Well I am back from my very first elk hunt and it was awesome. Did 6 days/ 5 nights completely self-guided OTC archery (2 of those days were the hike in and out so 4 days of real hunting). It's going to be a long wait until next year and I even still have 3 weeks until I can start chasing whitetails here in VA. First things first, lessons learned are:
1. Get in better shape. The hike in was 5.5 miles from the truck to camp and it kicked my butt pretty good. Not much I can do to workout at altitude here since I can only get to about 3500 ft near where I live but more hiking with weight and more cardio in general will definitely make next years hunt a lot easier. Camp was around 9000 and we hunted up above 10 a couple of days. Thankfully I never experienced any altitude sickness, it just made things a little more difficult than usual.
2. I packed waaaay too much food. I bet I carried out 6 or 8 lbs of crap that I didn't eat. I brought 2 packets of oatmeal/ day for breakfast and never ate one. I think I ate 3 of the 14 Clif bars I carried in and 4 of the 14 squeeze pouches of peanut butter. My freeze dried meals and the tuna packs with olive oil were pretty much my staples for the trip. Nothing sweet even remotely appealed to me. My hunting partner let me try one of his Epic bars and those things are the ticket. Next years food bag will be a lot different.
3. Hydrate like crazy before I go. This is what got me more than anything during the first couple of days. I had bad cramps and it took me 3 days to get re-hydrated.
4. Upgrade my boots. Go ahead and give me crap now but I wore Danner Pronghorns on this trip. They held up just fine and kept my feet mostly dry but I want something stiffer for next time. I will also upgrade my insoles. Feet got a little sore but no blisters or anything like that. I pre-taped with Leukotape before I went in since I knew from breaking them in that they rubbed my heels the wrong way. The tape coupled with a better lacing technique solved that problem before I even left.
5. Brought a few miscellaneous small items and a fuel canister that I never used so most of that will get left in the truck or at home next year
6. Practice shooting with a pack on. We'll get to that part later.....
My clothing, pack, stove, calls, and sleep system all functioned as expected and kept me comfortable. No changes expected for any of those things for next year unless I run into something I just have to have.
Now for the good part. We found elk. There was elk sign and trails everywhere. Bulls were bugling late in the evening, all night, and a little during the first hour of daylight. First couple of days we saw 2 cows and a spike plus heard 2 other cows (moving and calling) that we could never locate. Our last morning to hunt it stayed cooler than it had during the rest of the trip and that kept one bull talking. We went after him on the ridge he was on and by the time we got over there he had moved up onto another ridge. We hiked back down the other side and headed up towards where he was now at. As we got within a couple hundred yards we bumped a cow. She never barked or ran, just sort of knew something was up and trotted off. We held tight for 5 minutes and then kept going. We got to a spot of good cover and I cow called. He bugled again and I cut him off with a challenge. He did not appreciate that and came straight for us, chuckling and bugling most of the way. I had my partner to my right and ready to shoot since he was coming down from that direction and I was the only one who could call. He got about 30 yds above us and started side-hilling it in my direction. Partner never got a clear shot at him. After he stopped and stared at us for a minute and then kept moving. As soon as he dropped his head I drew. He paused and I let it fly. And I missed. Shot under him and cut about 30 hairs off his underside. In the rush to get on him I never dropped my pack which made my sequence feel different plus I peeked at the shot looking for the hit, which of course means I dropped my front arm. No blood to be found anywhere and after he trotted off we heard him bugle one more time as he went looking for his cows that he had left to come kick our butts. He was a nice 6x6 with ivory tips up top. The image of him trotting away without a hole in him will be forever be burned into my mind. I now have a major elk hangover that will last until my boots hit Colorado again. All in all we had a great trip. To go 28 hours from home to somewhere you've never seen, to hunt an animal you've never hunted and to find them and have an encounter with a bull like that is a pretty good first attempt in my opinion. Learned a lot and will be much better prepared for next year. Thank you to all of you on here that offered advice, either personally or in your posts. You all have been an awesome resource and I couldn't have gotten there without you. Best of luck to those of you who get to keep chasing them this season -
I'm jealous. Now its time to start working on filling the 6 deer tags I have and convincing my wife to move out west
1. Get in better shape. The hike in was 5.5 miles from the truck to camp and it kicked my butt pretty good. Not much I can do to workout at altitude here since I can only get to about 3500 ft near where I live but more hiking with weight and more cardio in general will definitely make next years hunt a lot easier. Camp was around 9000 and we hunted up above 10 a couple of days. Thankfully I never experienced any altitude sickness, it just made things a little more difficult than usual.
