Good Luck Charm

The 2024-gun season in Montana is about half over. We had a little bit of snow a week ago, which helped to bring a few elk down but then it got warm, the snow melted, and the elk disappeared. I've been spending my time chasing whitetails in the bottoms, which means driving a ton, checking out block management areas, and trying to figure out places to hunt that aren't crawling with other hunters. I did manage to fill a B-tag yesterday with a whitie doe, so I'll have some meat for sausage, which is really what I was after. I have the general deer tag left, which will be in my pocket just in case something big steps out in the high country. The focus for the rest of the season will be to fill my elk tag. Honestly, a cow elk would be just fine as I also have a B-tag for elk. (B-tags are generally, supplemental, antlerless only tags.)

The elk above is the last elk I shot with my bow. I want to share this story and dedicate it to a great friend, who I now refer to as my "Good Luck Charm." At the time, we were dating. She had moved to Montana from California to be closer to her family. While living in California, she decided to go quasi-Vegan for reasons I actually understand and fully support. She's not a big fan of the beef/swine/poultry processing industry and would rather not support the way in which the animals are treated. That sounds fair to me and actually, once she was introduced to wild game, she jumped all in. Now, she's never going to kill anything, but she respects the process and enjoys the consumption. She also enjoys the process and loves to get out and tag along on hunts. This particular hunt was pretty epic.

As I usually do, I took over a week off from the guide season to chase these critters around the mountains. I spent the first day solo and then made plans with Kim for a few days over the weekend. I have never shot an elk while with someone else on the hunt, but she was fired up and ready to go and I figured it would be good for both of us. If nothing else, we could get out and find some elk and have some fun together and I could go after them a little harder after she went back to work. 

The first morning, we hiked about 6 miles, making the loop I normally make, stopping every once in a while, to throw a bugle out and try to locate something. At some point around 9:30 in the morning, a bull answered from across the drainage. We hoofed it down the ridge and tried to get into position, but by the time we got close, they had bedded down in the bottom of the drainage and weren't going to move. Going after them was futile so we decided to back out and try to catch them the next morning before they headed for water and napping. 

We were on the road the next morning at least an hour and a half before shooting light. It was a half hour to the parking area, then a half hour hike to where these elk were feeding the morning before. We should be perfectly set up to cut these elk off as they fed off the parks and into their bedding area. Unfortunately, as we layered up after parking my rig, the gusting wind brought me back to when I was a kid, waiting for my dad to come home thinking we would get out on the lake in the 17-foot Grumman canoe. I would sit there waiting for him, looking to the trees and praying for silence, telling me there was no wind giving the "all clear" sign meaning it was safe to venture out on the lake. Too often, however, the disappointing sound of fluttering aspen leaves and waving limbs indicated too much wind for us to get out and another missed opportunity to spend time with him. 

"Damn wind," I murmured as we headed up the trail. 

What happens when the wind comes up early, is elk go to bed early. It's harder for them to hear predators coming so the wind makes them nervous. They would rather take cover and wait it out than to put themselves in a situation of vulnerability. They get down into the dark timber and hollows and the chance of pulling them out of those areas is nil. Not to mention, it's harder for them to hear a call and it's even harder for the hunter to hear them call back and pinpoint their location. And swirling wind makes putting a stalk on them tough as inevitably, a change in the wind's direction will bring scent to the elk and once they catch a whiff of you, they are gone. It really just all around, sucks. 

When we got to the ridgeline where we spotted the elk the day before, we still had a few minutes before shooting light. I didn't want to call until we were in the right position for fear of pushing them off the ridge before we got there. Once in place, in a spot where we could see for several hundred yards after the rising sun dusted off the greyness of the dawn, I ripped a bugle through the deafening 20 mile an hour wind. Immediately, a bull answered with a much more magnificent, bugle of his own. Along with it came the undeniable chirps of nervous cow elk. Unfortunately, they had already gotten below us and were headed towards their resting hollow. 

"Damnit," I whispered to Kim. "They're already in the bottom." 

I called again and again, they called back. The wind was blowing our sent directly down to them so there was no way we were going to call them back. 

"We're screwed," I told her. "There's no way we're going to get in on them with this wind and they aren't going to come back up." 

