First Elk hunt... it was an adventure.

[Werty]

Don't get pissed at us for reading Your post and seeing flaws. If you can't take criticism then, don't post. Good luck next year

 

[Team4LongGun]

I’m I had an either sex tag. I was legal to take a cow.

I searched the area for over an hour prior to the sun going down with zero indication of a hit, not one drop of blood, bile, or hair in fresh snow. There was more fresh snow the next morning which meant recovery would be next to impossible.

At the time I was 100% sure we were in the right spot. In all my years of hunting I’d never shot an animal and had zero blood in fresh snow. I truely believed I missed... My scope had to have gotten bumped I figured.

Looking back now maybe I didn’t. Maybe I really wasn’t in the right spot. I’m not sharing this story because I feel ******* great about what happened. I honestly feel terrible about the whole thing... I’m sharing it to let folks know that things don’t always go as planned. I hope folks learn from this, and don’t make the same mistakes we did.

Sure, it’s easy to say sitting in your warm house on your shitter “you should’ve gone back and looked.” Hell, now I wish I had too. But I 100% thought I had to have missed after I scoured that hillside the night before. Between that and coming the closest I ever home to come to a deadly hypothermic event, all our clothes being wet, along with temps still in the single digits we collectively decided the safe thing to do was go to the truck and regroup.

Was that the right call? I don’t know. I know I really wanted that elk. I also know I wasn’t leaving a widowed single mother over it either. Hunting doesn’t follow a script. But sitting here and criticizing someone for making a safety call in extreme weather doesn’t help anyone either.

Hey brother-don't let every keyboard commando's critiques get to you. I applaud you for sharing an honest recap of your hunt. In fairness, I too thought right away you owed it to the animal to return the next day and search. However, since none of us were there, and I'm assuming you didn't provide every single detail of your situation, condition and what factored into your decision making, no one can truly say what they would have done in the same situation.
I do think it is good you posted, as their are good lessons others can gleam from your hunt as you pointed out. I don't know any hunter that has never second guessed himself, or had a regret over a decision....

 

[Ross]

Things happen we learn and no one is perfect.....good luck on the future hunts

 

[mtnbiker208]

I say this in jest.

you are not the first set of flatlanders , idaho has sent home with there tail tucked between there legs.

If you do come back, next time, you find your self in this situation, hang some trail ribbon in a tree where you shot from. that way when you go looking for animal you will know where you shot from.

 

[wind gypsy]

I was surprised you shared the details you did openly on the forum. I'd wager most people giving you a hard time understand aborting the search on the first night in the name of safety. There are a couple parts of the story with poor optics though. First - you continued hunting rather than return and look. Even if you got 2' of snow, you could have found it by grid searching the general area. Second - saying "the thought of that hike made the idea untenable" can be interpreted as you shot at an elk in a spot that you shouldn't have. Hiking somewhere is one thing but packing an elk out of there is another.

I didn't immediately post any condemnation because most people have made a poor choice at some point in their past. I have had an instance where I gave up a search too early that I'm still ashamed of. We're not perfect, and you seem like a decent enough guy to learn from this. I also found a bull last year nearly 2 days after I shot it about a half mile away. No blood trail, just came across it by continuing to cover ground adjacent to the area of the shot.

 

[muddydogs]

Sure you made a safety call, took care of your safety then went back out hunting instead of looking for your elk.
I shot a bull this year at 220 yards off hand, broadside double lung shot with a 7mm RM and didn't even hit a rib. Elk traveled 75 yards without leaving a blood trail.
Your story is kind of falling apart as your last post mentioned fresh snow so why did you scourer the hill side when you had fresh snow to track the elk in?
I'm not judging but you can bet I would have gotten dried out and been back on the hill looking the next day especially with cold temps and snow to help with spoilage. Even if I didn't want to go back because it was to far or steep, I made a shot so it's my responsibility to exhaust all options. An hour looking like you stated is not enough looking.

 

[BuckeyeRifleman]

Hey brother-don't let every keyboard commando's critiques get to you. I applaud you for sharing an honest recap of your hunt. In fairness, I too thought right away you owed it to the animal to return the next day and search. However, since none of us were there, and I'm assuming you didn't provide every single detail of your situation, condition and what factored into your decision making, no one can truly say what they would have done in the same situation.
I do think it is good you posted, as their are good lessons others can gleam from your hunt as you pointed out. I don't know any hunter that has never second guessed himself, or had a regret over a decision....