2. I packed waaaay too much food. I bet I carried out 6 or 8 lbs of crap that I didn't eat. I brought 2 packets of oatmeal/ day for breakfast and never ate one. I think I ate 3 of the 14 Clif bars I carried in and 4 of the 14 squeeze pouches of peanut butter. My freeze dried meals and the tuna packs with olive oil were pretty much my staples for the trip. Nothing sweet even remotely appealed to me. My hunting partner let me try one of his Epic bars and those things are the ticket. Next years food bag will be a lot different.
3. Hydrate like crazy before I go. This is what got me more than anything during the first couple of days. I had bad cramps and it took me 3 days to get re-hydrated.
4. Upgrade my boots. Go ahead and give me crap now but I wore Danner Pronghorns on this trip. They held up just fine and kept my feet mostly dry but I want something stiffer for next time. I will also upgrade my insoles. Feet got a little sore but no blisters or anything like that. I pre-taped with Leukotape before I went in since I knew from breaking them in that they rubbed my heels the wrong way. The tape coupled with a better lacing technique solved that problem before I even left.
5. Brought a few miscellaneous small items and a fuel canister that I never used so most of that will get left in the truck or at home next year
6. Practice shooting with a pack on. We'll get to that part later.....
My clothing, pack, stove, calls, and sleep system all functioned as expected and kept me comfortable. No changes expected for any of those things for next year unless I run into something I just have to have.
Now for the good part. We found elk. There was elk sign and trails everywhere. Bulls were bugling late in the evening, all night, and a little during the first hour of daylight. First couple of days we saw 2 cows and a spike plus heard 2 other cows (moving and calling) that we could never locate. Our last morning to hunt it stayed cooler than it had during the rest of the trip and that kept one bull talking. We went after him on the ridge he was on and by the time we got over there he had moved up onto another ridge. We hiked back down the other side and headed up towards where he was now at. As we got within a couple hundred yards we bumped a cow. She never barked or ran, just sort of knew something was up and trotted off. We held tight for 5 minutes and then kept going. We got to a spot of good cover and I cow called. He bugled again and I cut him off with a challenge. He did not appreciate that and came straight for us, chuckling and bugling most of the way. I had my partner to my right and ready to shoot since he was coming down from that direction and I was the only one who could call. He got about 30 yds above us and started side-hilling it in my direction. Partner never got a clear shot at him. After he stopped and stared at us for a minute and then kept moving. As soon as he dropped his head I drew. He paused and I let it fly. And I missed. Shot under him and cut about 30 hairs off his underside. In the rush to get on him I never dropped my pack which made my sequence feel different plus I peeked at the shot looking for the hit, which of course means I dropped my front arm. No blood to be found anywhere and after he trotted off we heard him bugle one more time as he went looking for his cows that he had left to come kick our butts. He was a nice 6x6 with ivory tips up top. The image of him trotting away without a hole in him will be forever be burned into my mind. I now have a major elk hangover that will last until my boots hit Colorado again. All in all we had a great trip. To go 28 hours from home to somewhere you've never seen, to hunt an animal you've never hunted and to find them and have an encounter with a bull like that is a pretty good first attempt in my opinion. Learned a lot and will be much better prepared for next year. Thank you to all of you on here that offered advice, either personally or in your posts. You all have been an awesome resource and I couldn't have gotten there without you. Best of luck to those of you who get to keep chasing them this season -
I'm jealous. Now its time to start working on filling the 6 deer tags I have and convincing my wife to move out west
Have fun filling those tags.
