I'll take your guys word for it, Nice bull. All I see is a red X, have to wait till I get home to see it.
It's not that big really but the antlers were heavy enough to not make it worth hiking back for them when we finally packed out all the meat. 
Huh? 
Just kidding.
Ok, here’s the story.
My watch alarm goes off. It’s 3:45, opening morning. Holy crap, do I really want to get out of the sack this early and bust my butt for several days? I’ve been at this elk hunting thing for 22 years with little success and I’m due big rewards for my years of hard work. But I’ve got a bull tag in my pocket and I know where to find elk.
My buddy Dave and I start up the ridge at 4:30 toward my favorite elk ground knowing that we would get into elk, perhaps even before shooting light like we did last year. We sneak ever so slowly and quietly down into a bowl to find out if the herd is in “my” clearing but during the approach we hear no elk sounds. We sit tight for a couple of hours when suddenly we hear the crackle of twigs in the dark timber and look up to see a mature cow moving through the trees at 60 yards, followed by another and then another. The third animal is much larger than the first 2 and the first two definitely look like mature cows so I’m thinking bull. Dave is faced the other direction so he can’t see them and neither of us move for fear of spooking them. We wait for the rest of the herd to move through and hope they move into the clearing for a shot but surprisingly there are no others and they don’t come out of the woods so 15 minutes later I suggest that we get up and dog them.
We carefully move 100 yards or so toward where the elk were headed but we find no sign of them. And the whole time I’m thinking it’s odd that there is a bull with only 2 cows in this herd and they are not talking at all as they move through the forest early in the morning so I figure they could be part of a busted up herd that will be looking to rejoin the rest of their band. I rummage through my brain to recall some of the tactics I learned from Elknut’s Playbook the past couple of months and I get out my mouth reed and my bugle to make cow and bull “regathering” sounds. I had spent the entire drive to camp listening to the various elk sounds from Elknut’s CD that my wife had loaded on to my I-touch and I feel as though I am confident enough to make the right sounds rather sounds that would be unnatural to the elk and cause them to spook.
We wait for a few minutes and we whisper a little more strategy to each other when I see an elk with bone coming down the hill and tell Dave “big bull, don’t move”. I can’t count points in the trees and I don’t want to get caught gawking and end up making a split second mistake of failing to take a shot. That has happened before and I don’t want a repeat. I can see that the bull has a thick, wide rack as he snakes around trees tilting his head to the side over and over again so he can fit between the trees. When there is sufficient vegetation to block the bull’s vision I draw as he comes closer and closer in our direction. The bull and I lock eyes at 25 yards as I stand at full draw. He’s broadside. Easy shot but there’s a tree standing in front of him covering up the entire kill zone. We continue the stare for perhaps 30 seconds as Dave holds perfectly still looking the other direction, not knowing the opportunity that has presented itself. I can feel my arms starting to quiver as they begin to tire when the bull finally decides to look ahead and continue walking. He takes 2 steps and I let the arrow fly.
The arrow hits at the level of the heart but much too far back and I notice that it does not penetrate through the other side of the body. I estimate that the entrance wound is right on the diaphragm wall and, since he was slightly quartering away and uphill I think (and hope!) it finds the bottom of the lung on the far side. My whole body begins to shake violently as I take in what has just taken place and continues to do so for the next hour as the anticipation builds of what is to come.
After the shot Dave turns to see the bull and we collect as much information as possible about the direction of travel, the condition of the bull and the shot placement as he bolts uphill toward the top of the ridge. We watch as he darts right to left to right still having to dodge trees with his wide rack. Based on the shot we decide to wait 15 minutes to look for blood on the ground at the point of impact and make more decisions after we could survey the scene. Here is first blood, about 3’ from the point of impact. It looks promising but we decide to wait 3 (very agonizing!) hours to begin tracking based on the less than perfect shot placement.
The blood trail is fairly continuous and not too difficult to follow. We notice that as the nock end of the arrow brushes trees during his run the blood sprays out nicely. We follow about 100 yards and hear a little rustling ahead of us and hear the “danger” bark of an elk that moves off to our right and we wonder if it is the bull or perhaps some other elk that was spooked by another hunter. And then we find 3 large pools of blood within 10 yards of each other and for the first time we find pink frothy lung blood. Excellent, the broadhead is still cutting and continuing to do its job.
We soon find the 10” section of arrow that had been sticking out of the body and immediately the blood trail disappears. I mean completely disappeares! We spend another hour trying to follow the trail based on tracks alone but soon hopelessly lose that as well. We spend the next several hours doing a grid search based on where he might have traveled keeping in the back of our minds that he may have traveled to water as animals sometimes do when injured. After the primary grid search was complete I suggest we go to the head of the creek of the drainage the bull was headed toward and follow it down to camp as the shadows were getting longer in the late afternoon.
And then I began hearing a regularly occurring but very faint moaning sound coming from the bottom of the creek. It sounds like it could be a bear but I’m holding out hope that it is the bull that we were already planning on spending the next couple of days finding come hell or high water. In any case I slow my gait considerably and keep a close eye on the thick brush around the creek as I approach to the ever increasing volume of the groaning sounds. And then I see an antler tip. And another. And another. I nock an arrow and crouch down as I move ever so slowly and quietly toward the bull and here is what I see.
I can tell the bull is in great distress but I see that he is in a deep hole in the creek and doesn’t appear to be able to stand. I back out and get Dave’s attention and we confer about the best course of action. We decide to put another arrow in him so I crouch down and sneak up on the bull again. I see that there is no way for me to have a clear shot unless I stand right out in the open where he can see me. He does. He turns his head and opens his eyes wide but he is obviously unable to stand. I carefully assess the best arrow placement based on his body position and let the second arrow fly.
The new wound spits out lung blood on each breath and several minutes later the bull’s antlers begin swaying slightly as he begins losing consciousness and then his head drops slowly into the water where each breath cause violent bubbling in the water as he takes water into his lungs. What ultimately killed him--loss of consciousness due to blood loss or drowning is unknown to me but what I do know is that as tough of a day as Dave and I had, it was nothing compared to what I put this bull through because of less than perfect shot placement. Tough lesson to learn. Total travel of this bull after the shot was approximately 300 yards.
Death took place as nightfall approached. We were unable to pull the bull completely out of the creek due to his massive size but we could pull him up in the shallow to do our work. It was an arduous night standing in a cold creek until after light the next morning as we worked to cape and section the meat off the animal while doing our best to reposition the animal several times so as not to block the entire creek and create deeper water and to get better access to the areas we worked on. I decided our best option in this case was the gutless method. It took more time but I think we were able to do a better job of keeping the meat dry. Fortunately, due to the cold creek water, game & garbage bags and working at night we were able to save every bit of the meat and we didn’t have to deal with any flies, bees or hot weather.
Also fortunate for us was that the bull traveled toward a road that could be accessed with Dave’s Jeep so the pack out was relatively easy, only about 100 yards. Good thing because we were exhausted in every possible way. Dave and I loaded up and headed back to camp where we quickly split up the meat between us and headed our separate ways with a handshake.
This is a once in a lifetime animal for me so I’m finally shelling out some dough to have some taxidermy work done. I’ve had my eye on Bucklucky’s artistry with elk for several years so he got the job. Thanks Michelle for filling in on the caping of the head yesterday. And thanks again for posting caping directions for me to follow in the field. Without those I surely would have damaged the cape beyond repair! Nice to meet you.
