2013: A Year In Review

At the end of the year it's only natural to think back on the events that have transpired over the course of the last 12 months.  This year has been one for the record books for me, and even though there were goals that I didn't attain, there were so many more that I did.  At the end of such a great year, it seemed only fitting to highlight some of my best memories.  Looking back, it's so evident how truly blessed I am - and how incredibly patient my wife is to let me do these things.  Each picture has an even more vivid and vibrant memory attached to it, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to share these memories and pictures with you.  This year I also crossed a big mark on this site - in December I surpassed 2,000 page views in a month for the first time.  For most sites that is a very small number, but for this backwoods Idaho boy, that's huge.  I appreciate very deeply each one of you that reads these articles.  Your kind words mean more to me than you ever know, and it keeps me hungry to keep at it.  With such an incredible year in 2013, if 2014 even comes close to it I'll count myself a very lucky man.

My archery elk.  It was an incredible 6 day hunt in some beautiful country near Island Park.  Read the full story here: Something to Prove

New personal best wild steelhead on the Salmon River - a beautiful 36" hen.

New personal best hatchery steelhead on the Salmon River - a THICK 31" buck.  Watch for my upcoming steelhead article in March!

The one that got away.  I affectionately named this bear "Houdini" for his unnatural knack to escape me.  He's still out there...

New personal best brown, through the ice no less!  A very stout 27" 8 pounder!  Now if only I could find him with the fly rod!

I have come to believe it's more rewarding helping others fulfill their goals.  Here's my good friend 
Tony Frustaci with his new personal best trout - a real whopper of a rainbow on the fly!

I was lucky enough to take my good friend Jordan Tubbs on his first elk hunt - and then lucky enough
to help him pack out his first elk!  Beautiful 6 point bull on a general season public land hunt!

New personal best trout - 28" and a whopping 10 pounds.  The girth on this hen was incredible!

Definitely not my biggest turkey to date - but with the population down dramatically in my unit, I was happy to have him!

I was lucky enough to tag team this behemoth sturgeon with a couple good friends with strong arms.
My biggest yet at 7' 3" and over 225 pounds!  He even broke the rod on the way in!

My proudest moment all year, and one that will remain my entire life - the birth of my beautiful 
new baby girl, Chloe KristiAnne.  Everything pales compared to being there as she came into the world.

With 2013 in books, I can't express enough how excited I am for 2014!  I look forward to many more adventures in the most wild places I can find.  Thank you again for playing along!

Something to Prove

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Survival: Part II

To read Part I of the Survival Story - click [here].

The cool evening air was already rushing at the back of my neck while I descended from the ridge top. The sun had almost set, and we were well above the bugling bull - we still had half a mile of timber to cover in our attempt to swing downwind of the elk we'd heard bugling moments ago.  My strides grew longer as a satellite bull challenged the herd bull from the valley floor below.  It was a race against time, and half of my heart feared we wouldn't make it in time, but the other half knew I had to try.  I had driven over 600 miles the day before after work - arriving in the early morning hours on a Thursday.  I only had two and half days to hunt before I had to turn around and drive back to Southern Utah, so I was determined to go to whatever lengths necessary to take an elk.

We made our final approach quietly through the lodgepole pines in the valley floor.  My eyes darted toward every sound the feeding elk made.  We were very careful not to call until we were within 100 yards from the herd.  This was no small feat - a make or break for most archery elk hunts.  If we began calling from too far back, the bull would simply round up his harem of cows and push them to the next canyon - away from any challenging or curious bulls.  Get in too close and we ran the risk of bumping the herd.  Despite what camouflage manufacturers would like hunters to believe, elk visual acquisition relies on movement - not detail - to spot imminent danger.  Their incredible ability to catch movement (even from great distances) paired with a phenomenal sense of smell, makes stalking to within calling range tricky business.   The ability to stay patient and get in close before revealing your location will influence the outcome of a hunt dramatically; public land elk are accustomed to hunter pressure and most hunters just can't contain their desire to get their bugle on.

