Planned 9 days in Oregon this year. Normally I do 3 weeks and two states, but recently we bought a new house and needed to help momma more then myself.
Day 6 i shot this bull. Was into elk everyday and had multiple opportunities at full draw. I should have had it done much sooner, but couldn’t connect the dots. 30 minutes before arrowing this guy I missed a much larger bull. Not sure I would change this guy out for the bigger one after walking up and noticing his right side was goofy and coming out at a weird place. When I shot him I did not notice this. There was tons of scar tissue everywhere where the horn should have been. Pretty unique in my opinion and a first for me to shoot a elk with character.
So, after missing the first bull I walked maybe 200 yards and heard a little spike squeal. After just a couple cow calls I could hear this guy coming through the aspens. He knew something was up and didn’t step in my window, so I drew my bow and took one step left to get the shot. He was at 18 yards. At the moment i released he decided to spin and drop. It resulted in my first arrow coming in high behind the front shoulder and exiting in front of the opposite shoulder through the back strap. He ran about 100 yards and stopped and was trying to bite and pull 1/3 of my broken arrow out of the exit side. I noticed he only had to take 10 steps and I had a great trail to sneak down and get a second shot. Not sure why he didn’t bolt and never stop, but for some reason he didn’t. When he moved behind the brush I dropped my pack and hustled up to a point where I assumed I was in bow range. He stepped out at 52 and I smoked him with the second shot. Only ran another 50 yards and tipped over. I’m positive my first shot was not lethal after seeing him standing at a distance. That’s the only reason I pressed forward. Plus it was open country and I could see him easily. Luckily I did.
Spent the last 3 days of my trip calling for a family member and had a blast. We should have easily filled another tag multiple times but he forgot to put his reed in his mouth as the shooter on one bull and he couldn’t stop it. Oh well!! Live and learn. Enjoy the pics!
Now my second part of the post is who is drawing Wyoming general next year? Need a few good elk hunters to link up with. I have a lot of my own areas picked out but very open minded. I’m drawing a rifle elk tag for Oregon next year and this will be my only 2nd time not archery hunting in Oregon which leaves a week or two open in September. If I don’t do Wyoming I’ll do otc Idaho unless I draw a idaho special permit. Non of my buddies have Wyoming points nor the desire to try and go there. They all pretty much want to stay in Oregon and Washington. I also have points in Utah, Nevada, and Montana. Will skip NM application next year.
Hope everyone has a great rest of there seasons and good luck!
