Best hunting story, elk.

[Boss .300 winmag]

In 2016, I was one of the lucky people to draw an archery eastern quality elk tag. I decided I was going to take the entire hunt off of work and hunt my bottom off. On opening day, I'm with my buddy and its hot an haven't heard or seen anything. At around 10am, a bull bugles. We call and he responds back instantly. We work this bull the rest of the day going into some of the biggest thickets I've been in but never laid eyes on him. I could hear him walk and take breaths but never seen him. It was a great day for getting the adrenaline pumping and a great start to the hunt.  The next day we hit the same spot hard and get on the bull first thing in the morning but he clams up and nothing for the rest of the day. That night in camp, my Dad says he is seeing a ton of sign where he is going so we head in there the next day.  We go in before daybreak and the elk are bugling everywhere. Had a lot of close calls and did a lot of calling but once again, it's so thick I don't lay eyes on any of them. The remainder of the hunt is like this, a lot of listening ,following and calling but never laying eyes on them. Fast forward to the second to the last day. I woke up that morning and was thinking that I was probably going to be eating my tag. I was bumming myself out eating my breakfast at 4 am. I did breakfast, got my gear and me and my Dad drove to the parking spot. When I got out to grab my gear, a elk bugled right next to me. I grabbed my bugle and screamed back and he responded with a scream right back. Then another bull bugled to my left and I responded back. That's when all heck broke loose.  Besides myself, there are 3 other bulls and they are absolutely screaming bugles. I am running around trying to get eyes on any of them but they are moving around too much. Finally, two lock horns right next to me and start fighting. I scramble around to their location only to see butts going opposite directions. This all lasts about 45 minutes and now my spirits are lifted and adrenaline is once again pumping. Me and my Dad head into our spot. He stays hi on the mountain while I drop down. I get down pretty far into the thick stuff and cut one of the biggest elk tracks I've ever seen and he's heading towards a spot that I'm familiar with so I turn around and head back uphill to the spot. I slide in there and a bugle busts out right next to me. I bugle and he responds back pretty quick. I look and I can see the tops of his antlers above the brush that was very hi and knew he was a very large bull. I try to rang his horn above the brush about 20 time but the adrenalin was really flowing and couldn't range him. He stuck his nose out and I finally ranged him and prepared for the shot. I was there for what seemed like 10 minutes and he came out in a very small opening and walked through it so fast I couldn't shoot. And boy was he big! I ran around the little finger to my right to try to get a shot, but it was like he jumped into a trap door and disappeared . I was trying to locate him for the next couple of hours to no avail. I walked back up the mountain and met my Dad and told him everything. I ate some food and thought I had just blown my chance at a giant bull .  Well, I'm sitting with my Dad feeling sorry for myself around 2 in the afternoon and a bull bugles just below me and its him. I grab my stuff and run about 300 yards back down the mountain and drop behind a freshly fallen log and let out a bugle. He responds back just below me and I see his antlers sticking out of the pine trees below me. I do a soft call and he starts up at me and to my right. I never looked at his antlers again, only the spot I wanted my arrow to hit. At 45 yards, he stopped and I shot. He went about 50 yards and died. He ended up being a 8x7 bull and meat and bones he weighed 558 lbs. Taxidermist aged him at 9-10 years old. My Dad was 72 at the time and has a lot of elk under his belt. He kept telling me this was the biggest elk he ever laid hands on.                                                             

Nice story, any pics?

[Humptulips]

Mind a long story, this is. This starts a couple years before this hunting season.

Middle of the summer around 1980, I was out scouting around and took a long hike down to the Quinault River on the Res so out of bounds for hunting but not for snooping around. At the time there was a large roadless area below Boulder Creek and the elk made a habit of going between the river and FS land south and east of the Res. I had parked at the end of the road on the FS but saw nothing in a half day of hiking until I got back near the car. Within sight of the car was a herd and two bulls facing off to fight. One a respectable 5 point, the other a just monster it reminded me of a professional wrestler alongside an average person. Huge muscles rippling, someone must have been feeding this elk steroids. Beyond that he was a giant, easily a third larger than his opponent.