"Well," always finding the silver, Kim says, "At least we got to talk to them..." 

"We didn't come here to share pleasantries." 

I called again. They called back as if to say, "nice try." 

"Well, let's try to get a look at them anyway to see what's down there. Why don't you sit right here and look out over the ravine," I told her. "And I'll sneak over to the edge of the timber and call a few more times just to see if we can spot them. Just make sure you look out over the park on the other side. They might come out. I want to see if it's that big bull that's been in here." 

 We were set up in a clear-cut that had been harvested just a couple years prior. Old logging roads zig-zagged through the cut. Kim sat down on a slight berm cut into the side of the ridge from one of those old roads and I walked over to the edge of the uncut timber that drifted off down into the ravine. I called again from this new position hoping to see who I was chatting with and again, the bull talked back but eventually he got tired of playing and went silent. He obviously wasn't impressed with what I was offering. 

"Russ," I hear as Kim was half whispering from 30 yards away. "I think I hear something." And she points up the ridge behind us. 

Disgusted with the conditions and the failed plan I just shook my head, affirming it's hopeless. These elk aren't coming back and our chances of seeing anything the rest of the morning was about as good as drawing an ace sitting on 20 while the dealer is showing an ace of his own. 

We held our positions for about 10 minutes, waiting for these elk to show themselves, which they didn't. I was standing with my bow lying on the ground next to my feet. Kim was sitting on the ground along the road, facing down the ravine. I was in full camo. Kim had a camo shirt and a light blue Patagonia hat, which is why I chose to leave her on the road while I peered down the timberline. Not hearing the elk for a while now, I decided we had given it as much time as was needed and bent down to grab my bow and head back towards the logging road to where Kim was sitting. As I straightened up, I caught some movement from above us in the cut. 

"Kim!" I whisper-shouted. "Don't move!" 

"What?" she mouthed.

"Don't move and don't make a sound," I mouthed hoping her lip-reading skills were better than my mouthing of the words. 

At that, Kim pulled her arms into her lap, turned her head back down-hill and dropped her chin to her chest as an attempt to get as small and inconspicuous as a human sitting on a clump of dirt out in the middle of the open can get. I directed my focus back up the ridge to a bull trotting towards us. Apparently, he had heard all the calling from me and the bull with the cows and this straggler wanted to join the party. He was up-wind, lonely, not very smart, and was coming in hard. 

I knocked an arrow and ranged a tree that he was going to pass. It was 65 yards up the ridge from me and as the bull reached the tree, he must have caught my movement and slammed on the breaks, skidding to a stop, right behind the tree.

I looked back at Kim. She was still sitting perfectly still, head down but now I could see her nose dripping. It was pretty cold and again, quite windy. I could only imagine how annoying that must have felt wanting desperately to resolve the tickling sensation of the nose drip but not wanting to move and spook, what she still had yet to see, but must have known from my reaction, was a bull elk coming from behind us. 

The bull stretched his head out from behind the tree and we engaged in the most intense staring contest I've ever played. My heart raced. I couldn't move. For a good ten minutes, the bull and I tested each other's patience. Who would move first? Even crazier, though, was thinking about Kim sitting there, not moving, not even enough to wipe the snot off her nose and having no clue of what was going on. She didn't even move enough to look over at me to see what I was doing. You want to talk about being an absolute rock star? 

Eventually, the bull relaxed and looked back over his shoulder, which gave me enough time to give out a little cow call. I didn't want to necessarily bring his attention back to me, I just wanted him to relax a bit and give him a sign that he was safe to keep coming. 

The bull turned from the path he was initially taking that would have brought him directly to me, and walked out to the road that Kim was sitting on. Once he got to the road, he turned to follow it down the ridge. He was walking on a path that would eventually bring him to within a couple feet of Kim, who was still looking the opposite direction and as motionless as a sleeping opossum. 

Sporadic trees, too small to harvest, were left standing in the cut, that offered brief moments of cover for me as the bull slipped in and out from behind them. I picked an opening where the bull would pass that I guessed was roughly 35 yards out. At the point the bull would clear the trees and offer a shot, he was only going to be about 20 yards from Kim and still heading right to her. 