Thanks, I guess I could’ve expounded on i reasons we didn’t go back in the OP a bit more.


A) We felt 100% certain at the time we were looking in the right area. We even saw what appeared to be a bullet impact in the snow, and saw absolutely no indication of a hit. We searched for over an hour, most of it in daylight following every set of tracks. Had we found anything at all, we probably wouldn’t have left that night, which in itself might not have been a good call.

B) The “thought of the hike being untenable” the next day was as much a safety call as abandoning the search the night before. Temps were still in the single digits, and supposed to go negative the next night. We still had wet warming layers and damp sleeping bags. We were still two miles from where the shot took place, which itself was 5 miles from the truck. Had we found her, we would’ve been spending another night in sub zero temps with wet gear as we didn’t have the time to make the hike there, possibly find the cow, quarter her, and make it to the truck by daybreak. We made the safety call that we had to get out and get dry before we spent another night in those temps.

C) After spending the night in a hotel the next night and drying out our gear, we attempted to make it to a trailhead that was closer to the shot from the other direction the next day, about 2.5 miles. We wanted to attempt to give the area one last look/hunt. We didn’t get there till late afternoon, and as we were setting up camp the snow was pouring down. It was rough driving, we almost didn’t make it with snow chains and actually didn’t quite make it to the trailhead. A local drove up resupplying a horse camp and said we should get off the mountain, the snow wasn’t going to let up like it was supposed to and it was going to be -15. We might get stranded. We heeded her advice after some debate before the road was lost to the snow.

Had the weather not been extreme, our decision making and outcome would’ve likely been different.

After that, by the time the weather broke enough to make the hike to the location safe several days later, we assumed she would’ve been lost to other wildlife.

 

[rodell]

It's easy to second guess from here, the OP is doing it himself. I would have gone back, but, there's a lot that goes into that decision that isn't in play after the fact.

Most telling for me is usually the sound of the impact, rather than the visual indication. Of course that can be misleading, too.

 

[swalker332]

Thanks for your service

 

[lyle_destroys]

Man, these guys are really tearing you up. You know you made a mistake in not looking again which is good. I've heard of lots of guys making bad hits on elk in archery and continue hunting like nothing happened. If you really knew you were that close to having a medical issue then you were right to stop but I think you should have gone back the next day. It seems like you agree with this statement.
In conclusion, learn from the mistakes you know you made, keep your head up and to hell with what everyone else thinks. I would lock this thread if I could, this shit is getting old...

 

[AaronMColeman]

I hit a bull during archery season. Thought I'd missed, but I couldn't find the arrow or the blood. After 2 hours of searching I found a tiny bit of blood. Another 2 hours of searching with only two small blood spots, and no arrow, I was about to leave for the night because it was getting dark. On a completely different game trail, not at all in line with the blood or my shot, I found the arrow...4" of blood. I think I whacked him in the shoulder.

Bottom line is, only you know if you looked hard enough. If you didn't then you'll know for next time.

By the way, I think I was helping a friend pack out his elk that same night. It was about -10 at 9500'. We had a blast! But we weren't frozen and backpacking...we took a warm shower and slept in our own beds that night. It was COLD!

 

[Jethro]

Certainly understand bailing off the mountain if your well-being is in jeopardy. That said, and maybe I just missed this in the recap. But if your search that night didn’t take you at least to the spot where you thought you saw the elk fall, then a trip back the next day was warranted. If I found no sign of a hit where the elk was standing and no blood trail, I’d search the area where I last had a visual. Even if I didn’t think it fell.

 

[BuckeyeRifleman]

Certainly understand bailing off the mountain if your well-being is in jeopardy. That said, and maybe I just missed this in the recap. But if your search that night didn’t take you at least to the spot where you thought you saw the elk fall, then a trip back the next day was warranted. If I found no sign of a hit where the elk was standing and no blood trail, I’d search the area where I last had a visual. Even if I didn’t think it fell.

Sorry I didn’t explain that in detail... I did follow the tracks to the spot in the timber where it looked like she took a tumble. This appeared to be only 10-20 yards from where she stood when I took the shot, but it was though timber and kind of around the bend of the hill slightly. When I got there i found a spot where maybe something had fallen, but there was no blood obviously, and the tracks continued on. I kept following the tracks until they got mixed up among the other 3-4 cows in the group, then seemed to split off.

