Second year of Elk hunting for me, also second year of archery. Last year was thwarted by loads of people in the Colokum scaring off all the elk. In one instance, I started drawing back at an cow elk at 34 yds broadside only to have it run off after someone off to the right let an arrow fly a few feet over it's head. Talk about frustrating.
This year, ended up in a different spot. First day, didn't see a single sign. No fresh prints, no scat that was less than a week old. First night we had a bull come through our camp area bugling and raking trees up in the middle of the night though, which was a new experience I will never forget. Honestly I expected nothing more than a learning experience this year, seeing as how new I was.
Second day (11th), one person in our camp with a bull tag was on a herd of about 10 cows and a 6x6 bull. Unable to get a shot due to thick reprod and brush, he radio'd and asked if anyone was coming his way. I was about 1/2 mile based on our Garmin Rino's map, so I took off his way. I ended up walking through a bunch of dark timbers, open hills, small fields, and reprod on the way to him. I noted a few trails that looked like they had been rotatilled by heavy elk movement as well. After I got to him, we looked through where the herd was last, to no avail. They had vanished. His son and another friend came to we were too, and we searched and searched but it was like they never existed. Around noon we walked back to the truck with our heads hung low, went to camp, and ate lunch. Two people left camp to head back for work the next day, but another friend from work showed up to join the hunt.
That evening, around 1530, we headed back out - recharged and refreshed. Walking out to the same area we last saw the herd, we decided to scour the area again. Again we were thwarted, and met back up on the road to discuss our next strategy. I mentioned seeing a few well used trails and some beds, so we wandered in that direction. I ended up staying up higher on a hillside, while the other two people in the area went down low into a draw. I ended up walking as slow as I could along the well used trail, and started really paying more attention to the way I moved, and how much noise I was making.
After tip-toeing for about a half-mile, I found myself on an open hillside, all surrounded by thick brush and old-growth timber, with the game trail working its way uphill. I stopped and just listened while I looked up the trail. I began hearing some rustling and crunching up ahead coming from the trees. Knowing that the other members of my group were to my left and below me, I assumed it was them coming towards me, since we had mentioned meeting in the area. To my surprise, it was a group of three cows! I froze.
Here I was, standing in the middle of an open area, bright daylight, bow in hand, and three elk coming out of the brush and toward me. After coming out of the shadows, they looked around, and noted me. I slowly reached down, and began pulling my rangefinder off my hip. A lesson I soon learned was the loud
SNAP that the magnetic case makes when it closed. The elk noted it as well, as they all froze and stared right at me, giving me their undivided attention, ready to leave at a moment's notice. There I was, bow in one hand, rangefinder halfway to my face, nervous as could be, adrenaline pumping, legs shaking, trying not to move or make eye contact with them, trying not to make a noise, sun partially in my face. After what must have been the longest minute of my life, they calmed down a bit, and started walking around again, albeit heading back the general direction they came from.
I decided too much movement might set them running, so I dropped my rangefinder down and let it hang from the paracord it was attached to the case with. I had been practicing all month spotting ranges, and testing my estimates with the rangefinder. I was always within a few yards the last few days, so I was confident. I drew back, and the elk again noted my movement, and stopped. I estimated the biggest one that was nearly broadside to me at 60 yards. (my comfortable range is 80yds, I can do that all day long with 8" groupings) I checked the bubble level, made sure I wasn't torquing the bow, put the 60yd pin over the kill zone, and let it fly.
What I thought I saw was a miss, the arrow sailing over its back and into the trees. I was shocked at first,
how did I miss?! The elk I was aiming for ran up the hill about ten yards, and then stopped. The other two were gone before I had lowered my bow down. As I watched her stop up top, I figured she had spooked, but then calmed down. She walked about 20 yards into the brush and out of sight. I crept up to where she was at, and looked to see if I could stalk her again for another shot. Looking to my left, I saw a figure in the bushes laying down. Then I heard it, the raspy breath, panting, and then a sharp
thud as her head hit the ground. I stood there, still in shock, and thought that there was no way this was my elk. Then as I replayed the shot again a few times in my head, the arrow
had made contact. I radioed for my group, and made my way over to her. I couldn’t believe it. The emotion of excitement took over, I jumped up and down like a little kid, did a bunch of fist pumping in the air, dropped to a knee, thanked the Lord, and went off to look for my arrow. I found it, right behind where she had stood, soaked in bright red blood.
My group showed up, we high fived, and set about quartering it up and hiked the few miles back to the truck.
I had ended up with a double lung shot, just a touch high. We figured out that my range was between 52-55yds, and was aiming slightly uphill, so it made sense where my arrow hit since I used the 60yd pin. I definitely learned a few lessons during this hunt - no using rangefinder cases in the field, always stay against some sort of cover in a heavy trafficked area, keep practicing range estimations, bring more knives for quartering, a sharpener, bring a big tarp to lay out the quarters on, get better game bags than those crappy mesh ones, get a bone saw.
TL:DR - Second year archery elk, took a shot at ~55yds, got first Elk.
