger. We snapped a few pictures, since I wasn’t able to get many the night before, and went to work quartering and deboning the rest of the bull.
For a couple of flatlanders who had never quartered anything in the field before, we made good time. We got to the bull around 3:30pm and I was optimistic that we could be loaded up and headed back up to the meadow by 6:30, that would give us 2 hours to make it up the mountain and still be in daylight once we got to the meadow, then it was a smooth sailing 4.5 miles back down to the truck. This went almost exactly on schedule. We wanted to get about 30 minutes of rest before heading up the canyon, but by the time I got the skull cleaned up for a future euro mount, we didn’t have a minute to spare. Garrett sat there laughing as I messed with removing the jaw and as much of the extra meat as I could. “You get that freakin jaw off and I’m throwing it over the mountain, that thing is burning up our rest time!” He did, too. Now, Garrett had been talking confidently about his packing ability on the way up there, which made the hike go way smoother. He had been loading game bags while I worked on the skull. Turns out he only put a deboned hindquarter in my pack, along with the skull and other meat we could pull off the carcass, whereas he was loaded down with a hindquarter, as well as the other backstrap and other front shoulder that I had packed out the night before. This guy was gonna earn his elk meat!
We got to the top meadow in 2 very hard fought hours, and managed to get enough phone service to make some calls out as we watched the sunset over the basin. Garrett called his dad and let him know what a freakin smokeshow we just went through, and I called Eric. “Hey man, how are you doing?” I say lightheartedly. Luckily, he informed me that they had found his dad’s bull 200 yards from where the shot was. Perfect. He was stoked that my elk’s meat was still in good shape after being left overnight and that we got it all in one trip. I told him to tell his dad congrats and me and Garrett headed on down the mountain. After all, we still had 4.5 miles to cover before we could get too comfortable.
About a mile down the mountain and we take another break. I look at Garrett and his legs are visibly shaking from fatigue. We are both almost delusional at this point, and seeing that made us both erupt with laughter realizing how crazy this was. We HAD to be insane for doing this. “Dude, there isn’t a college football workout in the world that has pushed me close to what this has.” Nobody said backcountry elk hunting was easy, but no forum post or youtube video had led me to expect this! “Guess who has Cody Jinks’ newest album downloaded on his phone?” I ask Garrett, not to be outdone he responds with a smile and “Guess who has ALL of Cody Jinks’ albums on his phone?” We played some music and grinded out the remaining 3.5 miles to the truck.
Six months after that hike I would find myself at Marine Corps boot camp, and after that, Infantry Training Battalion. In that time, I hiked a lot of miles with a lot of weight on my back, but reflecting on this hunt it is not even close, not a single hike in the Marine Corps compared to how hard that pack out was. A combination of over 50 miles and 12,400 feet in total elevation gained in the past five days, coupled with the previous night’s dogfight through creeks and laydowns, my body was truly at its limit.
Before we fell asleep, which didn’t take long, I decided to add up all the miles I had put under my feet since I had been in Montana. I plugged the day's totals into the calculator and looked at the number, 51.3. FIFTY ONE POINT THREE MILES IN FIVE DAYS OF HUNTING?! It didn’t seem possible, but it was. I added up the elevation gained and saw a number just over 12,400. I was smoked after 30 steps of the first hunt, and if someone would’ve told me how much farther and higher I would’ve gone that trip I would’ve called them a liar. Anything is possible with a whole lot of “want to”.
I hit the road and it finally sets in. I did it. I didn’t kill a monster, but I killed an archery bull elk on a DIY hunt. I knew I probably won’t be able to go back for a few years at least, and even then I might go 10 years without getting an arrow in another bull, but at least this year everything worked out. I can’t thank Eric enough for the opportunity to come out and the crazy amount of knowledge I gained from our short time hunting together, and I can’t thank Garrett enough for being crazy enough to volunteer for that grind of a packout. With guys like this running around the woods, I have no doubt that the hunting community is in good hands.
The second write up was awesome too!
Congrats x 2,
Robb
Oryx, going to be going on a 92 mile float trip in Alaska with a buddy of mine from Fairbanks in early June, will have a black bear tag in pocket and a bow in hand, but really it's just going to be more of a catching-up trip between two friends than it will be a focused hunt. Hopefully I'll be drawing a Pronghorn tag and chasing those in mid-August. Have a lot to catching up to do in the hunting world that's for sure.
Thanks for all the feedback, guys!
Matt
