ozstriker22
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09/05/05 Colorado Archery Elk Hunting Story, By Ozstriker22:
Posted in Elk Hunting and Archery Hunting forums.
I returned from my very first Archery Elk hunt last week
. It was AWESOME!!! We hunted an hour north of 4 corners in South Western Colorado. Either sex elk tag. A lot happened, but for those of you who don't like to read
, the bottom line is, I didn't personally take an animal
. Here is a brief synopsis to save you the time of reading this post if you don't feel like a good story: 4 hunters, 6 days in the field, 1 kill, 1 Lost. 3 out of 4 hunters had shots less than 35 yards on legal Elk. I would be the 4th hunter with no shot at a legal Elk. I Had a 3x3 Bull at 42 yards - but he needed 4 points to be a legal animal
, so there won't be any good pictures in this post either
. I would still like to share my experience with you, so here goes
INTRODUCTION:
I have spent my entire life in San Diego, so to say Colorado was INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, UNBELEIVABLE, MIND NUMBING, would be an understatement. I cannot believe the abundance of wildlife in the Rocky Mountains at 9000 feet elevation. There was sign in every clearing, under every tree. A true sportsman’s paradise. We drank wonderful tasting, ice cold water, right from a spring coming straight out of the rocks. The wild brook trout were tricky and delicious eating. There were grouse on the ground and in the trees. And animals! There were fresh bear scrapes on the very tree next to my stand! I saw so many deer I lost count.
SIGHTINGS:
Boy do I wish I had put in for a Buck tag!!! I had 4 different shots at legal bucks less than 40 yards, with the best shot a broadside on a MASSIVE 4x4 at only 10 feet away!!! His antlers extended at least three or 4 inches past his ears, were as thick as tree trunks, and PERFECTLY symmetrical!!! He must've weighed well over 200 lbs, his hoof prints were about 4 inches and his rump looked like a pony's. A slick coat with a well muscled brisket. He was so close I was fighting to keep every inch of my shaking body to keep from bursting out into nervous laughter. I've never had such an incredible wild animal so very close. And the best part is that he didn't even see me sitting there in the bushes until the wind swirled around. And even then he didn't bolt, just Mule-Deer-Hopped 60 yards away and kept eating. I swear I could've jumped on his back and rode him like a bronco! He left via the game trail I came in on, passing broadside by my hunting partner 400 yards down the trail.
That was opening morning. 10 minutes later I had a Cow Elk and Calf walk by about 100 yards above my hunting plateau. They were on a mission and there was no chance of getting in front of them for a Bow shot. On my way back to camp at 2pm we jumped a bedded 6x7 (might have been 7x7) Bull elk that was only 20 feet off the road. I've never seen such a large animal run through such tightly packed trees... swinging his head from side to side, running up the hill without striking a single tree... with tremendous speed and power. Oh, yeah, did I mention this was ONLY 5 minutes from camp??? On one of the mornings there was even fresh elk sign from the night before only 40 feet from my tent!!!
LOST:
Two evenings following opening day I hunted from a new stand in an area I found by myself. I told the group where I was headed. I waited until I couldn't see my pins any more, I put my headlamp on, climbed down, turned on the GPS, got my gear together and headed back up through the Aspens.
It's a funny thing... the way a $300, brand new, TOPO Enabled, WAAPS enabled GPS doesn't work in a thick forest. It’s very funny. The way it says "Accurate to 30 feet" and provides your latitude/longitude but CAN NOT tell you which direction you have been walking for 5 minutes, which way you are facing now, WHERE you need to go from here! And when you can't see the stars, and every fork in the trail is the same, and every deadfall looks like the last one, and every white barren aspen looks like EVERY WHITE BARREN ASPEN, and scenes from THE VILLAGE and from BLARE WITCH and from EVERY SCARY MOVIE YOU'VE EVER SEEN are playing in the back of your mind, when your tree stand is located by a bear scrape an inch deep the SIZE OF YOUR FACE, when every shadow moves, when you hear things moving all around you, and you can't see the stars, and YOUR DAMN GPS WON'T GIVE YOU AN ACCURATE READING, AND EVERY WHITE BARREN ASPEN LOOKS LIKE EVERY WHITE BARREN ASPEN, AND YOU CAN'T BREATHE, AND YOU START RUNNING, AND YOU TRIP, AND YOU'RE THIRSTY, AND YOU'RE CAMMEL BACK IS ALMOST EMPTY, AND IT'S GETTING COLD, AND I'M GOING TO DIE TONIGHT IN THE WOODS and... before I knew it, I was totally lost. And totally panic stricken.
