Well, it's time to wrap up the season. I had been out hunting several times before actually "getting into" them. What I mean is I had some encounters and heard some bulls talking but never really seeing or hearing them getting riled up and doing what they do when heavy into the rut. Those who have elk hunted the rut, know what I'm talking about. Elk aren't just letting each other know they know there's another bull around. They're not just trying to keep their harem intact as they move from food to bedding areas. They are in breading mode and when a cow goes into heat, every bull in the area is trying to get on her. They fight like 20-year-olds at the Blue Ox Bar trying to get digits. They post up on each other raking trees and huffing and puffing trying to intimidate each other and also to attract their potential mate as if to say, "Look at me! I can shot gun a beer in less than 5 seconds," as if that was a trait that would sustain our population and preserve our species for another 100,000 years. At least in the natural world, these displays of physical stature are attributes that would actually be beneficial.
It was the 23rd of September, my 9th day out and 10th day off in a stretch of 12 I dedicated to bow hunting this season when I really "got into them." I drove the 15 miles of ruts, washboard, and trenched out road to get to my little honey hole. This place is about as high up as one can get without a helicopter and as elk get pushed further and further away from the hay fields, this place has everything needed for a suitor bull to offer up to a group of cows. Springs flow out of meadows with plenty of grass and water to sustain a heard. Plenty of cover for concealment from hunters and other bulls and escape routes offer contingency plans for when things go south, and the wind constantly swirls, which makes sneaking up on them incredibly difficult. Traditionally, this place has produced more encounters with elk than just about anywhere else for me, but this year it has been a complete downer and as I pulled up to my parking spot, I realized a potential reason why.
I am a creature of habit. I pull my F-150 forward on the logging road past the clearing and back my way in. I stop my truck just short of a couple boulders I can use a table and seat to get geared up. I have worn down the grass into a short two-track perpendicular to the main road. As I pull up to my executive parking spot, I notice someone else has been using my spot. The grass is pressed down cutting diagonally across my path and there's a damn diet-Coke can crushed in the matted down vegetation. How rude.
I step out of the truck, pick up the can and assess my options. This isn't the first time this has happened up here this season. A few days into my hunt, I decided to take a trip through the jungle, which is just old growth spruce trees in the bottom of the drainage. It's wet and thick and nobody in their right mind would try to sneak through it thinking they would have a chance getting a shot at anything. When I walk through it, I imagine myself as a pro-bowl halfback in an all-star tortuous league, picking my way between deadfalls as if they were linebackers looking to take my legs out from under me. I sneak from one lane to the other like they were holes opened up by my offensive line and explode through them like a fifty-pound reptile with a 10-pound shell on his back. It's not fast and not pretty but I am incredibly quiet and every once in a while, I stumble up on elk, usually smelling them before they bust me. I had heard a bull a couple days ago in this tangled mess so I thought it would be a good way to get away from other hunters and I knew there was a bull in there; at least there was a couple days ago.
As I picked my way through the jungle, confident nobody else had been in there, I looked down at some point and found myself perplexed at seeing a newly finished, plastic chew-tin. The sun had yet to bleach the packaging. Chlorophyl from the grasses and moss had yet to stain the plastic so I knew it had freshly been dispatched. I picked up the tin and although empty, still smelled fresh.
Immediately, two thoughts came to me, "Who the f... would just throw out their garbage here," and "what is the possibility that I would be walking in the exact same path as this person through this crap?"
A stronger, more pressing and incredibly frustrating feeling came to me as I knew that now this plan was completely ruined. Someone had taken this same path--had the same plan as I did but only a couple days before me. They must have heard that bull the same time I did and tried to put a sneak on him. And now I'm a mile into this jacked up plan, crawling through deadfalls and spruce trees and brush and my chances of seeing anything has gone from 50/50 to no chance in hell. All because of this stupid chew tin...
So now I'm looking at my parking spot being compromised and I'm thinking, "I need a different plan."
I throw the can into the back of my truck, jump in and pull back out onto the logging road to another spot. I go through the process of changing into my camos, taking my wallet out of my jeans and placing it into my back pocket, just to have some ID in case someone finds me, and pull together the rest of my gear. I head up the mountain.
That evening actually worked out pretty well and gave me hope. About two hours before sunset, I bugled and to my surprise, a raspy sounding bull answered back. He wasn't just saying hello either. He was pissed and he didn't want me anywhere near his cows. Game f'n on!
The trick is, to get this guy talking enough to pin-point him without pushing him. To bugle again would most likely cause him to grab his girls and get the hell out of Dodge. He doesn't want a confrontation, but he does want to protect his investment. I make my move. I'm trying to get well within his comfort zone. I want to get close enough to him to put him into a position to have to defend. Along the way, I will cow call every once in a while, just to pin him down. It seems to be working as I feel like I'm getting well within a hundred yards.
Unfortunately, with all the huffing and puffing he's been doing, he's attracted another hunter and I hear that hunter bugle a few hundred yards away. I know it's a hunter because of the lack of depth to the bugle. There's a resonance to a real bull bugling that seems to come from his guts. It's the difference between me singing the National Anthem in the shower and then hearing Chris Stapleton at the Super Bowl.
"Damnit!" I scream to myself.
The next time I hear the bull, he's at least two-hundred yards away and then he goes completely silent. Usually, the bull will give you one last, "f-you," as he drops over into the next drainage, taking his cows with him but not this guy. He just disappeared.
