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The making of an elk hunter
By BILL MARSHALL, Special to the Independent Record
10/17/02
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I am going to tell you how to hunt elk. I would love to. However, there is only one small problem — I have never killed an elk.
It’s July 1974, and a thick, musty St. Louis evening. Crickets, locusts, tree frogs together form a lunatic symphony just outside my window. The sweat is constant and normal; you are always sweating in St. Louis in July. Engrossed in my new “Field and Stream,”I take no heed of the intensity of the moment. Montana...elk...
mountains...guns. There is a picture of a cowboy packing out an elk, a Marlboro-like smile crossing his leathery face. His hat rides perfectly tilted, his chaps well worn, his boots dusty and misshapen from too many days in the saddle. A red bandana frames his wiry red beard. Behind him, the sun melts into a lonesome, waiting canyon.
I look at this picture for hours, tracing my hands over the face, feeling the sun on my back. I give old Pickachoo, my horse, a little kick, recalling the hunter victorious, recapturing the moment I came face to face with the beast. It is a standoff. We share a look of respect before I pull the trigger on the huge elk. He accepts defeat and falls effortlessly to the ground. I am the Hunter, the Conqueror, complete in all his glory, full of pride. A man.
It is 1997. I have now been a citizen of Montana for the past five years. I stand on a very steep, nearly vertical piece of black timber. Eight inches of newly fallen snow covers the ground. The hill is so steep, so full of downed timber that I stumble continually, swearing at every fall. The timber is as timeless and constant as all black timber, a virtual no-mans-land, a desert of trees and jumble. How anything lives in here, I will never figure out.
I have been walking all day. My energy is low. If I were a car, I would be waiting to see the gas light blink on at any moment. But I hang on. I sense the light of the day fading, but it is always dark where I am. I know our hunt is almost over, almost.
My friend is high on the hill above me. His hope is that I will push the elk up. I do. In a crowded instant, I here the crack of the gun, followed by the sound of something coming toward me, something big, something moving fast. It is a cow elk, rolling down the steep mountainside — end over end — coming right at me. It takes me a second or two to realize that I need to do something, like jump out of the way. I finally realize that I need to move. I do, only to watch this animal break its back with a heavy thwunk against a tree 10 feet away. My friend, full of adrenalin, runs straight down the hill, miraculously avoiding every snag and fallen branch.
It is four o’clock. We are three miles in. There is no way we can drag her. We will have to bone her out. The cold settles on our sweaty bodies and eventually wins over as we begin the grim job of carving this animal into pieces small enough to fill our backpacks. By the time the job is done, I am on the verge of total exhaustion, my feet completely numb. My hands, caked in dry blood, are the only warm part of my body. We begin our long hike out in the dark, both carrying around 80 pounds of meat on our backs.
There are moments when I feel as though I will not make it, but I have no choice. I have to keep going. To stop is to freeze to death. I think back, focusing on the cowboy in the magazine article, and I swear to hunt him down and get even. The promise of revenge keeps me going.
I swore off elk hunting that night as we hiked out, but something happened on the drive home from the Gravelly mountains. My partner and I began to exchange stories. Had I seen the elk earlier? I had not. What was the shot like? We began to throw high fives around with big laughs and bigger smiles to follow.
As we walked into the Chick bar that night, Jeff said to me, “I thought you were going to die!”
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” I admitted. He didn’t know I was serious.
A beer seemed appropriate, very appropriate. Settling in at the bar, we began to relate our story. The local patrons, drawn to us, sensed our victory. Later that night, as our truck dropped into the Madison Valley, the glimmering lights of Ennis below, a warm glow settled over me as we began planning next year’s hunt.
---
It has been nearly five years now and I have yet to kill an elk. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have...often. I have spent days, even weeks, walking the woods, looking for that elusive bull. I’ve bought closets-full of camouflage clothing, special boots called “elk hunting boots,” a new gun, some scent spray that makes me smell like dirt (...why dirt?). Nevertheless, none of the trappings has brought me closer to killing an elk. Oh, I’ve had my share of deer. I’m a heck of a deer hunter. But thus far, the elk are winning.
So, what is it about elk that gets my blood to pumping? Is it that they are so big? No, if they were smaller, they would be easier to pack out. Is it the shape of the antlers? No, that’s not it. So, what is it? What makes me so obsessed with conquering this animal? The elk is king of the mountain. He owns it. He is dominator of an almost impossible landscape of monstrous peaks, raging rivers and dense timber so thick it is hard to picture a squirrel navigating it, let alone a 700-pound bull elk. He is the ultimate challenge... the measure of a man.
I have a good plan this year, a plan for a weeklong solo hunt into a remote area. And I’m more than a little nervous about it. There is so much that can go wrong when you are hunting alone. No one to fall back on when you’re tired and your brain fogs up. You have to figure it out alone. And I’m planning on this being the year. The slate is clean, the score, zero to zero.
Maybe I will see you in some smoky bar, my hands red, my body hunched over and exhausted, my face lit with a tired grin, and we’ll exchange stories. I hope yours will be as good as mine. I wish you luck.
