avluey
FNG
I have been hunting elk in Wyoming pretty much every year I haven't been deployed since 2007. I've taken two 6x6 bulls (260 something and 280 something - decent for the area) and a cow over the years, all with a rifle. I've always bowhunted whitetails and last year was the first time I went after elk with a bow. Last year I just couldn't get into the elk until the last two days when I called a pretty decent 6x6 in, but he caught me trying to move up a little closer and busted me at about 45 yards (damn he made it down through a timber covered ridge WAY faster than I thought he could!). Well this year we were in the elk right away - glassing the evening after hiking 4 miles in and setting camp we saw three bulls (2 raghorns and a spike) and three cows on the opposite South-facing ridge and another 10-12 elk several miles up the canyon on the east side of the mountain. The bulls weren't super vocal this trip but there was at least 1-2 bugles pretty much every morning and evening. We hunted from the tent for 4 nights before heading to the cabin with a thunderstorm inbound and my brother had a raghorn sprint past him at 35 yards while sitting on water and I had an OK 6x6 sneak in to 150 yards while cow calling early morning before spotting my brother.
On the 13th we focused on the south-facing ridge we had glassed the first night and couldn't get on anything but had a decent idea of where a few of the bulls might be bedding. We split up for the evening and I felt really good abut my spot and with an hour before last shooting light 6 or more bulls started popping off, with one each below me to my right and left. The three of us bugled back and forth for awhile when the one to the right finally started moving my way. One I heard him in the timber strip to my right I shut up and let him come. He stepped out of the timber and slowly crossed the sage brush sidehill, working his way into my primary shooting lane to my right at basically the same elevation. At about 60 yards the other bull to my left let out a bugle and this bull stopped, looked for me for a few seconds, then started moving back down and in front of me towards the other bull. As soon as he stepped into the timber below at about 60 yards I hit him with the biggest F-You bugle I could muster and he stepped back into the open and right in front of a tree I had ranged at 47 yards in my secondary lane directly below me. He stopped nearly perfectly broadside and looking up at me. I put the 45 yard pin on his lungs and punched (literally) the trigger. I saw the arrow going high and it hit with a loud whack. He sprinted and crashed straight back down into the timber and clearly was making it pretty far before I heard the last crack, which I thought/hoped was him crashing for good. A thunderstorm started to move in as night fell so we didn't waste much time getting down to where I shot him. The arrow was resting lightly in the sagebrush several yards short of the 47 yard tree. Shaft had a thin layer of fat on it and the fletchings had muscle-blood and a small piece of red meat, not soaked in bright blood. Not a nick or bur anywhere n the 4 blades of the SlickTrick. I started worrying immediately. I held out hope that I'd hit high lung and we started tracking the obvious trail of torn up damp dirt and broken twigs along his sprint down a steep timbered slope. Followed it for 75-100 yards and there wasn't a drop of blood anywhere along the way. Once the sleet and lightning started up we marked the spots and headed back up and over the ridge to the truck. I slipped coming back down and snapped my stabilizer clean off my bow - great. Spent 6 hours the following morning with three guys grid searching thick / steep timber as best we could just hoping to walk up on the body. No luck and I'm 99.9% convinced that I sent it through his backstraps. Based on where the arrow came to rest I'm guessing he was more like 30-35 yards tops, and combining a bad range, a steep shot, and most importantly a poor shot, I just plain blew it. Even including early broadhead tuning I never missed a mark more than that from 35-45 yards all year. He would have been my best bull (probably around 300), my first with a bow, and outside of turning back to the other bull for a few seconds, he walked the script exactly how I envisioned it when I set up in that spot. Even after that he came back into the secondary lane and offered a nice broadside shot at a completely comfortable range. I'm sick with myself as I doubt I'll ever have it work out so perfectly again.
To rub salt in the wound, two evenings later I made a move to get lower going after the other bull who was consistently bugling from the same area each evening (he started out with a single chuckle every night and would answer bugles but never budge up the hill). About an hour and a half before they had usually started bugling I got to the spot on the map I thought would be close enough to him to force him to come push me out of his honey hole once the bugling started. I set my bow down on the edge of a 70x30 sagebrush slot that dove down into the timber and told my brother to hold tight while I moved a little lower to pick a spot for him to set up while I called. Stepped around the tree into the slot and goddamnit if that bull hadn't just stepped into the open at the bottom. We stared at each other for about 2 seconds and he went hustling back down into the bottom, never to bugle again that evening. He was right where I thought he would be, just an hour early than I thought he would. Still not sure if he was just on his normal rounds or if maybe he had heard us walking through the newly dried sage and cabbage as we got down to that spot and thought maybe we were cows. Either way he was even bigger than the one I'd shot 2 evening before and was the third good bull I'd had close encounters with.