Then I remembered the words I've read in every survival and wilderness guide. "Don't Panic." I thought to myself "Bull $hi!... how can I not panic?!" But then I forced myself to sit down anyways. So I just sat there. Trying to catch my breath (being overweight at 9000 feet elevation will do that to you). What was the worst case scenario? I know how to SURVIVE! I could make a shelter in 30 minutes. I could spend the night under an old log covered in a bunch of leaves. I understand the principals of emergency insulation. Hey, I carry a pack for a reason, right? I went over my gear: Granola bar, space blanket, compass, a little water, matches, beanie, whistle... compass? Compass? COMPASS! YES! That trusty $4 compass I have always carried with me! And that .95 cent tin whistle from Wal-Mart. I gave three long toots on my whistle
. TALK ABOUT BREAKING THE SILENCE OF THE DEEP WOODS! I waited and blew 3 more times. I didn't hear a response because there wasn't anybody near me, but it sure made me feel better. Besides, I now had choices. Only two, but two was better than none.
If I wanted to, I could spend an uncomfortable but safe night with the bears and mountain lions (and deer and elk I reminded myself) then easily walk out in the morning, or I could calmly use my compass and walk a straight line right out of the woods. I just needed to know which bearing camp was. And the GPS could still tell me that! Camp was somewhere NE of me. Dial the compass to NE and start walking a straight line from tree to tree until I hit the road. Only 45 minutes later and I was sitting in camp telling my story and eating hot Dinty Moore beef stew with a cold glass of scotch. My friends hadn't forgotten me, they went up the hill twice, but they hadn't found me either. I'll tell you I slept like a baby that night!
CONFIRMED KILLS:
The day after the next Travis shot a big Bull Elk
. A herd of 8 came in. His first shot went over it's back. They pulled away, he used a "Hoochie Mama" cow call and they came back in. He drilled his bull perfectly. Both lungs, between the ribs. It died within 20 yards. It was an easy, simple, clean kill. But he said he was still shaking from adrenaline when he got down from his tree - and he's taking big game for 15 years! Weighed about 400lbs after field dressed. The 4 of us dragged it 10ft at a time to the truck.
The night before the last day Bill had looked everywhere for his release but couldn't locate it. Instead of staying in camp, he used an extra one. He was sitting over a new pond when a bunch of Moo Cows came in to it. A few minutes later he heard another cow breaking some bushes behind him, coming to join her friends. Except it wasn't a cow. It was a HUGE 6x6 elk!!! It walked in on the same game trail as the cows had used (directly under his stand). He said he could have reached his foot out and kicked the top of it's antlers! The elk walked up to the pond - eye level and turned broadside like he owned the place. Of course Bill's bow was still hanging from the tree, he was so sure it was just another moo cow he wasn't even ready for an elk. That big old boy made eye contact with Bill, jumped a little, and ran right back down the same game trail he had come up!!! The cows took off too.
THE BLOOD TRAIL:
Right at last light a Cow Elk and calf came down to get a drink from the opposite bank. She stood broadside alongside a fallen log 35 yards away. Bill drew back on the Cow, but due to using a borrowed release, the shot struck high and back. As she ran off his stomach sank. He knew there'd be a lot of tracking that night. When we returned from our unsuccessful evening hunts he was waiting in camp. It was his animal, had been three quarters of an hour, and we left the decision up to him. He decided to pursue instead of waiting for morning.
We returned to the scene. There was plenty of blood. Deep red. There were no stomach contents anywhere. We found 1/2 of the arrow 60 yards away, where she had lain on the ground and rubbed the leaves and dirt. There was a great puddle of blood. We continued to track for two hours uphill. She had laid down two other times, leaving large globs of fresh and clotted blood every time she moved on. There was A LOT OF BLOOD. I wondered if she was still alive, and we were just pushing her farther into the forest?
She must've bedded for a while at the last spot, because afterwards, the blood trail was reduced to a few large splatters and then stopped completely right before a heavy game trail with a three-way fork. We spent 20 or 30 minutes following broken grass, sticks, etc in each direction. Nothing. There was much talk of giving up. The negative people in our group had decided it was impossible. That it must've been a one lung shot. That she'd live for days. That she was in the next county already. I had been on my hands and knees for over half an hour when I finally found a pinhead sized drop of dried blood. With such a meager find there was yet more talk of returning to camp for dinner. I pressed on. Travis began walking the main game trail.
