It was the second Saturday of the season and I had the entire day to hunt. It was my first full day off of the bow-season and I had been getting into elk everyday so given a little extra time to really work the area, I was hopeful. The alarm went off, the coffee was on and I could feel the adrenalin already starting to pulse through the veins.
You want to believe you have a little honey-hole to yourself; at least during bow season. I had seen trucks in there early in the first week but there's a lot of land around my little piece of heaven so my spot often get's overlooked. There are a few older guys that own a cabin in there and I know of a couple other guys that hunt it during rifle season but the bow season is usually pretty quiet--not on Saturday.
I turned the corner to pull into the parking area well before sunup and low and behold, there was a truck. As I pulled in, three younger guys were getting their gear together and were almost ready to head up the trail.
I jumped out of my truck and walked around to talk to the guys. "Hey," I said, "I've been hunting up here the last few days and I've been getting into elk every morning..."
Before I could say another word, one of the guys says, "Yeah, so have we. We've been hunting in the next drainage over and we saw some on in the park up here so we decided to check it out."
"Well," I said. "Maybe we should get a plan together so we don't fuck it up for each other. Where were you guys planning on going?"
The guy I was talking to deferred to his partner, "He's the guy with the plan," he said. "Hey Andrew, what's your plan?"
This long-haired blond kid pulls himself from rummaging through his truck and stands up straight and walks toward me. I could smell the alcohol seeping from his pours. He was probably still drunk from the night before. "We plan to go where the elk are."
"Nice, you little deuce-bag," I thought. What came out was a little different. "Why don't we figure out a way to stay out of each other's way so we don't blow it for each other? I don't care which way you go as long as we give each other some space. You guys pick. I could care less. I've been seeing elk all over."
"He's right," the first kid say. "Let's figure out where to go to stay out of each other's way."
"We saw elk up at the top of these parks to the right last night," the blond hair ring-leader says. "But we were going to go back up to the wallows on the left side of the drainage because we don't know how far they are going to feed up."
"I'll be honest," I said. "If you saw them in those parks last night, I can tell you, they're going to feed down to the end and be in that deep ravine when the sun comes up. You'd do well to get in there before it get's light and head them off."
"Where did you want to go?" He asked.
"I was going up to the wallows but hey, I don't care. If you saw them up there I'm fine with heading them off if you don't want to."
"I tell you what," the blond drunk says. "We'll head up to the right and we'll stay out of your way."
"Perfect," I said.
Just then another set of lights appeared through the trees. "Alright, man," the first kid says. "Here comes another truck. We got to get going. Good luck."
"You too." I said and I grabbed my gear and bolted up the trail.
It was pretty early and I felt good that I would get up into the parks above the wallows well before the elk fed off into the dark timber. I decided to not bushwhack straight up the mountain for fear of being too loud and breaking a sweat on the way in. I took the trail around and once I was at the point where the trail winds closest to the parks, I headed through the woods and worked my way out onto the edge.
I cow called and almost immediately, a bull responded with a grunt. He was in the park above me. I took the edge along the tree-line and quietly made my way up. He grunted again and I hurried up through the trees. He was close and he was curious about something so when I felt like I had a good vantage point, I cow called again.
He grunted back but this time, the grunts came with another sound; a cow call. He grunted and then the cow call again. "Fuck!"
I took my attention off the bull for a minute and looked along the lower edge of the park just to the left of me about 50 yards. Laying in the grass, there was a dude calling the same elk as me! I couldn't believe it. How did this guy get up there before me? Was it the kids? "Fuck!"
This is the inherent risk you take when hunting public land; especially on the weekends. It ads more variables and definitely more challenges. My first thought was, "What the hell are these guys doing in my spot?" But the reality is, is that it's just as much their spot as is it mine. No matter how long I've been hunting this area or the fact that some of these guys just decided to jump drainages this morning to encroach on me, it doesn't matter. I have no more right to the spot than they do. It sucks but that's the reality.
I brought my focus back to the bull. I could see the tops of his antlers now through the trees and I could clearly make out the guy laying in the grass. I took a few steps back and to the side and decided to cow call a little and try to get the bull to move past the guy and look for me. The point wasn't to poach his elk but to try to bring it past him so he could get a shot. Someone should get a shot, right?
The bull didn't come my direction. In fact, it wondered up the park away from us and the guy sat up. I cow called to get his attention and then waved him over.
"Hey man, we might as well work together instead of messing it up for each other," I said.
He agreed and introduced himself as Al. He was a shorter, older guy but in really good shape--a good dude all in all and just another guy trying to do the same thing I was. We made a plan to get back onto this elk. Before we implemented it I had to ask, "How the hell did you get up here so fast?"
"I went straight up the mountain..."
We called that elk and he never came back. We worked our way up the park and another dude was on the far end calling. I think there were more people than there were elk so Al decided to bag it. While we were standing there however, we spotted something in the clear-cut on the far end. It was a large dark animal. It looked like cattle but we glassed it and wow, it was a cow moose. We also heard the faint bugle of a bull about a half mile away so I decided to go after it.
I never did catch up to that elk. In fact, I saw him high-tailing it out of there about a mile away going through another old clear-cut. Frustrated and feeling defeated, I walked the trail back to the truck.
Along the way, I saw that cow moose standing in a little clearing about 100 yards away. I took a few steps to get another look and stepping out from behind a tree, a big bull appeared. Just as an experiment, I started grunting and rocking side-to-side with my bow held above my head like I've seen in the hunting shows. The bull stood there staring at me but the cow didn't want anything to do with it. They headed up the ridge--bull grunting all along while chasing his cow.
I got back to the parking area to find three more vehicles parked at the gate. The kids were already gone. Really? Was today the day that everyone and their brother decided to hunt "MY" spot? I've never seen that many cars parked there this early. This is really going to change things for the rest of the season. I can't imagine all these elk haven't been pushed out of the area and they certainly aren't going to be vocal.
I went to another area that evening. I heard one bull but he wasn't really all that interested in me and other than that, a big zip. Nothing was happening and with all the hunters in my little honey-hole, I wasn't really getting a good vibe. I was kind of glad I had another stretch of days to guide on the river.
Keep 'em where they live...
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