Three summers later I was checking out a canyon off Quinault Ridge. From the top there was a beautiful bowl down there, but an impossibly steep rim seemed to prevent entry. It came to be known to us as "The Big Hole". I went down in like a mountain climber but later that day I located an elk trail that switch backed up and out. While down there I ran into a herd of about 40 and separately the elk that came to be know at least to us as "The Crooked Horned Elk". At that time horn rot was very common on Quinault Ridge. That elk had it with just eye guards on one side and a weirdly bumpy, twisted two point +? on the other side. He followed me around all the time I was down there and only left me when I headed up the trail out. I told my Dad about it and suggested we should go down there. Later on, that summer he said one day "Let's go have a look at your elk spot". When we got down in there we met up with the crooked horned elk and he followed us around until we hiked out. He stunk from the horn rot and we joked he was probably lonely as the other elk wouldn't have anything to do with him.
First day of season My Dad, his hunting partner Don and I went over to a spot I had scouted between the forks of the Humptulips. I didn't see a thing, but Dad and Don got into some elk right away and Don killed a spike. Not far but a swampy pack out.
Next day we decided to go look for the crooked horned elk. Dan and Don went on one side of the canyon, I went on the other. I jumped a small herd with no bulls and soon after I heard a shot. They found the crooked horned elk, taken a shot and missed. I guess we will never see him again. Last, they saw of him he was scooting for parts unknown.
Next day we went someplace else which must have not been great because I don't remember where.
Next Day my Dad wanted to go back to the Big Hole. As I remember I thought it was a waste of time, but we repeated the plan, and they ran into the crooked horned elk again and killed him. Oh my God, what a pack. I was in great shape at the time and took the front half. We packed 'till dark and made it halfway out. We went back in the morning and had the elk out by noon.
My Dad and I would have normally went home but for some reason we decided to drive over on the reservation boundary. One place you could cut through about a mile of timber right along the boundary and come back out to the road. I volunteered to walk through, and Dad would pick me up on the other side. I was about halfway through skirting a swamp when this elk jumps up in the edge of brush around the swamp. I threw the gun up and bang, he goes down. When I walked up, I couldn't believe how big he was. It looked like a draft horse laying there. I'm sure to this day it was that monster I mentioned at the start of this story. He was old. His muzzle was completely grey, and his horns had reverted, 6 on each side. Had that three-way fork at the top. Size wise though they weren't huge, but his body still was. I climbed a tree and hung a come-a-long in it with a measured 12 feet of line on it. Stretched all the way out it was three feet short of reaching the ground. We hooked his hamstring on the hook and started skinning. When all that line was cranked in, his head and neck were still laying on the ground. I had shot him in the neck so there was some meat loss there but there was still a 5-gallon bucket of boned out meat out of his neck. I think we cut him up into seven pieces and I still broke and army pack board packing him out. Never weighed any of it but I will always remember his size.
Yea, we weren't so big on pictures back then. Thought the hunting would always be great and I'd stay young forever. I can still look at his horns in the backroom and remember though.

[Bob33]

Mind a long story, this is. This starts a couple years before this hunting season.

Middle of the summer around 1980, I was out scouting around and took a long hike down to the Quinault River on the Res so out of bounds for hunting but not for snooping around. At the time there was a large roadless area below Boulder Creek and the elk made a habit of going between the river and FS land south and east of the Res. I had parked at the end of the road on the FS but saw nothing in a half day of hiking until I got back near the car. Within sight of the car was a herd and two bulls facing off to fight. One a respectable 5 point, the other a just monster it reminded me of a professional wrestler alongside an average person. Huge muscles rippling, someone must have been feeding this elk steroids. Beyond that he was a giant, easily a third larger than his opponent.

