John LaRue and I went out hunting Thursday night for elk. It was getting late in the week and we figured the elk had enough time to get back into a little bit of a pattern after being pushed hard on the opener. It was a theory...It's probably more realistic, however, that most of the elk got pushed out and will be gone until we get snow. Regardless, with John working until 2:30 we had to do something close. It was a good evening for a hike and maybe that random elk would pass through.
We hiked up to a line of trees that line the rim of a bowl on one side and centrally located between a couple huge parks on the other. The plan was to sit up there until dark and just wait. Where we were located was easy to sneak back and forth from the bowl to the parks and also glass the ridge on the other side of the main drainage. The wind was calm for once and the temps were dropping a little. It was pretty much perfect.
We had about an hour and a half until dark and were glassing the bowl and waiting. We headed to the parks and glassed and waited again. We headed back to the bowl and glassed...waiting...back to the parks. In that hour or so, we had went back and forth a number of times and finally decided to wait it out until the end looking out over the parks and glassing the opposite ridge.
I've never really been great about sitting still while hunting. That's why I like hunting in Montana. It's a lot of spotting and stalking--locating animals and then putting the move on them. It didn't help that we knew how much pressure there was in this area on the weekend and with the sun setting it was getting cold and feeling like the hunt was going to be a bust. We decided to wait a few more minutes and then head out...nothing.
John and I got up with about 25 minutes left of the shooting hours and were going to head straight down to the trail and then out. I'm probably more of a product of habit and replication than any kind of wisdom so I suggested we take one last look into the parks to the North since we had killed elk up there in the past. We crested the hillside and rounded the line of trees protecting the park and as I peeked out, there they were; a group of elk coming down the park towards us.
Like me, John's shot a really good bull in the past and is more about the meat then the horns. He also had a cow tag in his pocket. Our first day out and these cows were setting up perfect for us to make it short elk season for John.
"There!" I shouted a whisper out. "Right past those trees, John. There's a couple cows and they're coming. Get down!"
We ducked behind a big stump and dead-fall and glassed them. They were 360 yards out and standing behind one lone pine tree. We ranged the tree at 164. We either had to move or wait and we were running out of time. We still had about 20 minutes and they had been coming towards us but now had put on the breaks and were just milling around. They weren't alarmed; just content with being where they were. We made a plan to move.
We got around a couple trees and suck up behind another dead-fall. We could now see there were 3 cows in the first group and few others up a little higher. We ranged them at 306 but still behind the lone pine. We waited.
There's always a point in a stalk where you question if that's as good as it going to get or should I wait for a better shot? 306 is definitely doable but it would be nice to let them feed down a little closer. Time was running out.
John and I talked about whether to take the shot or not. A few seconds after John made the call to wait, the elk started feeding down towards us. They were actually moving pretty quick and went out of sight behind a swell as they got closer. The tree was 164 and they were following a cattle path that would bring them right past it. We waited.
It only took a minute or so for them to crest the ridge bringing them back into sight and now only 180 yards out quarter towards us. Two of the elk were yearlings and one was about a 2-year old. "Which one is she?" John asked.
"It's the middle one." I whispered.
"As soon as she turns sideways..."
(Hunting isn't always perfect. It doesn't always happen like you see on TV when a shot goes off and the animal just drops. If you don't like to read about the reality of hunting, you might want to stop here.)
If I'm being totally honest, I have to say that I get way more excited with other people shooting and even fishing then if I'm holding the rod or taking the shot myself. My adrenaline was pumping and I was pretty jacked. I can only imagine how John was feeling and my excitement and sense of urgency for taking a shot probably wasn't helping.
The shot went off a little quicker than I had thought it would. All three elk spun and looked around for where it came from. "I don't know if you hit her, John." I said, "Shoot again!"
John repositioned and now with the elk at just over 200 and moving cautiously away, he let another one fly.
At that distance and in the open country, you can usually hear when you make a solid shot. Neither one of those shots sounded like what one would expect but when I watched their reaction in my glass, I could tell something just wasn't right for the bigger cow. She stayed down low while the other two went straight up the ridge. She stopped at around 360.
I could see through my binoculars that she was bleeding. From that distance, if you see blood spilling out, it has to be hit pretty hard. "She's hit," I said, "I think she'll go down but hit her again."
"Boom!" another shot rang out and all the elk started up the ridge on a dead run except for her.