That reminds me of another thing... always track off to one side, that way you don’t disturb the snow if you start getting mixed up and have to go back and re examine an area. I made the mistake of being directly on top of the tracks. When they got mixed up among the others, I had no way of going back and figuring out if I was following the right set of tracks.

From this point forward I will ALWAYS carry my bag, my pad, and my small tarp with me elk hunting. That 5lbs worth of crap A) could’ve been what saved my life is shit went really sideways. B) Would’ve made it very easy for me to decide to stay put that night, get a big fire going, melt some snow for water, crawl in the bag that night and do a much more thorough search in the daytime, before ultimately doing a much safer hike back in the daylight, with or without an elk.

 

[BuckeyeRifleman]

Sure you made a safety call, took care of your safety then went back out hunting instead of looking for your elk.
I shot a bull this year at 220 yards off hand, broadside double lung shot with a 7mm RM and didn't even hit a rib. Elk traveled 75 yards without leaving a blood trail.
Your story is kind of falling apart as your last post mentioned fresh snow so why did you scourer the hill side when you had fresh snow to track the elk in?
I'm not judging but you can bet I would have gotten dried out and been back on the hill looking the next day especially with cold temps and snow to help with spoilage. Even if I didn't want to go back because it was to far or steep, I made a shot so it's my responsibility to exhaust all options. An hour looking like you stated is not enough looking.

We took the shot in fresh snow, but more came down that next night again, which would’ve obscured any tracks or sign from the night before.

 

[ridgefire]

I commend you for your honest recap. I know if I was in your situation I would not have gone back to look. If I found the tracks but no blood after an hour of searching I would assume that I missed and been irritated with myself. If there was any question about it I would definitely be back looking the next morning.

 

[trophyhill]

There's a fine ethical line we all must walk as hunters. And it's tough at times no doubt. I believe we should all make a "reasonable" effort to recover. The problem is what seems reasonable to one person, might not to the next. This thread is a great example of that.

 

[Michael54]

Did you make the right move getting yourself to somewhere warm and dry...absolutely i know roughly where you were at and the temperatures that week as my normal group i go with told me the same thing. Did you do everything you should have to try and find your animal? Only you know that. Im not going to judge by what you said or left out of your article. At the end of the day as much as it sucks something is going to eat that elk whether its you or another animal. The question is as miserable as it was did you enjoy yourself?

 

[AKHUNTER]

You were so confident in your shot. You only looked for 1 hour near last light. I agree that returning to camp that night was the right thing to do. IMO, you owed it to the animal to continue looking and hunting in the area where you took the shot rather than hunting other areas. I had a hunting partner give up tracking a wounded animal that was leaving a great blood trail in the snow one time. After tracking it for several miles in deep snow he was convinced that we would never catch up to it and it must be a superficial wound. He did not want to finish what we started and he gave up the search. I was pissed. I did not stop looking. I busted my ass the following day, without his assistance, and headed in the direction of the wounded animal, which would have been a few miles from where it was shot. I was not easy let me tell you. I located the wounded animal, killed it, skinned it, and packed it back to camp. He was in utter disbelief when I returned to camp with a brown bear hide in my pack. I did not give up, I finished what we started with determination and perserverance, I owed that to the animal. I learned a few lessons on that hunt. I also learned a lesson years ago with a gut shot spike elk. It too was shot at last light, I knew I hit it just like you did, but did not find it that night. I was sick thinking about loosing the animal. I returned the very next morning and found it piled up only a few hundred yards beyond where I had searched the night before. Gut shot animals don't bleed much and searching in poor light conditions is not productive. Had I not returned the next day to finish what I started that bull elk would have rotted only a few hundred yards from where I shot it. Why am I sharing this with you all? So that you might learn from my experiences to never give up and search like hell if you are willing to pull the trigger - I'm glad I did.

 

[sndmn11]

A pair or more of hunters would be wise to leave the shooter at the position of the shot staring a hole through the position the animal was shot at, while the other walked to that spot. ESPECIALLY if neither has seen that country before.

 

[trophyhill]

The elk I killed this year did not leave a drop of blood to follow. Even though I knew I had made a great shot. Not a drop. This is the first time this has happened where I had to follow tracks. Very stressful situation. It would have been very easy to give up after 30 minutes of not seeing a drop of blood. Texted my buddy on the InReach and we split up but kept looking. A few hours and 7-800 yards later we were packing an elk out in the dark. Never give up! Ever!