Hunting Recap – Part I: General Season Archery Elk
To recap my season in one word – bipolar. I had four tags this year. First hunt was general elk archery in Colorado. Second was general buck in Idaho. Third was 4th season buck in Colorado. Fourth tag was a late season cow hunt in Colorado.
General season archery elk in Colorado. As most seasoned hunters know, with any general season hunt in Colorado you’re faced with human competition. In my opinion there’s a slight exception with archery and that’s based on how far and deep you choose to go into the woods depending on your physical fitness. Because of that I use the summer prior to get in the best shape possible to get away from the majority. Now this doesn’t mean you won’t run into other hunters, you definitely will, but there are substantially less the further back you go, the downside is the pack out when you do get something down. This is where being in great physical condition is key. It’s easy to get back 11 miles with a 32lbs pack, not so much the case when you’re faced with three 80lbs pack outs.
On my hunt, like most people, I had to weekend warrior the shit out of September. Being in the military, there’s no excuses for not being at work at 0600 Monday morning. The longest weekend I had was the opener that fell on Labor Day weekend allowing me four days. Friday evening I packed in 9 miles as the crow flies (13 trail miles). That evening before crawling into the bivy I glassed up a herd of 30 elk, three more miles into the wilderness. Saturday morning I went after them. Great thing about bivy hunting is your camp can be on your back so there’s no returning to spike camp. After catching up to where I had last glassed the elk, they had traveled another drainage further back so I didn’t get a stalk in. I did go to sleep to the sound of the herd bull bugling his face off which was cool. The positive to this was I knew there was no other hunters back this far because I had passed the two outfitter camps three miles back.
On Sunday I woke up to the same bull bugling below where I had camped in a drainage. I headed down the ridgeline after them only to get cliffed out before reaching the bottom. So, I had to spend the next 3 hours backtracking up the ridgeline, where I found a steep shale rock drop off I managed to use to get off the ridge. After finally reaching the bottom where the herd was three hours prior, they had moved another mile up the bottom of the drainage. The chase was on. As I finally closed in on his bugles, to my surprise, I had walked into a U shape ambush of elk on all sides due to the terrain. After attempting to stalk closer to the herd bull a cow busted me within minutes and the herd was off. I noticed they were circling around to my left to head up the hillside. I managed to cut them off and find a window where I was able to watch the elk funnel through at 60-80 yards above me. I hunkered down for 20 minutes waiting for a bull. I noticed the herd bull was bugling his way along towards this funnel at the end of the herd. Minutes prior to him coming into the opening I had a shot at a satellite five-point but passed, later I regretted this, hindsight’s a bitch. Finally the herd bull came to the window and stopped right behind a tree, I waited for a shot, but he caught a swirl of the wind and decided to turn and head straight up the hill taking the rest of the cows with him, splitting away from the main herd.
Once again the chase had started over and I had to catch up to the main herd, hoping the bull would meet up with the main herd without having to go straight up the hillside to him. The planned worked, after an hour of stalking under and around the main herd and essentially heading them off on the hillside, I could hear the bugling bull getting closer. At this point I’m in the dark timber across an avalanche shoot from him. After waiting for 20 minutes for the herd to cross the chute towards me they decided to feed straight up the mountain on the other side. So, I crossed back this time having to sneak within seven yards of a cow and a spike that were feeding just inside the timber at the edge of the chute. After crawling towards the bugles in the timber I managed to get within 60 yards of a satellite bull. Up to this point I had been side hilling for over 2 hours trying to cut the herd off and still keep wind in my favor. Both toe boxes of my shoes were blown out from the day’s pursuit, whenever I stopped or took a knee my legs cramped, and I was almost out of water. I decided I wasn’t waiting for the herd bull, this was it. As I drew back on the satellite bull and stood up, the herd bull came grazing out in front of him, I estimated him to be 40 yards but wanted to make sure so I grabbed the rangefinder out of my bino harness, as I pulled up to range him a cow barked at me, gig was up. No time to range, I dialed the hog father for 40yrds, pulled back, settled the pin fast and shot. Although rushed I felt awesome about the shot, it was a clean release and it was a good thing I decided to drop the rangefinder and shoot because as I released the bull turned his head towards me from the alert he had received from the cow.
Although the release was clean and I watched the arrow drop into the sweet spot, it kept dropping and sailed just underneath him. I couldn’t believe what had happened and how hard I worked to get to this point. I spent an hour trying to find my arrow on this small table where he had been standing when I shot, the grass was too thick so I couldn’t find the arrow. Nor could I find any blood. I ranged from where the bull was standing back to where I had shot from and sure enough 42yrds. I had estimated 40yrds and used that pin, why the heck did I miss? I looked over my bow closer and realized that the tick marks I made on my upper cam wasn’t lined up, meaning the cam was out of tune. This was a hard pill to swallow and I had 16 trail miles back to civilization to think about it. At this point I had no water left from the morning chase and my legs were cramping up. Needless to say after descending 1k’ and finding the closest stream I fell on my face and drank a gallon of water.
Fast forward to returning home, the next day I shot the bow at 30yrds and it was indeed 1.5’ low. Lesson learned for me. As a woodsman and hunter a gear malfunction typically falls under operator error, in this case it was definitely operator error. I wasn’t surprised the cam was out of tune considering how many diggers I took scaling steep shale rock slopes and north facing timber areas. As a hunter I should have assessed my gear better after these falls, rather than just glance to see if the cable was on the bow and the sight wasn’t broken. If I had noticed the cam out of sync, I would have sacrificed the worse arrow in the quiver into a stump or tree to see where the impact change was. As for the rest of the season, many miles were put on a new pair of boots that brought a few more encounters but nothing close enough to release an arrow. As always, at the end of the season, often times a hunter is faced with the double jeopardy question of, I shouldn’t have held out for the herd bull, I should have shot a rag bull or cow. My justifying thought so I can sleep at night until next season is if I hadn’t held out I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did by being in the woods that much more. And let’s be honest, this isn’t the apocalypse, I’ll survive without elk meat for a year although not preferred, plus I have other tags in my pocket. Little did I know, my luck would soon change as my hunting season still had a couple mule deer tags and a late season cow hunt left…stay tuned for Part II of the 2019 season – Idaho Mule Deer
Backcountry Precision
Blood. Sweat. Reward