Post by: judojudd on September 22, 2014, 08:07:05 PM
My righteous indignation was tested with this predicament. Do I take a moral stand against the insane and illegal pay-to-play practices of the evil corporation by not purchasing their permit, or do I buy the permit and have the opportunity to hunt the entire unit with perhaps a greater advantage in the Weyerhaeuser due to few folks wanting to pony up the dough?
At first, I thought, “meh, we’ll just hunt the backcountry.” It is, after all, one of the more stunning places in our state AND there are elk everywhere up there. (Literally, there are so many elk up there, you can see them from space...see attached google earth image) But I was a little concerned about the heat and the lack of shade and thought packing a bull out of there could be problematic. (I’m glad to see a few guys killed nice bulls up there and didn't have problems getting the meat out) After soliciting a lot of advice from fellow hunters on here and in my circle of friends, we decided to pay the most miserable 150 bucks of our lives to get a key so we could at least have the option to hunt the Weyco compound.
With daytime temps predicted to be in the 90‘s on opening day, we decided to hunt down low on Weyerhaeuser land. I can tell you this much, I felt a whole lot better about that $150 after the first weekend in there. I heard more bugles in the first 2 days of hunting than I have in my last 5 seasons of bowhunting combined. There were bulls in every basin. Opening morning I snuck up on a bull in the timber that was bugling every 2-5 minutes. Then, when he busted me, I went over that ridge and saw a nice 5x5 feeding out in an opening. Literally, every elk we spotted the first four days of hunting was a bull. I didn't see a cow until the second weekend when I came around a corner to see a really nice 5x6 standing in the road. He went up the high bank into an opening and I continued on in my rig to see he was pushing about 50 cows with him. All the bulls we called in (including the bull my buddy killed on opening day), had no cows. It almost made me wonder if there were, in fact, cows in this unit. What a fun problem to encounter!
And now, to the heart of the action...
It’s Saturday evening. We’ve hunted 9 days and had countless close encounters with bugling bulls. My buddy, Shad, and I are standing on a high ridge around 4 o’clock in the afternoon when we hear a raspy bugle ring out from a brushy creek bottom. We look off the edge of the old road and I think, "this looks like the nastiest, brushiest, most miserable creek bottom in the history of creek bottoms...this must be a good bull."
So we decide to go after him. The next 20 minutes are blood, sweat and misery as we make our way through the blackberry brambles and Alder thickets. There are two creeks and we can tell he is for sure on the other side of the first creek, maybe even across the second. When we finally find a spot that has a rare few shooting lanes, we set up for a calling sequence with Shad hanging back 50 yards behind me playing the part of a seductive cow. After a few cow calls and no response, Shad rips a bugle, at which point, the bull fires back from beyond the other creek.
We need to get closer.
More sweating and wrestling brush gets us through the second creek bottom and up the other side. (You know it's real elk country when you use huckbrush as your safety rope when going up and down steep banks). We figure we are getting pretty close at this point, so Shad bugles and about 10 seconds later we hear an Alder branch break 25 yards from us amongst the labyrinth of foliage. He lowers his head and lifts several fir boughs with his rack.
He's coming and we've got the wind.
I'm standing there, dumbfounded, as I can't believe how fast he snuck up on us. I was sure he was about 100 yards away from the sound of his last bugle. The fog lifts as Shad tells me to nock an arrow. I'm thinking, "There is literally no direction I can shoot except for the path we just walked up." I position myself for a shot in that direction as the bull walks to 10 yards from us. He’s marching downhill to fight a bull that is really a strip of latex in Shad’s mouth.
I see steady movement, tan, dark brown and ivory. Only a deadfall separates us now as I draw. He doesn't hesitate, he walks right into the only opening I can shoot through and I release my arrow. The nock disappears behind his shoulder at 5 yards. The bull explodes through the brush like a Panzer in the Ardennes. I take a breath for the first time in a minute and look back at Shad and quickly go into the most adrenaline filled bear hug of my life. We attempt to calm ourselves but hop around like monkeys instead. The hopping subsides after a minute or two and we proceed to whisper about the shot placement and wait for any sound that will help us recover the bull. We are confident the shot is good and take turns giggling like school girls. I whisper, "that was unreal!" maybe 50 times.
