2020 archery elk, lots of bulls but none down yet

[Okanagan]

I'm camp cook for the three bow hunters in our family.  They have had more close chances at bull elk this season than ever before, yet not a single good shot nor arrow released.   Tomorrow is the last day of archery elk season.  5 inches of total rain predicted today and tomorrow and I don't think anyone is going out again.

Highlights include close encounters with a bull that would score well into Boone & Crockett, plus several other smaller bulls.  They named the big 6x6 Bob, and got within bow range of him 4 times total.  Very hard to close the deal on a herd bull with cows around. They got within bow range about a dozen times on mostly satellite bulls.  Worst success rate ever for us.

Highlights include a young 5x5 bull that charged grandson R and stopped at 12 yards to stare at the hunter... from behind a screen of limbs!  Bummer.

R pursued the bull and 300 yards farther he saw the same or a similar youngish bull follow cows into timber above him.  Suddenly with a bellow a BIG bull chased the 5x5 away from his cows, both bulls running straight toward R in open timber. 

The young bull veered off at 25 yards so R did a cow chirp and both bulls stopped.  In all that open timber the 5x5 stopped at 20 yards behind a clump of 3 trees.  The big bull stopped 50 yards away facing straight on to R, giving too small a frontal chest shot for R to try at 50 yards. Within seconds he went back to his cows.  The 5x5 took off when R tried to sneak to one side for a shot. 

We all think that had grandson Code taken the lead or hunted solo, that he would have gotten an arrow in the air on a bull, but he worked to get his less experienced younger brother and cousin a shot.  Code told me that he enjoys helping someone else get an animal more than shooting it himself. 

I put up tarps, cooked, bugle scouted to locate elk and kept camp.  Day one menu:  Venison stew and Red Rooster cheese biscuits cooked in Dutch ovens, hot and done a half hour after dark.



  I put up a dining tarp near the fire.  We sat by the fire under cover from the drizzle and razzed each other about alleged buck fever, coulda shouldas of the day.  No pics of camp because we don't want anyone to ever recognize our camp and know where we hunt.

Day 2 menu:  Whole spiced salmon wrapped in bacon and foil, buried in the coals.  Baked potatoes foil cooked in coals with all the fixins once done.  Peach cobbler in a big Dutch oven. 

[pitw]

Well your cooking sure beats [L] outta mine.
Sounded like a near perfect hunt with good seeings and no heavy work.

[nastygunz]

 I love to hunt in the rain, no noisy leaves under foot, knocks the scent down makes noise so they can't hear you = load the meat pole!

[Okanagan]

I love to hunt in the rain, no noisy leaves under foot, knocks the scent down makes noise so they can't hear you = load the meat pole!

A surprise to us over the past years is that the elk are way more active on nice sunny days during the rut, all day long.  Their year round normal is rain, though Sept. during the rut usually has some sunny days.  By contrast, rain is the best time to hunt blacktail deer in the same country.


Pitw, not hitting one of those did save us a LOT of work in that steep country.