As the summer wanes and the nights grow colder, my thoughts are consumed with visions of cool September mornings spent in the rugged Idaho mountains. Visions of hunts gone by, and hunts still to come. All of the sights, the smells, and the feelings of this beautiful season revolve around one thing for me - elk hunting. Each year I look forward with much anticipation to the sound that for me, defines the wild. More times than not, the first bugle of the year is heard in the darkness before daybreak - which only amplifies the mystique and excitement for the hunt ahead. When the mountains come alive with the screams of bull elk in the early fall, every stress in my life becomes a distant memory. Standing there in the pre-dawn light listening to these monarchs of the mountain reaffirm their supremacy is unlike any other experience man can have. Since childhood, it has instilled a passion deep inside my very being that can't be bridled - and in those moments, I feel more alive than ever before.
This season I had intended on hunting a different unit, but I overlooked the tag quota and the zone sold out - so I was forced to hunt a zone with a 3% mature bull harvest rather than 7%. Those numbers were very telling. I had set a do or die goal for myself this year - I was going to bring home a mature bull. I wanted a bull that represented the amount of time and effort I dedicated to elk hunting, something to be really proud of. I allotted a 6 day hunt just after the peak of the rut, as this is the time I find the bulls to be most responsive to calls. The forecast called a chance of rain on Day 3 and showers on Day 4, and temperatures in the low 50's, but as it turned out it either rain, sleeted, or snowed on me EVERY SINGLE DAY, almost all day. While battling the elements can be mentally and physically exhausting, it can also create phenomenal hunting opportunity.
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Rubs dotted the small draws between ridges the elk used as traveling routes between feeding and bedding grounds. These funnels
provide outstanding ambush areas, especially in the early morning and late evening while the thermals are consistent.
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Day 1 of my elk hunt finally arrived following 3 challenging weeks pursuing high country mule deer, and I found myself on the familiar slopes of Island Park. By 10:30 the first morning I had already seen one 300 class bull with several cows that I couldn't catch up to, hiked up over the mountain into the next drainage and located another active bull in the dark timber below. Typically a bugling bull at that time of morning is very willing to come in for a fight - so I plunged down into the steep, timber choked canyon with reckless abandon. A well worn game trail provided a quiet entrance to the bottom of the canyon - not that I needed it. He was screaming his head off.
On the way down I realized that the bull was actually on the other side of the canyon; I had to cross a steep, blow down covered creek to get to him. While crossing the stream a closer-than-expected scream from the opposite bank prompted me to quickly take cover. I clambered down the steep embankment to the creek and dropped my backpack in the bottom before peaking up over the top of the abrupt bank. I let out two quick cow chirps and the bull screamed in frustration from directly above me. I knocked an arrow and stepped sideways beneath the cover of several large pine boughs just as the massive bull came charging down the hill above me and into a wide open meadow. The beautiful 340 class 6x6 was on a dead run towards the tangled creek bottom, his hooves tearing up the hillside with each bound - but from where I knelt I knew I wouldn't have a shot. I quickly leapt down into the creek and dashed uphill in hopes of an ambush. We arrived at the same point at roughly the same time. With my chest heaving, I managed to drop down to my knees and come to full draw as the bull trotted to a stop 40 yards away - directly behind the thick branches of a spruce tree. Even at that short distance, his body was merely an outline through the impenetrable branches. He let out another blood curling bugle, searching for the unseen opponent that had brought him down the mountainside. After a brief pause, he continued charging down through the creek and up the other side into the timbered bench I had just come from without stopping. The last time I heard him bugle was as he crested the canyon rim above where I initially located him.
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| The snow was a constant companion on this trip. The unseasonably cold temperatures helped kick the post rut into high gear. |
That set the tone for the entire hunt. The rest of the week seemed to fly by, each day running into the next. The bulls were responding beautifully to the calls, but
something always happened. No matter how many bulls came in, I couldn't get a shot opportunity on anything mature. In my own mind, the stakes were getting higher. This year was
supposed to be different. I had bought a new
Bowtech Insanity CPX, outfitted it with brand new accessories, and spent countless hours at the range practicing to make sure it was perfectly dialed in. I shot between hunts daily. Beginning in February, I began working out regularly and paying more attention to nutrition - resulting in 30 pounds of weight loss and the best physical conditioning I'd ever had. I finally bit the bullet and bought
top of the line boots, got the
backpack I had always wanted that would allow me, in their own words, to "go in light, come out heavy." I never got into my truck to go
anywhere (since June) without my
diaphragm to practice my calling - which looks just as ridiculous as it sounds. I simply
had to make this happen. It wasn't about a picture to show off, or a tale to tell - I had plenty of those. It was about proving to myself that I could test my resolve against the wild and either come out successful or go down swinging.
