I've been at this hunting game for the past 20 years, principally with a rifle for deer & elk but I actually started out with an inexpensive bow as my weapon of choice for my first season. I gave up soon afterward based on my encounter with a doe I like to call Miss Steak. It was opening morning and I was sitting on a stump in the driving rain on the edge of a clearcut during mid-morning when Miss Steak walked up, stood broadside at 40 yards and called over to me “what the heck, take your best shot big boy”. Now you have to understand at the time my bow skills were, well, somewhat lacking and my distance judgment was probably even worse. So anyway, I nocked up and let it fly. Miss Steak and I watched my first arrow clank on the ground between her legs, then our eyes met and she started laughing at me. I guess it was the tear in my eye that made her take pity on me and when I asked if she would stand still while I loaded up another arrow she was very gracious and said “sure, I’ll give you another shot--knock yourself out, fatty”. The second arrow had great potential, let me tell you. It was flying true and was headed just behind the shoulder for a double lung shot. That is, until it hit a twig and headed for parts unknown. She wasn’t laughing this time but she thought better of offering a 3rd shot and so she sauntered off down the canyon. We haven't spoken since and I'm sure she has long since met her ultimate fate but not before sharing my archery ineptitude with her offspring, which, due to my embarrassment, is why I have avoided the Toutle Unit and archery hunting like the plague ever since. Well, until recently that is - I'm back in the archery game.
After discovering a fantastic drainage for elk hunting in Central Washington and then seeing it increasingly over run with a sea of hunter orange the next few seasons (who told everybody?!) I finally got fed up about 3 years ago and decided to take up archery for elk. The straw that broke the camel’s back happened when the spike I shot 70 yards away at the top of a little knoll was followed up with a bullet from some numbskull on the other side of the knoll not 100 yards away from me and he had hurried to notch his tag and was putting it on the spike as I arrived on the scene. What really bothered me was that I had been sitting in place long before this guy arrived on the scene and he knowingly posted himself so close to my location after we had exchanged waves an hour before.
I had already been frustrated on 3 previous occasions when I could have taken a spike but was thwarted by inaction on my part from concern that another hunter could possibly be in the line of fire beyond my target. And as you know, sometimes a split second will make the difference between putting down an elk and watching a big buff-yellow butt scamper off into the woods. So, 2 years ago I bought a whole new archery setup (amazing the technological advances in the past 20 years!) and I’m back in the elk business with much fewer hunters to contend with. Unfortunately, my favorite elk area is not open to archery in the early season and by the time the late season comes around this place is buried deep with snow.
I usually elk hunt with my brother and/or a new hunting friend I met a couple years ago who has a very similar hunting style and we have found a pretty good location in Region 5 where we have been regularly seeing herds of elk and we can shoot anything but a spike or a 2-point. We almost got our chance in both of the last 2 years, the first when my buddy and I located a big herd of cows some 300 yards away and waited for them to disappear over a hill before pursuing them so as not to get busted out in the open by them. We were able to sneak up on the edge of the herd using brush and the wind to our advantage, along with cow calls that made them think we were part of the herd. Unfortunately, a couple of guys had seen us on the pursuit and decided to flank our efforts to see if they could have a chance at them too and they spooked the herd. It’s a helpless feeling watching a single file herd run broadside 70 yards away knowing you couldn’t stop them from running into the forest and into the next drainage.
And then this past year we were at the wrong end of a very crunchy-loud clearcut when a herd consisting of a very nice herd bull, 26 cows/calves and a spike filtered out of the trees in the late afternoon and we knew there was no way to get in position for a shot before dark. So we waited it out and made an appearance the next morning but the elk were gone. Figuring their probable route we pushed our way through the deep reprod to the top of the drainage and managed to run into the tail end of the herd. Matter of fact, there we were standing 15 yards away from a vine maple being slashed around obviously by a bull, and it wasn’t long before the still-in-velvet spikes appeared over the top of the brush to reveal the one and only animal we could not shoot. Figures. It wasn’t long before that spike presented an easy shot. Too bad he wasn’t the herd bull. Grumble, grumble. We followed the herd for perhaps ½ hour looking for an opportunity at a legal animal and just couldn’t quite get things to fall in place before they finally spooked due to changing wind direction.
But I remain hopeful to get a shot at one of these beasts with the bow and to be honest I’ll be exceptionally excited even to get a cow. I think a bow killed elk has to be one of the great hunting accomplishments and after 20 years of elk hunting in Washington and only 1 cow to show for it, I’m due man, I’m due! I’m thinking about trying archery back over in the Yakima herd, but I’d have to do a lot more scouting first when I can find the time.
And then there’s my Wyoming (rifle) elk hunting experience when I got a spike about an hour into the one and only day I’ve ever elk hunted out of state. Does Washington elk hunting frustrate me? Well, yeah, maybe just a little! Maybe one of your guys could tie a huge bull to a tree and give me the GPS coordinates. Yeah, that’d be great.
