Well, my broken leg and ankle finally healled enough for me to go with my dad (70) down to St. Helens for our yearly elk hunt. I was able to walk a couple miles at a time on flatter ground so we found trails and logging roads we could walk. We would call as we walked and stop once in a while to do some calling. We only had two encounters while we were there but we shod have had two elk.
The first encounter was on the second day while we were walking a trial along a small river. We were on our way back to the truck, I was cow calling every 50 yards or so and all of a sudden a bull sounded off to our left. Here is where we made the mistake... We jumped off the trail and about 40 yrds away from where we were (in the trees) and I moved further away to try and call him past my dad... Well, that bull came right to where we were standing and blasted at me like to say, where the hell did you go. When I tried to call him my direction, he screamed one more time and headed right on out of there. Lesson learned...do not move or set up until you know what he is doing. If I had just told me dad to mover just off the trail and I went to the other side of the trail, we probably would have had back strap for dinner.
Our next encounter was a few days later, it was really hot and some friends told us about a spot a few miles away from their camp where they had been seeing lots of elk. They told us to head on back there, I was not sure if we could make it back that far but we thought we would try. As it turned out, it was to far for my leg to handle so we headed back about half way to their camp area and walked back into a nice looking area and started calling. We were both tired and were not really expecting anything ( you know what that means). Yup, all of a sudden I heard something running out direction. Sure enough, a bull comes running in behind us and stops directly behind us. My dad can't hear real well so he just saw me grab for my bow and did the same. I told him not to move because the bull was right behind us (about 10 yrds) and was looking past us trying to find the other elk he heard... I heard him start to walk away so I tried to turn and see what I could see. There was no shot but he was walking away
then he started to walk to the side of us and I realized he was going to try and come down wind of us to try and make us out. He made the perfect walk for us and was straight out in front of us. Both of us are at full draw waiting for one of us to get an opening.... Well, I ended up with having the shot. He looked like he was right behind a stump that I figured was about 22 yrds or so away. I put my 20 pin on his lower chest and .................watched as my arrow slid right under his chest
he did not give us another chance. When we went over to find my arrow, I noticed his tracks about 10 yrds behind the stump
again! Lesson learned...get rid of my 20 pin and just use my 30 pin from now on.. If they are that close it's not going to make a difference.
We still had a great time and are looking forward to a smarter outing next year
Hope everyone else had as much fun as I did..
Fulla