To have seen more total elk than usual, and far more mature bulls than most years, and to have been in the thick of them pretty consistently day after day, and to have blown a rather easy shot, is just crushing a serious dose of humility. Good luck to everyone else going after them, hope you see as many as I did and shoot a hell of a lot better.
On the 13th we focused on the south-facing ridge we had glassed the first night and couldn't get on anything but had a decent idea of where a few of the bulls might be bedding. We split up for the evening and I felt really good abut my spot and with an hour before last shooting light 6 or more bulls started popping off, with one each below me to my right and left. The three of us bugled back and forth for awhile when the one to the right finally started moving my way. One I heard him in the timber strip to my right I shut up and let him come. He stepped out of the timber and slowly crossed the sage brush sidehill, working his way into my primary shooting lane to my right at basically the same elevation. At about 60 yards the other bull to my left let out a bugle and this bull stopped, looked for me for a few seconds, then started moving back down and in front of me towards the other bull. As soon as he stepped into the timber below at about 60 yards I hit him with the biggest F-You bugle I could muster and he stepped back into the open and right in front of a tree I had ranged at 47 yards in my secondary lane directly below me. He stopped nearly perfectly broadside and looking up at me. I put the 45 yard pin on his lungs and punched (literally) the trigger. I saw the arrow going high and it hit with a loud whack. He sprinted and crashed straight back down into the timber and clearly was making it pretty far before I heard the last crack, which I thought/hoped was him crashing for good. A thunderstorm started to move in as night fell so we didn't waste much time getting down to where I shot him. The arrow was resting lightly in the sagebrush several yards short of the 47 yard tree. Shaft had a thin layer of fat on it and the fletchings had muscle-blood and a small piece of red meat, not soaked in bright blood. Not a nick or bur anywhere n the 4 blades of the SlickTrick. I started worrying immediately. I held out hope that I'd hit high lung and we started tracking the obvious trail of torn up damp dirt and broken twigs along his sprint down a steep timbered slope. Followed it for 75-100 yards and there wasn't a drop of blood anywhere along the way. Once the sleet and lightning started up we marked the spots and headed back up and over the ridge to the truck. I slipped coming back down and snapped my stabilizer clean off my bow - great. Spent 6 hours the following morning with three guys grid searching thick / steep timber as best we could just hoping to walk up on the body. No luck and I'm 99.9% convinced that I sent it through his backstraps. Based on where the arrow came to rest I'm guessing he was more like 30-35 yards tops, and combining a bad range, a steep shot, and most importantly a poor shot, I just plain blew it. Even including early broadhead tuning I never missed a mark more than that from 35-45 yards all year. He would have been my best bull (probably around 300), my first with a bow, and outside of turning back to the other bull for a few seconds, he walked the script exactly how I envisioned it when I set up in that spot. Even after that he came back into the secondary lane and offered a nice broadside shot at a completely comfortable range. I'm sick with myself as I doubt I'll ever have it work out so perfectly again.
To rub salt in the wound, two evenings later I made a move to get lower going after the other bull who was consistently bugling from the same area each evening (he started out with a single chuckle every night and would answer bugles but never budge up the hill). About an hour and a half before they had usually started bugling I got to the spot on the map I thought would be close enough to him to force him to come push me out of his honey hole once the bugling started. I set my bow down on the edge of a 70x30 sagebrush slot that dove down into the timber and told my brother to hold tight while I moved a little lower to pick a spot for him to set up while I called. Stepped around the tree into the slot and goddamnit if that bull hadn't just stepped into the open at the bottom. We stared at each other for about 2 seconds and he went hustling back down into the bottom, never to bugle again that evening. He was right where I thought he would be, just an hour early than I thought he would. Still not sure if he was just on his normal rounds or if maybe he had heard us walking through the newly dried sage and cabbage as we got down to that spot and thought maybe we were cows. Either way he was even bigger than the one I'd shot 2 evening before and was the third good bull I'd had close encounters with.
To have seen more total elk than usual, and far more mature bulls than most years, and to have been in the thick of them pretty consistently day after day, and to have blown a rather easy shot, is just crushing a serious dose of humility. Good luck to everyone else going after them, hope you see as many as I did and shoot a hell of a lot better.