IT had been three hours since we began tracking. I was ready to go back and eat, and call it quits. 100 yards from me Travis yelled "I FOUND BLOOD!" We were elated! She had jumped a deadfall and had pumped out a jet of blood onto the log, rocks, bushes, everywhere. The arrow had not passed through, there was only blood from one side. She wouldn't live. We followed a steady but scant blood trail for another mile and a half Zigzagging through the forest. She even crossed the road leading to our camp, but then headed downhill. We could clearly see her hooves and those of her calf in the soft dirt at the edge of the road. It was at this point, the trail had been cold for some time and now we were in hot pursuit of a dried trail, that we heard crashing from the bushes in front of us, and a large game animal break a stick farther downhill. Could she still be alive? Were we pushing her?
Yes. She was. And we were. The blood was different now. She no longer bled from her wound. It was fresh, and was dripping from her mouth. It was frothy. There was saliva mixed with it. Lots of saliva. She had sneezed blood onto a log. She was running from us, and dying on the inside. She had stumbled a lot. Had begun to avoid jumping over logs and was instead going around them.
As we entered the bottom of the canyon we heard hooves strike the top of a log 100 to 200 yards up hill in front of us. She was in the deepest waist to chest high brush we had come to yet, and was no longer bleeding externally. We followed pin drops until there were no more. There was a large gob of saliva and bright red blood near the end, but then nothing. It had been one half hour since we heard her, and four and one half hours since we began tracking. Five hours since she was shot. We had lost her trail. She was going straight up the hill. We cut track again. We ran the top ridge. Nothing. NO blood. NO prints. Too dense to crawl on hands and knees. Too steep. Too bad. There was a pond 1/4 mile away, in her direction. Maybe she would be there in the morning.
At two AM we returned to camp exhausted.
THE LAST MORNING:
Getting a late start from a long night, Travis was walking to that second pond. He broke a stick right at the edge, and quickly used the "Hoochie Mamma" cow call. He was rewarded with an instant reply, as a motherless calf stepped from the brush 10 yards away, calling to Travis again. Travis walked the pond with the Calf following at a distance, constantly calling to him. We legally could've put a tag on it, but he didn't have the heart. After half an hour of searching, he returned to camp. Hopefully that calf will hook up with one of the herds on that mountain.
SYNOPSIS:
Colorado was INCREDIBLE but at $600 on gas, $490 on the tag, and $200 to butcher a kill, I will probably go every other year.
I still can't wait to get my first big game animal with my bow or rifle. But I don't think I'll be taking a doe or a fawn anytime soon, even if it's legal. And If I get a good, solid, hit, I'll wait at least 30 minutes to start tracking. If it's a poor hit in the evening, I'm coming back the next day. In the morning, I'm waiting till afternoon to start tracking. Better to track a dried blood trail a quarter mile than a fresh trail 3 miles.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you've enjoyed my most enjoyable hunt yet!
Sincerely,
Jesse
Posted in Elk Hunting and Archery Hunting forums.
I returned from my very first Archery Elk hunt last week
INTRODUCTION:
I have spent my entire life in San Diego, so to say Colorado was INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, UNBELEIVABLE, MIND NUMBING, would be an understatement. I cannot believe the abundance of wildlife in the Rocky Mountains at 9000 feet elevation. There was sign in every clearing, under every tree. A true sportsman’s paradise. We drank wonderful tasting, ice cold water, right from a spring coming straight out of the rocks. The wild brook trout were tricky and delicious eating. There were grouse on the ground and in the trees. And animals! There were fresh bear scrapes on the very tree next to my stand! I saw so many deer I lost count.
SIGHTINGS:
Boy do I wish I had put in for a Buck tag!!! I had 4 different shots at legal bucks less than 40 yards, with the best shot a broadside on a MASSIVE 4x4 at only 10 feet away!!! His antlers extended at least three or 4 inches past his ears, were as thick as tree trunks, and PERFECTLY symmetrical!!! He must've weighed well over 200 lbs, his hoof prints were about 4 inches and his rump looked like a pony's. A slick coat with a well muscled brisket. He was so close I was fighting to keep every inch of my shaking body to keep from bursting out into nervous laughter. I've never had such an incredible wild animal so very close. And the best part is that he didn't even see me sitting there in the bushes until the wind swirled around. And even then he didn't bolt, just Mule-Deer-Hopped 60 yards away and kept eating. I swear I could've jumped on his back and rode him like a bronco! He left via the game trail I came in on, passing broadside by my hunting partner 400 yards down the trail.