I kept watching her and kept seeing what I though was blood pouring out...or was it something hanging down from her chest cavity? It was tough to say but she wasn't right and wasn't able to make the climb like the others. She walked down into the hollow and out of sight. We only had a few minutes of daylight left so we hoofed it down to her fully thinking she would be piled up...gone.
John and I looked for any kind of sign of the elk and/or blood for about an hour and a half in the dark and could not find a thing. We had a great point of reference with the lone pine and lined it up from where we were sitting and where she was standing when we thought we saw her bleeding. Nothing. We circled dozens of times with flashlights and scoured at every blade of grass looking for blood and could not find a thing. We replayed what we thought we saw and how the elk reacted and the fact that we didn't hear that report of a shot hitting something solid and we started doubting she was even hit. Both of us were feeling a little deflated and about to bag it.
We talked about it for a little while and were just about to head out when I suggested we take one last look but this time, take a path straight up the ridge on the line of the shot just to see if maybe we weren't far enough and maybe cross her blood trail as she walked off the park.
One last shot at finding blood, we headed straight away from the lone pine and within a couple minutes John calls out, "Here it is. I've got blood."
John had found the spot where the cow was standing. There was a good amount of blood but in the grass and it being dark, it was just about impossible to track so we marked the spot with a ribbon and made a plan to come back the next day. We were reinvigorated in the thought that she was hit hard and we would find her early the next day.
We got up to the park early the next morning and went to where we were when John took the shot. We glassed across the park and found the ribbon. From that angle, using the lone pine for reference, we could tell the ribbon was right where she was standing when we saw what we thought was her spilling out blood.
We found another spot just inside the tree line where the cow had stopped. There was a fairly large spot of blood and we were feeling pretty hopeful we would find her in less than a hundred yards. We found a few blades of grass with blood and then a few more setting her path on a side-hill trajectory but then the blood completely stopped and we were left wondering if she had kept that path or went down hill into deep dark timber.
I followed the trail she was on for a while and then decided to take a fork up the ridge just in case she tried to get back up with the rest of the heard. Nothing. I went back to where John had found blood last and headed down the ridge into the dark timber and brushy drainage. Nothing. John was circling too and outside of a few drops of blood just inside the tree line, we weren't seeing a thing. We went back to the last blood and looked hard for any kind of sign to tell which direction she headed. There were tracks going down and tracks side hilling and even tracks going up. Without blood, we were screwed.
We had been looking for a few hours and were losing any kind of hope that we would find her. We went back to the spot the elk had been standing in the tree line. We were right to the end. John had actually already pulled off the ribbons from where he had marked the blood trail; all but the last one. We sat and ate a sandwich and discussed our options.
Without blood and with the amount and type of terrain, it's literally like finding a needle in a haystack. It's a sick feeling knowing that you've wounded an animal with reality of not being able to find it and you start justifying it with the fact that either it will recover or that other animals got to eat too. We were at that point where we were going to pack up and head out.
It might have been the little bight sized Butterfinger John gave me or it might have been the fact that in this area, that might be the only shot John was going to get and I didn't want to waste it but I suggested that we take one more look. We had dropped down and looked lower in the drainage. I had followed the trail back up the ridge but we never really stayed on the same level as the last sign of blood and side hilled it.
"Let's just take one last look," I suggested. "We'll go to the last place we saw blood and spread out and just stay at that level."
John and I stood up, left the packs and started trekking along the ridge. I dropped down a little and started walking parallel with John. We walked for literally about 5 minutes when I heard John call out, "Hey Russ! I got her."
The shot John made wasn't a horrible shot. With the way the elk was standing; being down hill and the trajectory of the bullet and maybe even the bullet deflecting off bone, it went in a little high but came out almost straight down through the bottom of the elk. What we saw hanging down after the shot was its entrails. It's not pretty and definitely not something you try for but it happens. The angles that you have to shoot in the mountains can make for other than desirable outcomes and it's something you just have to deal with.
We were persistent from start to finish with this hunt and we were able to recover John's elk without wasting any meat. Three different times we were going to bag this hunt but three different times we decided to take one last look and it paid off and instead of thinking it was a wasted trip to an area that often gets over-hunted, we actually got into elk. And instead of bagging it, chalking it up to an unfortunate situation with a lost elk due to what we questioned was a bad shot, turned into a recovery and confirmation that it was a kill shot. Because of that, "one more cast," mentality, John will fill his freezer and he doesn't have to beat himself up over missing a shot or making a bad shot for the rest of the season or maybe even into next.
The work begins...again.
Keep 'em where they live...
No comments:
Post a Comment