I found these bulls scouting in the months before the season opened and photographed them through my binoculars at daylight.  They
stayed in the same area all summer and fall.  The bull on the left was the herd bull I hunted all weekend.

I carefully chose a spot to kneel down with several good shooting lanes stretching out to 50 yards.  My dad took a position slightly behind me and to my left - typically we'd station a caller farther back from the shooter, but tonight I was both.  While knocking an arrow to begin my calling, the dominant herd bull screamed from the ridge above us a mere 75 yards away.  Often if the herd bull has a satellite bull or two around the herd, I'll try to pull him away from the others with a cow call rather than a bugle.  I let out a couple soft chirps and let the bull do the work.  By the sound of the bugle I could tell he was facing towards us this time as he growled and rose to scream, followed by several chuckles.  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as the scream echoed down the valley.  Almost immediately, a satellite bull responded 50 yards to our right in the dense timber.  I let out a few more cow calls, when suddenly the woods came alive with elk.  Cows and calves were mewing incessantly, and the herd bull started thrashing a small pine sapling with his antlers.  The satellite bull to our right joined in the chorus as the light faded quickly.  The entire herd passed in front of us at 60 yards, but all that could be seen were legs flashing through the timber in the twilight.  Realizing it was too dark to shoot, I pulled the arrow from my string and clipped it back in to my quiver.  Rather than rising to my feet to leave, I just sat there and listened to the chorus of elk.  We had a long hike out in the dark, but it didn't matter to me in the least.  I was grinning from ear to ear just listening to the bugles erupting from the dark hillside before me.  Something primitive and primal stirs inside of me every time I hear rutting elk in September.  It feeds my addiction to the sport.

My dad quietly eased his way up to my location where we sat enjoying the sounds of the evening for several golden minutes.  After a short time we rose to our feet and quietly backed out.  With absolutely no moon during the peak of the rut, the elk were sure to be in the same area until morning and remain active well into the day.  I resolved the year before to only shoot branched antlered bulls, but with such a short time to hunt I was prepared to shoot any elk within range.  Knowing exactly where the elk would be in the morning with the rut in full swing, gave us a real advantage for the next morning.

This ancient tree root sits atop a ridge above the wallows at 9,600' in elevation.

After a much needed full nights rest, we arrived the following morning well before daylight.  We were anxious to be in position before sunrise, so with miles to cover we shouldered our packs and began the trek in the dark.  The clear skies the night before brought significantly cooler temperatures than the previous day, which was a much needed reprieve from above average temperatures that had been the norm.  The cold air stung my lungs and chilled my arms and legs, but I took no notice - the echoes of distant bugles carrying down the valley floor was all I could focus on.

We located the elk in short order, but they were significantly higher in elevation than the previous evening.  The hike up was a grueling 800 foot climb in elevation in 900 lateral feet of distance.  We peaked the ridge out of breath and slightly dizzy from the high elevation air.  A bugle interrupted our labored breathing from 200 yards in front of us on the opposite side of a small bald saddle.  We quickly crept up another 75 yards and positioned ourselves to call.  Our first bugle was answered within a few short moments by the herd bull, followed by a satellite bull.  They were slightly farther away, and headed for some black timber that held several springs and a series of wallows.  We continued calling to them, but despite our best efforts they continued growing farther away.  After 15 minutes, my dad stood and moved up towards my position.  When he was several yards behind me, I heard a cow chirp from our left - and close.  I signaled my dad to drop down as I spun to the left and positioned myself for a shot.

Less than a minute later a cow appeared, apparently separated from the herd.  She was trotting down the hillside above the meadow on a line that would bring her right into range.  She hung up at the edge of the meadow 80 yards away and mewed, searching for our calls.  I had no cover in front of me, and only sparse trees several yards behind me from her angle - so minimizing movement was essential.  I let out a soft calf chirp and lowered the call to my side to prepare for a shot.  The cow responded almost instantly, and came in on a string.  There was only 1 small tree that she had to walk behind that would give me the opportunity to draw, and it was some 60 yards away.  As she passed behind it, I drew back and anchored at full draw.  She was coming straight at us but offered no shot.

