so we cruised out to the winston unit today looking for some late season archery elk. of the 4 people we had i was the only one who had ever hunted that unit (17 years ago) so things were a little sketchy but what the hell lets give it a try.... nothing going on in the morning so we hit the big timber around 10 and saw a lot of sign but no fur. we only had a couple hours before dark and didn't have a plan so we went to an area i've seen elk before and hoped they might be around. dropped 2 guys off on the upper road and me and my partner took the lower road that parralled the grown over clear cut about a mile below. just as we pulled into the parking spot someone was letting loose with their semi-auto pistol about 1/2 mile below us....what the hell we're already here so lets walk back in and check it out. we were only about 300 yards down the road when my buddy said "elk" and i turned and saw 3 cows about 100 yards below us in the thinned timber. he took off after them and i kept going down the road hoping they would come up...no such luck. about that time we heard my other buddy on the radio saying he had got into elk on the upper road, got a shot and the herd was still milling around. we hot footed it out and went back up to where they were. when we got back up there our other buddy said he walked into the timber along side the cut and saw elk at 80 yards...he was standing there for a second watching the elk when a cow popped out about 30 yards below him. he took the shot and thought he hit her. at the shot the entire woods came alive with elk and they all bunched up about 60 yards below him not knowing what had happened. he stood there for a minute then the entire herd of about 20 elk started feeding again below him. he backed out of the area and got us on the radio. we showed up almost at dark and walked into the timber and had the whole herd about 80 yards below us...we could see them moving through the timber but couldn't get a clean shot. me and my buddy started backing out to look for the cow our other buddy had shot but at the same time the guy who shot was making his way aroung the knob above us trying to push the wandering elk back to us to get a shot. by this time it was dark so we called him on the radio but he wouldn't answer...after about 20 minutes we were getting confused because we hadn't heard from him...finally we saw him coming out of the woods walking funny....he had tried to hop a small ditch and had fallen, broke his bow and separated his shoulder..he came staggering out of the woods with his arm up , broken quiver and arrows pointing all diferent directions with a separted shoulder... we laid him down in the bed of the truck and the 3 of us grabbed a hold of his arm and tried to twist it back into position but no avail...yes we cranked on it...finally my buddy put him in the truck and took him to the hospital in Morton where they knocked him out and put his shoulder back....he'll be wearing a sling for 3 weeks.....heading back in the morning to (hopefully) get his elk. yes this is a true story