We recover the arrow soaked in blood to the nock and we are, again, high-fiving white guys. The blood is bright red and bubbly. There is blood at the initial site but both of us immediately go in the direction we think he went...and are both wrong. We reconvene at the point of impact and pick up the blood trail that takes us in a loop up the hill to almost the exact spot where we first heard him bugling.
It's dark now and the blood trail trickles to an end. I crawl around with my headlamp shining inches from the ground as I examine every blade of grass, leaf, and pine needle. Shad says that sometimes a mortally wounded elk's blood pressure will drop and the bleeding will stop just before they die. I'm glad to hear this news because a huge weight in my chest had started to suffocate me as the thought of losing the bull grew. Shad heads up the hill in following the trajectory the bull had been going. At last, I hear him say, "blood!" from 30 yards up the hill. I make my way up to where he is and his flashlight is on a big tan beast.
"There he is, man," he says, smiling widely. "What a toad!"
Again, it's a blur of hugs and high-fives with some joyfully wet eyes. I swing a leg over him like I'm a cowpolk riding bareback and put my hands around big, thick antlers. In wide eyed wonder, I count 6 typical points on his right side and 5 wackadoo points on his left: a split brow tine, double eye guards, monstrous G4 and a spear of a main beam that twists around towards the top. Mud brown and barnacled, these antlers are perfect; a dream come true. It's apparent from the smell he's been mercilessly bullying Noble and Douglas firs, Alders and maybe a Cedar or two. This is my new favorite fragrance; high mountain potpourri.
Positioning the ol’ boy for pictures proves a bit of a challenge as the bull stubbornly refuses to let us manipulate his head to the angles we desire. Our photo sesh ends and the work begins. We happily fill game bags with hundreds of pounds of savory meat. Two heavy loads back to the truck and we are beat. Hearts full, bleary eyed and smiling, we rumble down out of the mountains.
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on September 22, 2014, 08:13:13 PM
Post by: jason stevens on September 22, 2014, 08:13:21 PM
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on September 22, 2014, 08:14:00 PM
Post by: h2ofowlr on September 22, 2014, 08:14:10 PM
Post by: NOCK NOCK on September 22, 2014, 08:15:17 PM
Post by: trophyhunt on September 22, 2014, 08:19:03 PM
Post by: judojudd on September 22, 2014, 08:22:50 PM
So your saying you goggled the elk and went there and killed one :o :dunno: :chuckle:Ha! No. Actually, this is a picture of a spot so deep, I'd never even dreaming about hunting in there. It's DEEEEEP!
Post by: Watimberghost on September 22, 2014, 08:25:27 PM
Post by: RB on September 22, 2014, 08:26:33 PM
Post by: kevinlisa06 on September 22, 2014, 08:31:56 PM
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Post by: jackelope on September 22, 2014, 08:34:23 PM
Post by: carpsniperg2 on September 22, 2014, 08:36:23 PM
Post by: TommyH on September 22, 2014, 08:55:00 PM
:chuckle:
Post by: X-Force on September 22, 2014, 09:30:53 PM
Post by: buckhorn2 on September 22, 2014, 09:38:45 PM
Post by: Damnimissed on September 22, 2014, 10:31:52 PM
Post by: Woods_Warrior on September 22, 2014, 11:02:32 PM
Post by: Vo2max on September 22, 2014, 11:25:18 PM
Post by: Lunchbox1981 on September 23, 2014, 12:19:38 AM
Post by: sneakyjake on September 23, 2014, 12:40:06 AM
Post by: bowhunterforever on September 23, 2014, 02:56:24 AM
Post by: whacker1 on September 23, 2014, 05:33:14 AM
Post by: boneaddict on September 23, 2014, 06:29:07 AM
Post by: GotMyTag on September 23, 2014, 06:40:02 AM
Post by: MLBowhunting on September 23, 2014, 07:30:28 AM
Post by: elkoholic1 on September 23, 2014, 11:19:23 AM
Post by: FordGuy on September 23, 2014, 11:33:17 AM
Post by: ctwiggs1 on September 23, 2014, 01:08:16 PM
Oh yeah nice bull! :chuckle:
Seriously though that's the bull of a lifetime man!