I had to make a choice. In hindsight, the safest thing would have probably been to step out and wave the bull off, sending it bolting away from us. There would always be more elk. If I waited to see what the bull would do, it might step right over Kim. If I shot when it was still 20 yards from her, it might take off on the same path it was on and run right over her. At twenty yards to travel however, what are chances? 

I drew my bow back and as the bull cleared the trees, I placed the 40-yard pin just behind his front shoulder and pulled the trigger. 

The arrow met the bull with a crack. I was a little low and in front of the shoulder as the bull was a little further than I thought. Because he was slightly quartering to me, the arrow entered at an angle that slid behind the shoulder into his chest cavity, piercing right through his heart. 

He dropped to the ground, stood back up and stumbled straight away from me and perpendicular from Kim cresting a small rise and then dropping out of site. With the commotion, Kim had enough and whipped her head around to see what the hell just happened. She turned just in time to see the bull disappear. The bull only went 25 yards before dropping for good and since he was out of site at that point, Kim only heard him kick a few times and then all was silent again with the exception of the wind whipping through the pines left standing in the cut. That damn wind...

I couldn't believe what just happened. Kim looked at me with eyes wide open, shaking her head. I sank to the ground and sat for a couple minutes, replaying the last 10 or 12 minutes in my head. Still questioning whether or not it was all real, I stood back up and walked over to where Kim was still sitting on the ground. She had wiped her nose at that point. 

"I can't believe that just happened." I told her while shaking my head.

"What the fuck happened?!" she asked. 

"Come here," I said as I helped her up. "I'll show you." 

We walked over the small rise to where the bull was piled up. As it came into view, we both just stood there looking at it in disbelief. Fortunately, it had long been dead before we walked up on it, which is partly why I took a few minutes before walking out to Kim. I didn't want her to watch it die. With the arrow passing right through its heart, that wasn't a problem. 

This is what elk hunting is to me; a roller coaster of emotions and when you least expect an opportunity to present itself, a bull decides to walk out in front of you and your day completely changes. I've read a few books describing what Native Americans suggest is the animal's spirit allowing you the opportunity only when you are ready, and I can't argue against that. There have been so many times I thought I did everything right and an elk I thought I would get a shot at either winds me or something happens, and I'm outflanked and then there are times that just dumb luck creates these moments If I had to choose, I think I'd take luck over skill any day. Or maybe I should start praying to the God's more, that a spirit shows itself. Or maybe it's just keeping your head in the game a little longer and good things happen. 

Every time I stand over an elk I shoot, I'm still a little dumbfounded with how big they are. This wasn't a very large bull but when you compare them to the deer I'm used to seeing in the Midwest, they are monstrous. With the temps forecasted to reach 80 degrees on this day, my focus quickly shifted from "how cool was that," to "we gotta get to work." 

The first thing I did was to start texting anyone I thought might be able to help with the pack-out. One buddy came up from Bozeman and another, although he was hunting a couple hundred miles away, got on the phone with the adject landowner to where I shot this bull, to find a faster way out through his property. Kim and I started boning and bagging. Getting the meat off the bones would help cool it down and since the sun had barely come up, it was still in the 40's and would definitely help. 

Once we boned it out and spread the meat out on rocks and logs, I grabbed one of the front shoulders and we hiked back to the truck at the trailhead. By the time we had gotten back to the truck, my buddy was on his way from Bozeman and the landowner not only let us back through his property but also offered up his Gator for hauling out the meat.

I dropped Kim off at the house and by that time my buddy was there. We went back up to the elk with the Gator while Kim cleared out my fridge. From the time we got back to the elk and loaded into the machine, it took us 14 minutes to get back to the truck. Another 45 minutes and the elk was in the fridge already cooled off from the morning temps and the wind passing through the bags of meat. All done by 1 O'clock. Kim even made breakfast burritos for us. 

 Kim and I have remained friends. She is an incredibly kind and compassionate person who shares an interest in helping cognitively and developmentally delayed children. She will always be a friend and hopefully, will continue to be a good luck charm for me. Still not much for snow in the forecast but with a couple days off from her job working with the school in Standford, she might just be the kind of luck I need.

Keep 'em where the live...