Three summers later I was checking out a canyon off Quinault Ridge. From the top there was a beautiful bowl down there, but an impossibly steep rim seemed to prevent entry. It came to be known to us as "The Big Hole". I went down in like a mountain climber but later that day I located an elk trail that switch backed up and out. While down there I ran into a herd of about 40 and separately the elk that came to be know at least to us as "The Crooked Horned Elk". At that time horn rot was very common on Quinault Ridge. That elk had it with just eye guards on one side and a weirdly bumpy, twisted two point +? on the other side. He followed me around all the time I was down there and only left me when I headed up the trail out. I told my Dad about it and suggested we should go down there. Later on, that summer he said one day "Let's go have a look at your elk spot". When we got down in there we met up with the crooked horned elk and he followed us around until we hiked out. He stunk from the horn rot and we joked he was probably lonely as the other elk wouldn't have anything to do with him.
First day of season My Dad, his hunting partner Don and I went over to a spot I had scouted between the forks of the Humptulips. I didn't see a thing, but Dad and Don got into some elk right away and Don killed a spike. Not far but a swampy pack out.
Next day we decided to go look for the crooked horned elk. Dan and Don went on one side of the canyon, I went on the other. I jumped a small herd with no bulls and soon after I heard a shot. They found the crooked horned elk, taken a shot and missed. I guess we will never see him again. Last, they saw of him he was scooting for parts unknown.
Next day we went someplace else which must have not been great because I don't remember where.
Next Day my Dad wanted to go back to the Big Hole. As I remember I thought it was a waste of time, but we repeated the plan, and they ran into the crooked horned elk again and killed him. Oh my God, what a pack. I was in great shape at the time and took the front half. We packed 'till dark and made it halfway out. We went back in the morning and had the elk out by noon.
My Dad and I would have normally went home but for some reason we decided to drive over on the reservation boundary. One place you could cut through about a mile of timber right along the boundary and come back out to the road. I volunteered to walk through, and Dad would pick me up on the other side. I was about halfway through skirting a swamp when this elk jumps up in the edge of brush around the swamp. I threw the gun up and bang, he goes down. When I walked up, I couldn't believe how big he was. It looked like a draft horse laying there. I'm sure to this day it was that monster I mentioned at the start of this story. He was old. His muzzle was completely grey, and his horns had reverted, 6 on each side. Had that three-way fork at the top. Size wise though they weren't huge, but his body still was. I climbed a tree and hung a come-a-long in it with a measured 12 feet of line on it. Stretched all the way out it was three feet short of reaching the ground. We hooked his hamstring on the hook and started skinning. When all that line was cranked in, his head and neck were still laying on the ground. I had shot him in the neck so there was some meat loss there but there was still a 5-gallon bucket of boned out meat out of his neck. I think we cut him up into seven pieces and I still broke and army pack board packing him out. Never weighed any of it but I will always remember his size.
Yea, we weren't so big on pictures back then. Thought the hunting would always be great and I'd stay young forever. I can still look at his horns in the backroom and remember though.

That's a fascinating story. Thanks for sharing.

[jeffro]

I overslept
Arriving at camp around 9
Never leaving the camp site
A spike decided it wanted to fill my freezer

I want to apologize to the dedicated hunters who were once my fiends
They seemed pissed off
That I hadn’t hiked the hills

[Pathfinder101]

Does it have to have a happy ending?  Most of mind don't...

Elk hunts not massages. 

[branches]

These are all great stories! Thank you for sharing them

[salmosalar]

Mind a long story, this is. This starts a couple years before this hunting season.

Middle of the summer around 1980, I was out scouting around and took a long hike down to the Quinault River on the Res so out of bounds for hunting but not for snooping around. At the time there was a large roadless area below Boulder Creek and the elk made a habit of going between the river and FS land south and east of the Res. I had parked at the end of the road on the FS but saw nothing in a half day of hiking until I got back near the car. Within sight of the car was a herd and two bulls facing off to fight. One a respectable 5 point, the other a just monster it reminded me of a professional wrestler alongside an average person. Huge muscles rippling, someone must have been feeding this elk steroids. Beyond that he was a giant, easily a third larger than his opponent.

Three summers later I was checking out a canyon off Quinault Ridge. From the top there was a beautiful bowl down there, but an impossibly steep rim seemed to prevent entry. It came to be known to us as "The Big Hole". I went down in like a mountain climber but later that day I located an elk trail that switch backed up and out. While down there I ran into a herd of about 40 and separately the elk that came to be know at least to us as "The Crooked Horned Elk". At that time horn rot was very common on Quinault Ridge. That elk had it with just eye guards on one side and a weirdly bumpy, twisted two point +? on the other side. He followed me around all the time I was down there and only left me when I headed up the trail out. I told my Dad about it and suggested we should go down there. Later on, that summer he said one day "Let's go have a look at your elk spot". When we got down in there we met up with the crooked horned elk and he followed us around until we hiked out. He stunk from the horn rot and we joked he was probably lonely as the other elk wouldn't have anything to do with him.
First day of season My Dad, his hunting partner Don and I went over to a spot I had scouted between the forks of the Humptulips. I didn't see a thing, but Dad and Don got into some elk right away and Don killed a spike. Not far but a swampy pack out.
Next day we decided to go look for the crooked horned elk. Dan and Don went on one side of the canyon, I went on the other. I jumped a small herd with no bulls and soon after I heard a shot. They found the crooked horned elk, taken a shot and missed. I guess we will never see him again. Last, they saw of him he was scooting for parts unknown.
Next day we went someplace else which must have not been great because I don't remember where.
Next Day my Dad wanted to go back to the Big Hole. As I remember I thought it was a waste of time, but we repeated the plan, and they ran into the crooked horned elk again and killed him. Oh my God, what a pack. I was in great shape at the time and took the front half. We packed 'till dark and made it halfway out. We went back in the morning and had the elk out by noon.
My Dad and I would have normally went home but for some reason we decided to drive over on the reservation boundary. One place you could cut through about a mile of timber right along the boundary and come back out to the road. I volunteered to walk through, and Dad would pick me up on the other side. I was about halfway through skirting a swamp when this elk jumps up in the edge of brush around the swamp. I threw the gun up and bang, he goes down. When I walked up, I couldn't believe how big he was. It looked like a draft horse laying there. I'm sure to this day it was that monster I mentioned at the start of this story. He was old. His muzzle was completely grey, and his horns had reverted, 6 on each side. Had that three-way fork at the top. Size wise though they weren't huge, but his body still was. I climbed a tree and hung a come-a-long in it with a measured 12 feet of line on it. Stretched all the way out it was three feet short of reaching the ground. We hooked his hamstring on the hook and started skinning. When all that line was cranked in, his head and neck were still laying on the ground. I had shot him in the neck so there was some meat loss there but there was still a 5-gallon bucket of boned out meat out of his neck. I think we cut him up into seven pieces and I still broke and army pack board packing him out. Never weighed any of it but I will always remember his size.
Yea, we weren't so big on pictures back then. Thought the hunting would always be great and I'd stay young forever. I can still look at his horns in the backroom and remember though.