On the evening of Day 5 I had an opportunity just before dark at an impressive 3 point mule deer buck that I stumbled upon while hunting. While I was confident in my initial shot, the follow up resulted in a lost arrow and
no sign of a hit. I searched all evening and well into the night with my headlamp - looking for any sign, but found none. That night I returned to the cabin at the lowest of lows. The snowfall had just begun and it was due to last all night - and it was going to be my last day of hunting. I awoke the next morning to find 4" of fresh snow on the ground, covering up any hope I had for finding a sign of a hit from the evening before. I awoke my brother and dad to discuss our strategy for the final morning hunt. After a lengthy discussion that made us late getting into the woods, I decided to return to where I had shot at the buck the evening before and search one last time - just in case. I went alone, since it was the last morning and I didn't want to impede the hunt for anyone else.
The weather went from bad to worse once I arrived. Freshly fallen snow blanketed the valley floor, the wind was howling, and more snow began falling a mere 15 minutes into my search. After another 2 hours of searching fruitlessly for the deer itself and replaying the incident in my mind over and over, I conceded I must have simply missed. At this point, not only were the conditions bad, but the morning was almost over. There was every reason to head for the truck and drive back to a warm cabin - no one would have blamed me for quitting. It's difficult to describe the exhaustion, both physical and emotional, that accompanies a difficult hunt. Earlier in the week while talking to my wife, I had told her something to help motivate her to push through a motivational barrier to keep running. I had said "the difference between average people and successful people is that successful people don't give up when everyone else would. You might have every reason to give up, and who would blame you? Everyone would understand. Success is pushing through that and NOT giving up when it makes sense to." I also thought back to something
Cam Hanes said:
"On a hunt...you're facing huge barriers, and you want to quit. No one is going to judge you if you quit. Most people fail on a hunt...but I don't like the feeling of failure. I'm going to do whatever it takes to succeed against all odds, and all circumstances and be the very best bowhunter I can be. "
Reaching my goal was never about bloodlust, score, or resume building. It was about proving to myself that I could do it - that I could be in that small annual percentage of hunters that bring home a mature bull on an unguided, public land, over the counter tag. I lowered my head into the blowing snow and turned up towards the head of the canyon, determined to give it my all. Half a mile up, the canyon split into two separate drainages by a knifepoint timbered ridge. I worked my way up that ridge, expecting the elk to have taken shelter amid the blowdowns and thick spruce trees. Hoping to locate a bull, I let out bugle into the frigid morning air. After several moments of silence, a faint reply sounded near the top of an incredibly steep ridge to the East. In that moment, it didn't matter how discouraged I had felt that morning, the game was on.
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| The view from the road every day on my way to and from the cabin. There's nothing like the mountains after an early snow. |
Twenty minutes later I crested the ridge top just below the highest point on the mountain, gasping for breath with sweat running down my brow, in spite of the cold. I let out a soft cow chirp and the bull bugled back from the other side of a quaking aspen grove 150 yards away. I quickly set up my
Montana Decoy and took cover beside a small pine. He sounded like a young bull, but if there's anything I've learned about elk it's that you can't always gauge the bull by the bugle. The sound of cows undulated in the distance, so I knew he was going to be apprehensive. As herd bulls often do, he rounded up his cows and moved them away from my calls. The trick to calling in these types of bulls is to keep the pressure on them by moving quickly and quietly, and not relenting. I moved and set up two additional times to keep the heat on him. From the canyon below me, a second bull had begun responding, followed by a distant third in the opposite direction. It seemed the pendulum had swung in my favor.
On my third setup, he'd finally had enough and relented to my calls. He was a smaller bull - a young 5 point with weak eye guards and little mass. This being the last day - I was not going to let this opportunity pass, despite his size. As they so often do, the bull stopped in exactly the wrong spot. After a several minute standoff, he finally decided something wasn't right and strode off back up the hill. It was both heartbreaking and opportunistic. He wasn't the bull I had come for, yet there was still an opportunity. The bull below me was going crazy. With the smaller bull just barely out of sight, I grabbed my decoy and took off on a dead run downhill to intercept him.