By BILL MARSHALL, Special to the Independent Record
10/17/02
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I am going to tell you how to hunt elk. I would love to. However, there is only one small problem — I have never killed an elk.
It’s July 1974, and a thick, musty St. Louis evening. Crickets, locusts, tree frogs together form a lunatic symphony just outside my window. The sweat is constant and normal; you are always sweating in St. Louis in July. Engrossed in my new “Field and Stream,”I take no heed of the intensity of the moment. Montana...elk...
mountains...guns. There is a picture of a cowboy packing out an elk, a Marlboro-like smile crossing his leathery face. His hat rides perfectly tilted, his chaps well worn, his boots dusty and misshapen from too many days in the saddle. A red bandana frames his wiry red beard. Behind him, the sun melts into a lonesome, waiting canyon.
I look at this picture for hours, tracing my hands over the face, feeling the sun on my back. I give old Pickachoo, my horse, a little kick, recalling the hunter victorious, recapturing the moment I came face to face with the beast. It is a standoff. We share a look of respect before I pull the trigger on the huge elk. He accepts defeat and falls effortlessly to the ground. I am the Hunter, the Conqueror, complete in all his glory, full of pride. A man.
It is 1997. I have now been a citizen of Montana for the past five years. I stand on a very steep, nearly vertical piece of black timber. Eight inches of newly fallen snow covers the ground. The hill is so steep, so full of downed timber that I stumble continually, swearing at every fall. The timber is as timeless and constant as all black timber, a virtual no-mans-land, a desert of trees and jumble. How anything lives in here, I will never figure out.
I have been walking all day. My energy is low. If I were a car, I would be waiting to see the gas light blink on at any moment. But I hang on. I sense the light of the day fading, but it is always dark where I am. I know our hunt is almost over, almost.
My friend is high on the hill above me. His hope is that I will push the elk up. I do. In a crowded instant, I here the crack of the gun, followed by the sound of something coming toward me, something big, something moving fast. It is a cow elk, rolling down the steep mountainside — end over end — coming right at me. It takes me a second or two to realize that I need to do something, like jump out of the way. I finally realize that I need to move. I do, only to watch this animal break its back with a heavy thwunk against a tree 10 feet away. My friend, full of adrenalin, runs straight down the hill, miraculously avoiding every snag and fallen branch.
It is four o’clock. We are three miles in. There is no way we can drag her. We will have to bone her out. The cold settles on our sweaty bodies and eventually wins over as we begin the grim job of carving this animal into pieces small enough to fill our backpacks. By the time the job is done, I am on the verge of total exhaustion, my feet completely numb. My hands, caked in dry blood, are the only warm part of my body. We begin our long hike out in the dark, both carrying around 80 pounds of meat on our backs.
There are moments when I feel as though I will not make it, but I have no choice. I have to keep going. To stop is to freeze to death. I think back, focusing on the cowboy in the magazine article, and I swear to hunt him down and get even. The promise of revenge keeps me going.
I swore off elk hunting that night as we hiked out, but something happened on the drive home from the Gravelly mountains. My partner and I began to exchange stories. Had I seen the elk earlier? I had not. What was the shot like? We began to throw high fives around with big laughs and bigger smiles to follow.
As we walked into the Chick bar that night, Jeff said to me, “I thought you were going to die!”
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” I admitted. He didn’t know I was serious.
A beer seemed appropriate, very appropriate. Settling in at the bar, we began to relate our story. The local patrons, drawn to us, sensed our victory. Later that night, as our truck dropped into the Madison Valley, the glimmering lights of Ennis below, a warm glow settled over me as we began planning next year’s hunt.
---
It has been nearly five years now and I have yet to kill an elk. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have...often. I have spent days, even weeks, walking the woods, looking for that elusive bull. I’ve bought closets-full of camouflage clothing, special boots called “elk hunting boots,” a new gun, some scent spray that makes me smell like dirt (...why dirt?). Nevertheless, none of the trappings has brought me closer to killing an elk. Oh, I’ve had my share of deer. I’m a heck of a deer hunter. But thus far, the elk are winning.
So, what is it about elk that gets my blood to pumping? Is it that they are so big? No, if they were smaller, they would be easier to pack out. Is it the shape of the antlers? No, that’s not it. So, what is it? What makes me so obsessed with conquering this animal? The elk is king of the mountain. He owns it. He is dominator of an almost impossible landscape of monstrous peaks, raging rivers and dense timber so thick it is hard to picture a squirrel navigating it, let alone a 700-pound bull elk. He is the ultimate challenge... the measure of a man.
I have a good plan this year, a plan for a weeklong solo hunt into a remote area. And I’m more than a little nervous about it. There is so much that can go wrong when you are hunting alone. No one to fall back on when you’re tired and your brain fogs up. You have to figure it out alone. And I’m planning on this being the year. The slate is clean, the score, zero to zero.
Maybe I will see you in some smoky bar, my hands red, my body hunched over and exhausted, my face lit with a tired grin, and we’ll exchange stories. I hope yours will be as good as mine. I wish you luck.