That'sa cool story. Tracking Roosies in that area seems like it could be a fun and rewarding way to hunt. Thank you.

[scotsman]

Not my pic but how many of us have hunted all day far from camp, then come  in tired and hungry to find tracks like this…..

A few years ago my wife accompanied me on an elk hunt but decided to stay in the RV. Midday she saw a herd of 7 elk walk by about 50 yards past the dinette windows. I saw nothin’.

[Humptulips]

Well, it was great. My favorite hunting was being on the tracks of some elk. A real adrenaline rush as you never knew when you might jump them. Unfortunately, it has all gone to crap. Lucky to see an elk anymore or even find a track. I'm beginning to wonder if it is even worth buying a tag anymore. Still, I am addicted though.

[Humptulips]

Not my pic but how many of us have hunted all day far from camp, then cone in tired and hungry to find tracks like this…..

Ha Ha, never had that happen but maybe I'll tell the story of the elk I was chasing that crossed the road about 100 feet from my PU.

[NOCK NOCK]

Not my pic but how many of us have hunted all day far from camp, then come  in tired and hungry to find tracks like this…..

A few years ago my wife accompanied me on an elk hunt but decided to stay in the RV. Midday she saw a herd of 7 elk walk by about 50 yards past the dinette windows. I saw nothin’.

HA, Thats my pic,  Its posted on here somewhere.
The wife and I were about 150 yards behind camp, coming back from checking cams, saw this guy and spooked him from where you see him in this pic. That night we had a huge herd run right thru camp, literally tracks that almost ran over our tent.  Good times!

[scotsman]

Too many years ago when I was first trying to learn elk hunting,  I went to the Randle area during late archery season. Driving along a logging road I stopped to chat with a couple of seedy looking guys cutting firewood. “See any elk?”  “Yup”, says seedy guy #1. Seedy guy #2 says “If I was you I’d be down the road by that next turn in about 5 minutes”. Figuring me for a greenhorn #1 says there will be a bunch of elk there. “How do you know that?”  “Because in about 5 minutes I’m gonna pound this big ‘ol wench on that propane tank!”.

So I drive about 1/2 way to the turn, then get out and start walking. As the road is icy I have to walk carefully not to slip and fall…. Before I get to the turn guy #2 starts banging the propane tank and I hear crashing in the reprod below the road… before I can get ready a bunch of elk come flying over the shoulder of the road… the lead elk falls on the ice and more elk fall trying to avoid thrashing elk #1. I’m not sure what to do then slip and fall on my butt. Before I can regain any sense of composure the elk are gone and I can hear the woodcutters whooping and carrying on behind me! So this is elk huntin’, eh?

[trophyhunt]

Love the stories! 
 