That was opening morning. 10 minutes later I had a Cow Elk and Calf walk by about 100 yards above my hunting plateau. They were on a mission and there was no chance of getting in front of them for a Bow shot. On my way back to camp at 2pm we jumped a bedded 6x7 (might have been 7x7) Bull elk that was only 20 feet off the road. I've never seen such a large animal run through such tightly packed trees... swinging his head from side to side, running up the hill without striking a single tree... with tremendous speed and power. Oh, yeah, did I mention this was ONLY 5 minutes from camp??? On one of the mornings there was even fresh elk sign from the night before only 40 feet from my tent!!!
LOST:
Two evenings following opening day I hunted from a new stand in an area I found by myself. I told the group where I was headed. I waited until I couldn't see my pins any more, I put my headlamp on, climbed down, turned on the GPS, got my gear together and headed back up through the Aspens.
It's a funny thing... the way a $300, brand new, TOPO Enabled, WAAPS enabled GPS doesn't work in a thick forest. It’s very funny. The way it says "Accurate to 30 feet" and provides your latitude/longitude but CAN NOT tell you which direction you have been walking for 5 minutes, which way you are facing now, WHERE you need to go from here! And when you can't see the stars, and every fork in the trail is the same, and every deadfall looks like the last one, and every white barren aspen looks like EVERY WHITE BARREN ASPEN, and scenes from THE VILLAGE and from BLARE WITCH and from EVERY SCARY MOVIE YOU'VE EVER SEEN are playing in the back of your mind, when your tree stand is located by a bear scrape an inch deep the SIZE OF YOUR FACE, when every shadow moves, when you hear things moving all around you, and you can't see the stars, and YOUR DAMN GPS WON'T GIVE YOU AN ACCURATE READING, AND EVERY WHITE BARREN ASPEN LOOKS LIKE EVERY WHITE BARREN ASPEN, AND YOU CAN'T BREATHE, AND YOU START RUNNING, AND YOU TRIP, AND YOU'RE THIRSTY, AND YOU'RE CAMMEL BACK IS ALMOST EMPTY, AND IT'S GETTING COLD, AND I'M GOING TO DIE TONIGHT IN THE WOODS and... before I knew it, I was totally lost. And totally panic stricken.
Then I remembered the words I've read in every survival and wilderness guide. "Don't Panic." I thought to myself "Bull $hi!... how can I not panic?!" But then I forced myself to sit down anyways. So I just sat there. Trying to catch my breath (being overweight at 9000 feet elevation will do that to you). What was the worst case scenario? I know how to SURVIVE! I could make a shelter in 30 minutes. I could spend the night under an old log covered in a bunch of leaves. I understand the principals of emergency insulation. Hey, I carry a pack for a reason, right? I went over my gear: Granola bar, space blanket, compass, a little water, matches, beanie, whistle... compass? Compass? COMPASS! YES! That trusty $4 compass I have always carried with me! And that .95 cent tin whistle from Wal-Mart. I gave three long toots on my whistle
If I wanted to, I could spend an uncomfortable but safe night with the bears and mountain lions (and deer and elk I reminded myself) then easily walk out in the morning, or I could calmly use my compass and walk a straight line right out of the woods. I just needed to know which bearing camp was. And the GPS could still tell me that! Camp was somewhere NE of me. Dial the compass to NE and start walking a straight line from tree to tree until I hit the road. Only 45 minutes later and I was sitting in camp telling my story and eating hot Dinty Moore beef stew with a cold glass of scotch. My friends hadn't forgotten me, they went up the hill twice, but they hadn't found me either. I'll tell you I slept like a baby that night!
CONFIRMED KILLS:
The day after the next Travis shot a big Bull Elk
The night before the last day Bill had looked everywhere for his release but couldn't locate it. Instead of staying in camp, he used an extra one. He was sitting over a new pond when a bunch of Moo Cows came in to it. A few minutes later he heard another cow breaking some bushes behind him, coming to join her friends. Except it wasn't a cow. It was a HUGE 6x6 elk!!! It walked in on the same game trail as the cows had used (directly under his stand). He said he could have reached his foot out and kicked the top of it's antlers! The elk walked up to the pond - eye level and turned broadside like he owned the place. Of course Bill's bow was still hanging from the tree, he was so sure it was just another moo cow he wasn't even ready for an elk. That big old boy made eye contact with Bill, jumped a little, and ran right back down the same game trail he had come up!!! The cows took off too.
