I've hunted a few times with STIKNSTRINGBOW during archery season but do not usually have much time. This year, I had a few more days to hunt, but with the muzzleloader. It turned out, this was a ML year for him as well.
He had a good camp set up in the usual area. Littledave decided to join us this year as well having a multiseason tag. LD and I met up Friday at camp with STIK coming in later in the evening.
The first morning we worked a big bowl trying a scissor maneuver on the elk. It was a beautiful morning. For me, the only sign I saw was fairly old. Dave saw a cow and Mike no animals. Mike had to work that night so was gone until Sunday evening. Sunday, Dave and I did some truck scouting and an afternoon hike through some good looking country, but no elk bodies were found. I did pick up a couple pounds of chantrelles, so that was at least something. I also got a good whiff of elk just before dark, but could not figure out where they were.
Monday morning, we set off to an area that Mike and I had worked two bulls opening morning of archery seven or so years ago, but the area was under an active logging closure. We moved to the next drainage to hike and saw a doe and fawn but no elk. Also picked up a few more chantrelles. The evening hunt was a soggy one in the dark woods and no elk were seen either.
Tuesday morning, I was having some aches and pains from hiking the day before so I spent the morning packing for my noon departure. Dave hunted the same area as the first morning and saw a bull in the distance but was not able to close on it. After packing, I decided to try my hand at fishing a little while waiting for them to return. A couple of bites later, I hear Mike say, "I've got blood."
We waited a bit with the hope that Dave would show up soon, which he did. I had prepped my already packed gear so we headed out to the old road that Mike had gotten his shot from. We located the original blood sign and then worked our way up the road. Mike was out ahead and Dave and I scoured the wet leaves in the road for any more sign. We started finding a little every ten or so yards and then followed it off into the bushes.
As we tracked high blood on trees and footprints on the ground, we moved farther into some heavy stuff. Finally, after sixty or so yards and about 20 feet of footprints, I glanced up to look for a body, there was an odd shadow in the brush about 6 yards away. It had legs! Figuring that there was no way a healthy elk would be standing there with our noisy progress through the woods, I pulled up and BOOM, right behind the shoulder. I thought it went down but could then see him still standing there, what??? "Give me a gun!" I repeated three or so times to the guys behind me... finally Mike, I think reluctantly
, hands me his. I took the safety off, pulled up and aimed the same place, BOOM! Now the elk decides to run, luckily toward the road.
I reload my gun after handing Mike's back to him. Dave circles left looking for the bull, I move forward to where he was standing, no blood there, odd. We did not hear any crashing so were not sure what was up with the bull. As I followed the path I had seen him go, I see several deadfall ahead of me and looked downhill to my right, tan body standing there, antlers.... This time, he was pointing toward the deep canyone just five yards or so ahead so I shifted my shoulder aim to just behind his head and, at ten yards, dropped him in his tracks.
I've got to get going to sub in my wife's 5th grade room so, to end it... we had a very short pack out to the truck after skinning and quartering him in the only "flat" "open" spot within 50 yards. My two shots were about 7 inches apart behind his left front leg, they exited behind the ribcage as he was turned more toward me than I had noticed when I shot. The third was right behind the head. I think Mike's shot was right next to mine behind the head, but I have not heard his report of the necropsy yet.
Mike or Dave, feel free to add or embelish as necessary.
Mike, thanks for having a comfortable camp set up, it was great to be able to get out of the rain!