She stopped at 40 yards and began to feed, still facing us.  For a couple painstaking minutes she fed easily within range but still presented no shot.  My arm began to shake with exhaustion, but I held firm in spite of the growing pain emanating from my forearm where I had been bitten.  The cow finally lifted her head and walked another ten yards towards us before turning broadside, striding towards the sound of now distant bugles.  I cow chirped with my mouth to stop her right at the tree line, lined up my sight pin and released.

The sound of my arrow rattling through underbrush was audible almost immediately.  While kneeling on the ground I had been unable to see several dead fennel weeds that deflected my arrow.  The cow spooked and ran several steps before looking back, then continued into the dark timber towards the rest of the herd.  In disbelief I rose to search for my arrow.  I consistently practice out to 60 yards and consider anything inside of that to be within my effective range.  My dad attempted to reassure me that I had held a very long time with a weak arm - but I knew I had just plain blown it.  While searching for my lost arrow, the bulls started bugling again consistently from the wallow 400 yards up the dark timber draw from us.  By this time it was already approaching noon; not wanting to waste any precious time we gathered our packs, and were back in pursuit.

Many times on this hunt I wondered if I was hunting Mountain Goats or Elk.  

A well worn game trail led to the wallow, allowing us the luxury of making a silent approach through an otherwise nearly impassable tangle of old growth spruce trees and waist high wildrye grass.  Just as we eased up on the wallow, a bugle stopped us in our tracks.  They were close, and with the early afternoon sun high in the sky, it was a safe bet they were headed to water.  We quickly split up, each taking an opposite side of the spring.  My position offered a view of the wallow as well, although it was somewhat limited due to the small pines I was positioned in.  I challenged the bull with a bugle, and almost immediately a chorus of elk surrounded us.  Several different elk bugled further up the draw, cows called to my right, and another bull to our left - with so many bulls it was difficult to decide where to focus.  Another bugle from above turned my attention to a hillside in front of me.  I glanced up to see a five point bull step out of the trees to look at the wallow below me and drop into a dense stand of pines, headed right towards me.  The herd bull answered him to my right.  As if on command, the wind shifted.  Our crosswind was now angling towards the approaching bulls.  The seconds ticked by slowly, knowing what the inevitable was - yet still hoping they wouldn't wind us.  Moments later I listened helplessly as the approaching elk detected our scent and spooked.

Crashing through the deadfall, several elk flashed through the trees on the hillside above me, just outside of range.  I bugled and stopped them - but the bull wasn't among them.  While focusing my attention on the elk in front of me, I heard the distinctive sound of hooves in the mud directly behind me.  I very slowly twisted to my left and looked behind me to see an elk standing beside the wallow a mere 30 yards away - looking just as confused as I was with what to do next.  My pulse quickened see the elk in such close proximity, although admittedly I wondered how I'd missed the sound of an approaching elk.  Although its head was obscured by trees, the blonde fur of the body lent itself to a bull, but a young one at that.  The elk took a few steps, exposing antlers through a small gap in the trees.  Even though it was a just a spike, my heart was racing.

A view of the spring from above - the wallows are in the trees to the right.  This secluded basin provides all the necessities of 
life to the many elk and deer that call it home - food, water, and shelter - providing ideal conditions to hunt.

He had no idea I was there or why the other elk had run and then stopped.  An older bull wouldn't have made that mistake - and I intended to exploit it.  The wind was blowing perfectly from him to me - but several small saplings stood in the way, choking out any potential shooting lanes.  The spike took several steps into a small timbered draw between the ridge I was on and the next  steeper ridge.  I had a small window of opportunity to move into a shooting position while the timber obscured my movement.  Careful not to break the fragile silence, I took three steps to the left out of the small pine covert I had been concealed in.  I had no cover, no backdrop - but it was my only option.  The spike continued walking broadside to me, angling slightly away up the next ridge.  Ahead of him there was a very small break in the trees only wide enough to fit his body.  With only a day left to hunt, it was now or never.