Post by: BABackcountryBwhntr on September 23, 2014, 03:15:21 PM
Post by: asl20bball on September 23, 2014, 03:23:39 PM
Post by: Bowtech7 on September 23, 2014, 04:18:47 PM
Post by: rsrobins on September 23, 2014, 04:38:43 PM
Post by: HackDaddy on September 23, 2014, 11:44:47 PM
Congrats Chris! And the beard suits you, amigo.
Post by: JamesK. on September 24, 2014, 10:35:25 AM
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Post by: Jonathan_S on September 24, 2014, 10:55:07 AM
That is the hunt of a lifetime. I love the character of the horns. Nice shooting too. 5 yards is close but when you are that close it seems your brain can go to mush? Fantastic.
:yeah: I shot a bull at 4' this fall and I would have rather shot him at 40 yards. We take what we can get though eh?
Awesome write-up and beautiful old bull.
Post by: FSTaxidermy on September 24, 2014, 11:39:24 AM
Post by: MADMAX on September 24, 2014, 11:48:10 AM
Post by: bowhiker on September 24, 2014, 07:23:21 PM
Post by: rsarkks on September 25, 2014, 11:52:23 AM
Post by: lilswab on September 25, 2014, 01:59:30 PM
Post by: judojudd on September 25, 2014, 02:21:56 PM
The google earth pic is definitely in the Margaret. Just east of Minnie Peak. I'm sure there are plenty of other spots in that area (Loowit, Mudflow, Margaret, Toutle) where you can see elk on google earth.
Post by: SniperDanWA on September 25, 2014, 07:32:35 PM
Post by: blackveltbowhunter on September 27, 2014, 09:23:35 AM
Post by: Taco280AI on September 27, 2014, 09:52:32 AM
Post by: CNELK on September 27, 2014, 10:41:39 AM
Rsarkks,
The google earth pic is definitely in the Margaret. Just east of Minnie Peak. I'm sure there are plenty of other spots in that area (Loowit, Mudflow, Margaret, Toutle) where you can see elk on google earth.
That first photo from google earth is outside the boundary of the Margaret unit, in the Loowit. There is a separate draw tag only hunt in that drainage.Rsarkks I agree with you the Google earth picture was definitely taken in the Mt. Whittier. I have been in that backcountry before and seen that very picture before last year when I was scouting it out. Here is the picture I just got from Google earth I will let you decide? (https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftapatalk.imageshack.com%2Fv2%2F14%2F09%2F27%2F311d6b0472dccee73922d2750ca504ac.jpg&hash=6337703fe8451fbff524059e0904c70b75030b8f)
This is Judojudd picture. (https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftapatalk.imageshack.com%2Fv2%2F14%2F09%2F27%2F2bc9e4a8bd5e72cda100d6c19503e0ca.jpg&hash=ecf25d1bfc30a6adf53d99cd7c82709a60ba50e3)
Regardless of the Google earth pictures judojudd awesome write-up loved the story! Awesome bull for that unit with your bow and congratulations!
Post by: elk247 on September 27, 2014, 12:07:25 PM
Post by: Arteman on November 01, 2014, 05:28:44 PM
Post by: elkboy on November 01, 2014, 06:05:33 PM
Post by: 4fletch on November 01, 2014, 10:07:00 PM
Post by: PA BEN on November 02, 2014, 04:13:12 AM