Standing on the edge of a small meadow, I decided to give it a few minutes, letting things settle down a bit and then I hit my cow call again. Almost immediately, from what had to be less than 50 yards behind me in the timber, another bull huffs and wheezes at me. He must have been a loner bull that was living up on the ridge I had just come from, looking to get in on the action. I nock an arrow and range a couple trees I know he will pass by. One tree is 33 yards. The next is only 48. Both shots are well within my comfort range, and he's got to pass through if he keeps coming along the path I'm certain he's on.
My heart starts thumping. My release is now clipped on the D-loop and I'm ready to pull. I wait.
He doesn't come out and I haven't heard him now for a few minutes. I take my cow call and give a quiet, "me-eew."
Somehow the bull got behind me and gives me a grunt from a couple hundred yards up the ridge.
"How the hell?" I ask myself.
I look at my watch. I don't have time to go after him. I'm not sure exactly where I am although I know which way I need to go to get out. I quickly make a plan in my head to just get out and come back the next day. If they were going at it that hard that evening, they should be going again tomorrow.
I make it out and back to my truck as darkness envelops me and head back down the hellish road back to town with a new excitement for the next day.
When the next day comes, I drive back up but this time, take another spur off the main road to get a closer vantage point to where I left the bull the night before. There are fresh tracks in the mud from a vehicle. I stick with the plan parking my truck in a clearing, giving anyone space to get around me. I go through the ritual of changing into my camos and take a couple shots at the target I bring with me. I like to take a few shots just to make sure I haven't knocked anything out of place while crawling over deadfalls. I also fell on my way out the night before and tweaked my shoulder, so I figured I had better make sure everything working on my body as well. It would suck to have a bull standing 20 yards out and not be able to pull the string on him.
I head up the hill knowing this will be my last hunt before going back to work. On the way in I notice something that is incredibly disconcerting to me. Ravens, crows, jays and what sounds like an immature bald eagle are making an absolute ruckus a couple hundred yards from where I parked and in the direction of where the first bull was when I last heard him the night before. The thought that someone stuck him crosses my mind. But there were two bulls last night and I know there are others in the area. I've already committed so I keep hiking.
Nothing. I hike about a 3-mile loop and don't see elk, don't hear elk and I am done. I head back to the truck, change out of my gear and head out.
I wish this was the end of the story but it unfortunately, not. I woke up the next morning, deciding to get my guide mode on by cleaning out my truck, and washing my boat. As I hook my boat, I realize I need my wallet to pay for the use of the self-car wash. I have the jeans on I changed into the night before at the truck and my wallet is not there. I run back into my house and rifle through my camo pants pockets and nothing.
It's hard to explain the range of emotions one goes through when you can't find that one thing, we place so much dependence on. It's a piece of leather, folder over with a couple compartments. Pretty simple concept but within that simple design, your entire life exists. All my debit cards for my own personal use to my outfitting business, to my rental property, to my credit card, and my newly acquired "Real ID" driver's license I had to wait six months for an appointment to get, to my Costco card, not to mention the couple hundred dollars I was carrying around just in case I had to pay cash for something in a ho-dunk town I might find myself in that won't take plastic if I got into trouble.
I rip apart my truck. I dump my bin I hold my camos in. I dump the other bin I have my gear in. I check every nook and cranny in every room in my house, in the apartment, in the truck, the garage, the yard and any other places I haven't been in, in months. Nothing. My only thought is it has to be where I parked the night before, which is only 29 miles but takes an hour and a half to get to over the worst 15 mile of road ever traveled. Fuck.
I decide to make the trip. On the way up the paved county road before getting to the road of hell, I get flagged by a bicyclist whose buddy had just wiped out. Both riders were in their 60's. One was upright, waving motorists down for help. The other was lying unconscious in the middle of the road, face-down on the pavement. His helmet was cracked and although not moving, his chest was rising and falling as a sign that he was breathing. Another vehicle had stopped so we sent them down to a place where they could get cell service to call 911. I pulled my truck into the middle of the road to stop any traffic and assessed the situation.
Although unconscious and obviously in an uncomfortable position, the man was breathing. However, given the condition of his helmet, we thought it best not to move him until paramedics arrived. The man was unconscious for about 10 minutes before opening his eyes. He was able to reposition his arm and within a few minutes, we were able to communicate with him. He had feeling in his arms and legs and no apparent injuries other than some scrapes on his hand and knees. We kept him still and I hung out until a city employee arrived and helped block traffic. I heard sirens coming from police and an ambulance as I pulled away. There was nothing more I could do so I headed up the mountain to hunt for my wallet.
I never did find my wallet so now I'm in the process of replacing all that was lost. That was the end of my planned hunting trip for the 2023 season. I was able to get out a few more times for unplanned hunts but have not had much success although I have seen some cool things like the bull moose in the photo above and I have shot a few grouse. Turns out, they are really good if you cut the breast meat into strips, coat them in buttermilk, flower and my eleven secret spices, and fry them like chicken strips. Yes, they taste a bit like chicken.
I still have a few more days to archery hunt but my focus has shifted to deer. Who knows? Maybe that will produce some good stories. And here's the deal, I have been on the lucky side of hunting a lot. I have had some amazing hunts and successes over the years. I've already shared some of that and will be sharing more of those stories so please keep reading and like always, keep 'em where they live...
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