Elk hunting the hard way

[Okanagan]

More details on the elk stalk. R spent nine hours doing moves and counter moves with this bull before killing him.  I thought it merited a seperate thread.  Bedtime reading for John while he is oxygen tethered.

The fourth day of archery elk season R’s Dad and I had gone home and R planned to make it a light exertion recovery day after three days of hard climbing up and down canyons after bulls.  Light rain forecast turning turning to heavy rain by afternoon.

Early in the morning he heard a bull bugle down in the bottom of a canyon.  Down he went, 1500 vertical feet to the creek bottom and up the other side a bit.  No sign of elk in the bottom and nothing would answer his calls.  He worked well down the main canyon, then back and up the canyon side toward his starting point.  He was almost back to the top when the bull below bugled, apparently from the place where R had bugled in the bottom.  Grrr…  Down he went again.

Back in the bottom he found no elk nor would anything reply to his query calls.  He worked up the main canyon bottom quite a ways, and considered climbing out the opposite side to a road above, which would put him several miles from his vehicle.  At 3:00 PM he put on rain pants in the increasing rain and decided to get out of there the way he had come down, back up the canyon side to his dry rig and dry clothes on top before it got to raining too hard. 

Angling up around the canyon side, he spotted a cow elk 80 yards above him.  Game on! 

The wind was in his favor so he stalked closer.  He saw several cows and a glimpse of bull and spooked the herd just enough that they skedaddled, contouring around the mountain.  He ran hard for several hundred yards around the forested slope to undercut them and caught up again, with cows 100 yards above him.  He sneaked closer and ranged a stump at 30 yards that cows were passing behind, walking from left to right.  He thought they were right behind the stump but they were five yards past it.  He had an opening wide enough to shoot through just past the stump so he waited. 

As he watched elk pass the opening, in his peripheral vision he noticed a lighter blond elk approaching and knew that it was likely a bull.  He drew, waited till the bull stepped past the stump and did a soft cow chirp.  The bull stopped and he shot.  It was 5 PM.

With the bull uphill and quartering away at 35 yards, the arrow entered low behind the last rib on its right side, angled forward and upward as it crossed through the chest cavity and exited high and tight behind the offside left shoulder.  Hit through liver, one lung and with both entry and exit holes, the bull made it 400-500 yards and fell over.

I’ve obviously left out some of the minutia that I couldn't keep straight.  R put on and took off rain pants a time or two as he sweated, ran and stalked. 

As we cut and wrapped meat, R said that the easiest day of his hunt was the pack out day, when they carried over 300 lbs. of elk meat out of the canyon.

[pitw]

Dang good hunt.

I won't trade for my easy ones.

[Okanagan]

Dang good hunt.

I won't trade for my easy ones.

Me neither.  I never did hunt THAT hard for elk, though I did for goats.  I was surprised and impressed with his persistence after one bull, and how athletic and in shape he had to be to keep after it.  A lot of hunters would move on when it ran off the first time, and looked for a less alerted animal.  He keeps after one till it is down or he has lost all touch with the animal.  He made good moves, and got lucky breaks at the right times.

[FinsnFur]

That wore me out reading it. Kudos them for sure

[coyote101]

Nicely done, that's a beautiful, well earned trophy. 

Pat