My first bull elk, white river unit about a lifetime ago.  Decided to call in sick from work on opening day of Rifle Elk, talked to my wife, girlfriend back then, into going with me. Just a road hunt quick one day deal. We’re driving up a steep windy ice covered road, and I get stuck, the road is slanted towards a cliff, and I have to break the ice with a stick to try to get my tires on solid ground. My girlfriend is scared to death and won’t get in the truck until I get it unstuck, just being a kid of course I wasn’t prepared with shovels or chains. After probably an hour and a half of breaking through thick ice with a stick I got the truck turned around and she wanted the heck off that Mountain. So we head down and almost at the bottom. A heard Elk cross the road in front of us and one is a nice tall spike, we’re in a spike only unit at the time, I don’t get a shot. We continue down the mountain and I pull over at the bottom to check out some flats, I get about 40 yards away from the truck and I look into the woods and see an ugly spike on my right about 60 yards away just feeding.  Right after I shot elk scatter everywhere and I see a big tall beautiful spike run right by me. My Spike had soft antlers and one was broken in half but for my first bull I felt like I was king of the world. The girlfriend at the time thought I shot a cow. She stayed in the truck and heard me shoot. I got her to the Elk and we were both amazed at the size that these animals can be, I was lucky I had a knife with me that day but no water, I was so thirsty I drank a Diet Coke someone offered me that drove by, hated diet but man was it good!  It probably took about four hours to get him to my truck in pieces. Not a very exciting story but our first Elk are always one of our best memories.   

It seems all my Elk stories like yours are each in their own way special, one of my most toughest pack outs was a few years ago in Idaho. It was the last day and we were leaving around noon, that was the plan anyway. It’s about 2 1/2 miles into our spot Walking and just as a light came up and Elk stepped out on the road a small bull and I missed him somehow. It was an offhand shot probably 100 yards, so after some checking I moved on up the hill. It was getting close to noon I needed to get off the mountain so I had my Dr Pepper, peanut butter and jelly sandwich and did one last cow call. This was Rifle season in Idaho so it was probably around October 18, well after that Cow called all heck broke loose and two or three bulls started screaming. At about 50-60 yards away a cow stepped out and was walking to try and wind me and right behind her followed my biggest Elk to date. I first pulled up to do a free hand shot and remembered quickly about the morning experience so I took about five steps forward to get on a tree and killed a 318” bull. It was a long downhill way out, so I kind of pushed him downhill with his last minutes of his life, each step he took made my pack out a tiny bit easier. So after some thanks to God, I get him cut up hanging in bags and pack out his head and some loose meat 2 1/2 miles back to the quad and I get to camp and my partner at the time has Camp completely packed up and drank most of our beer that we had left. He is in no shape to go Pack out an Elk 2 1/2 miles in a roadless area. The partner is an animal so he says let’s go get it, halfway in to get my elk he notices, he still has his slippers on, before it was over he had a stick go through his slipper and poke his a hole in his foot. We got to the truck at about 1:30 in the morning. It was about 18° and wolves were howling the whole way out. We were soaked, froze, exhausted, a quick change of clothes and on the road we went. Made it all the way to the top of Vantage Hill before I had to stop and sleep for about a half hour to make it home the rest of the way. my pack out weighed 139 pounds his Pack weighed 137 pounds and that didn’t include the loose meat that I pulled out with the head on my first trip. It was an amazing day and the older I get I imagine it will always be my worst pack out.

My last story is one that just happened last week, my son-in-law had a late cow tag which he put everything into. I just had rotator cuff surgery on my shoulder six weeks ago tomorrow so all I could do was go and support him. He hunted every day Sun up to sundown. I only miss two days because of Doctor visits, it was a tough hunt because the elk were very spooky and soon as they saw a truck they took off, he had a couple opportunities, but being a newer hunter messed up. So last Saturday he gets another opportunity, 300 yards he sees an elk confirms It’s a cow gets set up on sticks and makes a shot, we go down and I go into where the elk was and I bump three elk and they come running out right in front of him and stop and look at him, being a newer hunter I thank God he didn’t take one of those elk out because a few seconds later, I found blood from the first Elk. We tracked blood for 2 1/2 hours and lost it in the ferns. He was heading back to the truck and I continued looking when I heard a snap, the kind of snap that an elk makes in the woods. I texted him and said get your butt back here I believe there’s some Elk right Here. Just then I hear more crashing and saw something out of the corner of my eye, after 2 1/2 hours, I get about 20 yards away from this crashing. I look over the ferns and there’s a huge cow Elk down and kicking trying to get up but she can’t. His shot had killed her, but it took a while for her to lose enough blood. During my whole search for her and blood, I was asking Jesus for some signs and he came through, the ferns were so thick and she died on a log that had branches on it, I don’t believe I would’ve heard her if she didn’t die on that log. I had already walked past her once. The very frustrating part of this story was I couldn’t do anything with a messed up arm, but we were blessed with a good friend and two strangers who showed up to help pack his elk out, it was an amazing blessed day.

[trophyhunt]

His cow

[trophyhunt]

Can’t find field pics but my 318” Idaho bull.