I cow called after closing the distance a couple hundred yards, trying to relocate him. Although he had been continuing bugling, he had also been covering a lot of ground. I had barely breathed into my call when he screamed and chuckled from across the canyon. The steep canyon walls had made it sound like he was on the same ridge as me earlier, and now I had no way to drop down into the draw below to attempt to bring him in without exposing myself. There simply wasn't any cover on either hill side. No matter how I looked at it, there was no way to get over to him. The wind was bad, the cover was worse - and he was coming fast. I slipped down the hill another 50 yards onto the steep hillside beside a grove of pine saplings and rested my decoy on my chest while I cow called again. He screamed instantly, allowing only enough time to inhale before screaming again - hitting a pitch so high it hurt my ears, even from 100 yards cross canyon. Sometimes a bull gets so angry and so rut crazed that it simply throws caution to the wind and comes in like a freight train, completely unaware of any vulnerability. If this was the case, I was going to give it a try. I grabbed my bugle tube, opened up the baffles to allow a deeper growl and threw every insult I could at him. He lit up like I'd just slapped his mother. I immediately saw him running across the open hillside directly across from me, working his way up the canyon - but I had no way to head him off in the bottom of the canyon. He carried an impressively heavy 5 point rack with long, sweeping tines. I recognized him as a bull I had seen several days earlier with a herd of 15 cows.
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| Earlier in the week I attempted to call in the same 5 point bull in the meadow above but instead had a satellite come in and wind me. |
Helplessly I watched him sidehill into the bottom of the canyon above me and disappear. Suddenly several large branches snapped on the canyon wall below me, right where the bull had disappeared. Ivory tips materialized through the foliage as the bull raced UP the hill right at me. He stopped 60 yards away and split the snow filled sky with a primal scream of rage shook me to the core. I stood in disbelief as he lowered his head and charged further up the hill - I still had the decoy leaning on me! In no more than a minute he had closed the distance from a couple hundred yards to 60. The bull had to walk through a small patch of pine saplings, giving me just enough time to toss my decoy up against a small dead tree beside me, knock an arrow, and range a gap in the small pines where I thought I could thread an arrow. Just as I dropped my rangefinder back into my pocket his muscular shoulders appeared flashing through the trees. I drew back my bow and settled my 30 yard pin on the gap I had just ranged. Suddenly he was right there, and moving fast. With a diaphragm in my mouth I cow chirped sharply and stopped him in his tracks, slightly angling towards me. His head jerked in my direction and spotted my decoy, giving me a few precious moments to pick a line through the pine boughs he stood in. There was a small window between his front shoulder blade and a pine bough that exposed the crease in his side. It was risky, but doable. I tightened my finger on the release trigger, tensed the muscles in my back, and let back tension dictate the shot. My bow rocked forward slightly as my arrow sailed downrange, and I watched in horror as it glanced the edge of the pine bough right at the bulls chest and disappear with a loud THWACK.
The bull turned and galloped downhill, crashing through every tree in his way. I cow called again loudly, and he finally came to a quick stop 70 yards away. He looked back over his shoulder in my direction, then slowly walked out of sight. My heart sank. Had I missed? I cow called again out of desperation. From the canyon below I heard him huff loudly, attempting to bugle. He huffed 3 times in a row, yet was unable to produce anything more. He was hit in the lungs. Several moments later he huffed again, then several branches broke, followed by silence. Uncertainty still ran rampant in my mind as I replayed the arrow glancing the pine bough.
I elected to wait a full hour just to be on the safe side. I spent that full hour gnawing on a frozen protein bar to occupy my mind between sincere prayers. Nothing troubles a bowhunter more than uncertainty of questionable shot placement. Cautiously I made my way over to where he had stood and found his tracks in the snow - along with the dirt he had torn away from the hillside as he ran downhill. The blood trail was obvious even from a distance. I followed it down into the bottom of the canyon and across the next hillside when suddenly the blood all but disappeared. If there hadn't been snow on the ground, the trail would have been extremely difficult to follow. Doubt and worry crept into my mind as I walked faster and faster along his trail. I looked further into the distance to see where the tracks were leading when I saw a massive antler protruding from the undergrowth.
Elated, I raced up to his side and dropped to my knees as emotion swept over me. All my sacrifice and effort had paid off - I had finally done it. The rush of emotions were more than I was prepared to control, and tears flowed freely as I looked up into the sky with gratitude - there was no doubt in my mind what had led me to this moment, and my own insignificance was more evident now than ever. I may have been the only one on that mountain side, but I knew I wasn't alone. For several minutes I sat beside the bull in silence out of pure respect for such a magnificent animal.
There is a balance between effort & result in hunting - a balance all of its own, unique in every way. The harder fought the battle, the more sweet victory, and this is the essence of elk hunting. I often hear it said that once the elk hits the ground the fun ends. I beg to differ. It was noon when I found my bull, and we weren't done packing him out until 10:30 that night - but there wasn't a moment I wished I was somewhere else.
Gear List
Bowtech Insanity CPX
Carbon Express Maxima Blue Streak Select Arrows
Slick Trick 100 grain Magnum Broadheads
Eberlestock J34 "Just One" Backpack
Meindel "Perfekt 10" Hunter Boots
Russell Outdoors APX Camo
Cow Elk 1 Montana Decoy
Bully Bull Grunt Tube
Allstar Diaphragm Call
"Temptress" Cow Call
