So upon several members advice, I headed out to a new area for the early muzzy elk season. Decided to go up to the Oly Peninsula. Not because it showed that much promise of bringing home an elk, but because I have never been there and was looking forward to a new adventure.
I arrived in Forks early the day before the opener and spent the whole day glassing and marking up my map of areas that I would like to get into. Set up camp in the dark and got no sleep. I was sooo excited to explore this vast new mountain range. I strategically placed camp on top a ridge that looked into the valley that I wanted to hunt. This was my greatest mistake. As I have never been in the Olympics before, I seriously underestimated the terrain. Spent all of opening day glassing the valley below without seeing anything. Not suprising as there weren't very many openings in the canopy. Day two I got ambitious and decided to hike down the valley and search for sign. BAD IDEA. Left camp at about 6ish and made it to the bottom of a drainage by 11am. Wandered around the valley floor and riverbeds for a couple hours and only saw a few scattered old tracks. Scat that I found was still moist and not deteriorated, but with the amount of moisture in the air and lack of light hitting the ground I really have no idea how old it was. Decide to start climbing back up to camp around 3pm. Its already dark in this timber. Takes me till 10pm to climb back to camp, and my 100% waterproof NorthFace boots are soaked and making squishy sounds when I walk. Good thing I brought backups. Day three repeat mistakes of day two.
After seeing almost no promise of elk the first few days I was already getting fatigued. Then the magic of elk hunting came upon me. About 11pm I was awoke, my tent shaking and trees cracking. Apparently the 3 foot gap between my truck and my tent looked like a good game trail for a bull. He made his way right between the two before realizing his mistake and with a hop, skip, kick to the tent and a bump of the truck he was on his way. Mowing down the timber for the next 100 yards he then stops to mock me by bugling for the next 3 hours. No sleep, but I don't mind after it gets light I am going to have a truck load of elk meat, right.
Two hours before light I am scent proofing everything I own right down to my knife and windchecker bottle. Add a little splash elk urine cologne and I am good to go. I move downwind of his last known location in super stealth mode. On my way there I find some fresh scat. Couldn't hurt to add a little to the aroma, so I rub it into my boots. Get into my calling location and wait for light. He is still in the dark timber and I can hear him rubbing up a tree about 100 yrds above me. When it gets light I let out three estrous calls in a row. He is in route and coming fast. At 30 yards he is just about to break into the open when he puts on the skids. I am knelt down and have to lift just a hair to make out if he is legal. Apparently this is knowledge he wanted to keep to himself because he did not hesitate to leave the county at this point. What did I do, I only thought about lifting for a better look. Wind was steady in my face at 10mph. I really have no idea what alerted him, but he was not stopping. Was he just shy, performance anxiety, was I to forward. Who knows, but that was the first and last glimpse of an elk I would see on this trip.
Spent the next several days hunting pretty hard to no avail. All in all it was a good trip. I got to see the ocean (only my third time), rain forest, and explore the Olympic Nat. Forest. Guess I can't complain.
Side Note: I have been elk hunting for 5 years (well 3 years of putting in an effort). I have managed to call in 6 elk, all bulls. But have never gotten a shot opportunity. What is the deal. Frustrated.