He lowered his head to feed for a moment, giving me a moment to compose myself for a long shot.  With several long, slow exhalations I was able to lower my heart rate to a manageable level despite the adrenaline pumping through my veins.  The spike slowly raised his head and strode towards the opening, but this time I was prepared.  As his head passed behind the last tree, I drew my bow.  Mentally, I turned all my focus towards my shooting form and executing the shot.  I estimated the distance at 50 yards, so my margin of error was small - and with a blown shot just hours earlier - I knew I had to believe I could make the shot.  The bull materialized on the other side of the tree and walked into the opening, stopping right in the center of my shooting lane.  I exhaled slowly one last time and consciously loosened my grip on the bow to avoid torquing it to the side at the shot.  Bringing the single pin sight to just above the center of his chest, my finger eased into the release trigger.  The bow rocked slightly in my hand as the string launched forward, sending the arrow sailing downrange.  The bull snapped his head towards me at the sound of the bow and attempted to turn, but my arrow flew swift and true.  I watched the bright orange knock disappear into the fur low in the chest and directly behind the shoulder.

The spike spun downhill at the shot, with my arrow visibly protruding from the other side - right through the heart.  He leapt 5 or 6 paces before I found my bugle and stopped him with a scream.  He glanced back in my direction and stood in place for about thirty seconds, visibly swaying.  He took a few more stumbling steps and disappeared out of view around the edge of the ridge.  I looked over at my dad and gave the thumbs up, my pulse still pounding in my ears.  Moments later we heard a crash as the bull collapsed on the other side of the ridge just out of sight.  I ranged the site where he stood just moments earlier - 47 yards.  I knelt down in the tall brush to bow my head in gratitude and prayer.  Months of preparation, countless hours spent shooting my bow in the range, agonizing days spent in crippling pain in an ICU far from my home - unsure if I'd ever hold a bow again, all of it rushed through my mind.  It may have only been a spike, but it was a trophy greater than I'd ever taken.

Its a very humbling feeling to have an elk down nearly two miles and 1,000' in elevation
from the truck with nothing but backpacks to make it all possible

My dad soon stood by my side, he had been able to see the entire scene play out from his position slightly uphill.  We waited a full hour before making our way to the blood trail.  Although I was very confident in the shot and we heard the crash of the bull going down, we always wait a full hour - 30 minutes more than recommended.  Patience pays off, and we like to ensure the animal is expired well before we ever move towards the shot location - jumping a wounded animal from it's bed is the single biggest mistake overly eager bowhunters can make.  The blood trail was easy to find and follow, and a short distance later I spotted the bull crumpled up against a small pine tree.  He'd only gone 30 yards before succumbing and tumbling a short distance down the ridge.

Elation swept over me as I bounded down the hill to my elk, he may as well have been a 300" bull.  I had done it, against all odds.  Minutes later, while posing for pictures - I reflected once again on obstacles overcome.  While my arm still wasn't full strength and ached with pain, my spirit was stronger than ever.  Holding those antlers in my hands, I was as happy as any bowhunter ever  could be.  And greatest of all, I was blessed to share this experience with a man I will admire my entire life - my father.  There is a feeling, an unparalleled vitality, that bowhunters experience every time they stand at full draw with an elk in their sights - it's a feeling indescribable to those that have't yet experienced it.  It's the culmination of long miles traversed over countless mountain tops, blown opportunities and close calls, it's the primal instinct of man versus beast inherent to our own nature - and it's made even sweeter by the weight of a pack loaded with wild game.

"In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results.

The strength of the effort is the measure of the result."  

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                 - James Allen   

Gear List

2009 Diamond Marquis Compound Bow
Eberlestock JustOne Backpack
Carbon Express Maxima Hunter Arrows
Slick Trick Magnum Broadheads
HHA Optimizer Lite Bow Sight
Octane 7" Hunter Stabilizer
Octane Deadlock Pro Quiver
Scott Archery Silverhorn Release
Bushnell Scout Arc 1000 Rangefinder