Sorry for the long delay in posting. Trouble with download originally and then just flat ass busy. So my Colockum bull tag and the entire experience was a great success. Opening day started with a few close encounters of smaller 5 points and then my son harvested his first animal ever, a beautiful calf which yielded 62 pounds of tender boneless meat in the freezer. Proud to say that in his 9th season of limited hunting around fall sports since he started hunting, he made the perfect shot at 20 yards. See picture 3. On day two of the hunt I did manage to sneak in on a huge 370+ bull, had him at 30 yards for close to 15 minutes but vitals were covered and he just kept raking the trees. I only needed one step forward or back for a quartering away shot. Well, as you can guess, the wind swirled and he busted.
Day 2 and 3 of the season were spent moving in on bulls and passing on probably 15-20 small 5 and 6 points. So hard to let a bull walk by at 10 yards but with all the bugling and activity, I was trying to hold out. Day 3 my son came back and was going to spend a few day afield with me. He was good luck evidently, I am actually calling him the elk whisperer now. Kid, got into 5 and 6 points every time we separated. 15 yards, 6 yards 20 yards, he even watched 2 6 points fight for like 5 minutes while he was sneaking up a ridge, had a 40 yard show. Anyhow, the 4th day found us sneaking down the drainage at day break with bugles all around us. We decided to push up into a side ridge towards one particular bull with a nice gravelly tone. After crossing the creek we had gone no more than 30 yards when we heard elk coming down the trail above us. We dropped to our knees and watched 20 cows come straight at us with a nice bull pushing them. We thought we were busted until the lead cow dropped off the trail through the timber to cross the creek right above us. We let all the cows walk by at 25 yards and finally the bull came down through the timber tipping his head back and forth to fit between the tight timber. As he went behind a tree I drew, followed the sweet spot and then a cow spotted us and he stopped with his vitals almost covered. I released and watched in horror as my arrow hit perfect height but outside the chest cavity. It is the first time I have ever not had a quick clean kill on an elk and I have harvested many since 1984, my first year bow hunting. I think in reflection I must have push a little left to give clearance for the tree and just blew it. We let him go and then began a 5 hour search, which when the blood stopped turned into grid searching. At about 1300, I sent my son back to the truck for more food and water while I made another sweep in what we thought was his last direction. On my way back to the truck, I was about 200 feet from the road according to gps when all the sudden there he was 5 yards away bedded and looking at me. By the time I nocked and arrow and pulled up, he was off and running. There was blood in the bed but not enough. We took up the chase again and after about another 90 minutes, having last seen him crossing a ridge, I decided to leave him.
The next morning we were back in the drainage listening to bulls and decided to work out way up the ridge towards a few bulls with the intent to resume the grid work before in got warm. As we were sneaking up the ridge and getting close to a few screaming bulls, I happened to look up ahead and see antler tip. After a few more steps I realized that the antler I was looking at 20 yards away way on its side, cautiously I lowered my bow and grab the binos, low and behold there was my arrow and he was not breathing. After saying thanks to Aaron or whomever lead me to him, the camera came out and I was overcome with relief that I had actually found him almost 24 hours after the initial shot. I had a lot of concern about the quality of the meat but the carcass was still warm and the temps were in the mid 30's that morning so we think he probably expired very shortly before we found him. I caped him, completely boned him out and feel extremely fortunate that the meat seems to be find. Of the first pack of Steaks for dinner a few night ago, there does not seem to be any adverse taste to the meat. Although he was not the big bull from day 2, he is a beautiful 6x7 that a few folks and my taxidermist think might go around 310"ish. All in all it was a great season, from my son not being sure if he wanted to hunt anymore after all the years of no success and now being hooked, to having him by my side for the entire experience with my bull, it was a season I will always remember. As we were packing out the last load of meat and the cape, my son who is way to wise for a 19yo said "Ya know dad, this was a really great lesson on how important it is to make a good shot with archery". Gotta love the kid for putting a positive spin onto a hunt that I was really not proud of. Hopefully neither he nor I ever make that kind of a shooting mistake again. Hopefully I have not bored you all. More pictures on page 3 too.