THE BLOOD TRAIL:
Right at last light a Cow Elk and calf came down to get a drink from the opposite bank. She stood broadside alongside a fallen log 35 yards away. Bill drew back on the Cow, but due to using a borrowed release, the shot struck high and back. As she ran off his stomach sank. He knew there'd be a lot of tracking that night. When we returned from our unsuccessful evening hunts he was waiting in camp. It was his animal, had been three quarters of an hour, and we left the decision up to him. He decided to pursue instead of waiting for morning.
We returned to the scene. There was plenty of blood. Deep red. There were no stomach contents anywhere. We found 1/2 of the arrow 60 yards away, where she had lain on the ground and rubbed the leaves and dirt. There was a great puddle of blood. We continued to track for two hours uphill. She had laid down two other times, leaving large globs of fresh and clotted blood every time she moved on. There was A LOT OF BLOOD. I wondered if she was still alive, and we were just pushing her farther into the forest?
She must've bedded for a while at the last spot, because afterwards, the blood trail was reduced to a few large splatters and then stopped completely right before a heavy game trail with a three-way fork. We spent 20 or 30 minutes following broken grass, sticks, etc in each direction. Nothing. There was much talk of giving up. The negative people in our group had decided it was impossible. That it must've been a one lung shot. That she'd live for days. That she was in the next county already. I had been on my hands and knees for over half an hour when I finally found a pinhead sized drop of dried blood. With such a meager find there was yet more talk of returning to camp for dinner. I pressed on. Travis began walking the main game trail.
IT had been three hours since we began tracking. I was ready to go back and eat, and call it quits. 100 yards from me Travis yelled "I FOUND BLOOD!" We were elated! She had jumped a deadfall and had pumped out a jet of blood onto the log, rocks, bushes, everywhere. The arrow had not passed through, there was only blood from one side. She wouldn't live. We followed a steady but scant blood trail for another mile and a half Zigzagging through the forest. She even crossed the road leading to our camp, but then headed downhill. We could clearly see her hooves and those of her calf in the soft dirt at the edge of the road. It was at this point, the trail had been cold for some time and now we were in hot pursuit of a dried trail, that we heard crashing from the bushes in front of us, and a large game animal break a stick farther downhill. Could she still be alive? Were we pushing her?
Yes. She was. And we were. The blood was different now. She no longer bled from her wound. It was fresh, and was dripping from her mouth. It was frothy. There was saliva mixed with it. Lots of saliva. She had sneezed blood onto a log. She was running from us, and dying on the inside. She had stumbled a lot. Had begun to avoid jumping over logs and was instead going around them.
As we entered the bottom of the canyon we heard hooves strike the top of a log 100 to 200 yards up hill in front of us. She was in the deepest waist to chest high brush we had come to yet, and was no longer bleeding externally. We followed pin drops until there were no more. There was a large gob of saliva and bright red blood near the end, but then nothing. It had been one half hour since we heard her, and four and one half hours since we began tracking. Five hours since she was shot. We had lost her trail. She was going straight up the hill. We cut track again. We ran the top ridge. Nothing. NO blood. NO prints. Too dense to crawl on hands and knees. Too steep. Too bad. There was a pond 1/4 mile away, in her direction. Maybe she would be there in the morning.
At two AM we returned to camp exhausted.
THE LAST MORNING:
Getting a late start from a long night, Travis was walking to that second pond. He broke a stick right at the edge, and quickly used the "Hoochie Mamma" cow call. He was rewarded with an instant reply, as a motherless calf stepped from the brush 10 yards away, calling to Travis again. Travis walked the pond with the Calf following at a distance, constantly calling to him. We legally could've put a tag on it, but he didn't have the heart. After half an hour of searching, he returned to camp. Hopefully that calf will hook up with one of the herds on that mountain.
SYNOPSIS:
Colorado was INCREDIBLE but at $600 on gas, $490 on the tag, and $200 to butcher a kill, I will probably go every other year.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you've enjoyed my most enjoyable hunt yet!
Sincerely,
Jesse
