elk_hunter
Active member
Sorry I didn't get this post up sooner but that's what happens when you get home early from a hunt...something is always bound to come up at work or home that just flattens you. 
At any rate, here's the quick rundown of my MT archery elk hunt. Dad drove from CO and I drove from NV to MT. We met Saturday night 9/10, ate a good meal and slept in a nice hotel bed. Left early Sunday morning for the hunting grounds. Got to an area where lots of outfitters were but decided to roll the dice.
Sunday evening we headed out and got into elk within a couple hours of hiking several miles from camp. Woohoo! A few bugles but not really getting into it yet (the rut seems to be pushed later this year kind of like last) so I primarily used the cow calls. I did have one bull tucked up in thick timber with his harem but all he would answer back to my cow calls was "get your ass up here and bed down" and I couldn't get him to budge. We never got closer than 200 yards or so, but hey, at least we were into them!
Monday 9/12 morning rolls around and we're up and at em before dawn. Hiked up into a canyon where the we figured the herd might move...jackpot! They were in the canyon we thought! Dad and I are hiking up this trail and get to a ridge and peek over to discover a couple cows and a couple spikes about 100 yards in a brushy meadow. Nice! The wind was our nemesis (theme of the hunt) but we made the best of it. The changing wind was blowing our scent right to the elk and no sooner than we were moving to get the wind right than one of the spikes let out a bark. And another. And another. I quickly cow call to try and settle him down. Plus we get out our spray and try to cover our stink. It worked...he calmed down and quit barking. However, the barking and my lead cow calls seemed to coax a nice bull from the bowels of the dark, wet forest. We were positioned on a knob and that smart bastard didn't just come directly up to us...he got silent and ended up working around and on top of us. SOB! So now I've got this beautiful 6x6 at 35 yards but it's solid thick fir and blowdown between us. There was no clean way out of this mess and we couldn't find a shooting lane. So we trickled off the cow calls and he made his way up over the ridge and away from us. At least he didn't wind us. Damn!
So we hike up the ridge a bit more then sit down and have a snack/lunch while the adrenaline slows. After a break, we're feeling refreshed so we take off up the mountain again, cow calling as we go. In a basin farther to the north, another bull again commands me to get my ass over to him in the dark timber. And, in the same basin we're in, a faint chuckle can be heard so we keep working toward it. We realize the wind sucks, so we start moving to circle downwind. Just then, we hear sticks breaking and a bit of a stampede – across the basin there’s probably 25 elk, primarily cows/calves/spikes but two nice bulls – a 5x5 and 6x6 trying to herd the pack. They winded us and headed up another ridge and into another patch of dark timber. Damn damn!
We decide to head back to the main ridge we were working up and just as we get near the top, I notice a nice, big stinky bull bed. I look across the basin and see a couple elk bedded right on the ridgeline but in the shade of the trees and their backs are to us. Cool! We continue moving up the ridge and I look down the near sheer cliff to a meadow and notice a calf and two spikes in their beds looking straight up at us. Caught off guard again! Damn! They move off slowly and we continue up the ridge to the absolute top. We sit down on some burned blowdown and have another snack and try to figure out what to do next. I cow call up on top for a bit and hear some distant chuckling/grunting but not much else. Thunder clouds are moving in and it’s getting super windy plus it starts hailing. Not much we can do so we hang out for awhile and wait for it to pass.
Cow calling isn’t having the effect we wanted and even a few scratchy bugles didn’t pull some challengers out of the forest. So we head back down the mountain as evening nears. I’m cow calling as we go, hoping the stick breaking sounds like a couple cows moving through. Then, I hear a squeaky bull bugle about 200 yards below us. So we get aggressive and move quickly through the forest and come upon a knob. So much for my distance estimation…the 5x5 bull was only 100 yards away, much closer than I thought! Damn again! He had a cow and calf with him and he was trying to figure out what we were. Problem is that when we stopped, I ranged this bull at 50 yards. Dad was 10 yards to my left on the other side of a big tree and didn’t hear me whisper the range. He let an arrow fly and it went right over his back. The bull moved down the knob a bit and like an idiot I didn’t retake the range. I let one fly and it went under his belly. The 3 elk moved off quietly into the dark forest and I wasn’t able to get them to respond to any calls. Clean misses but a cool encounter! By that time, it was getting close to dark so we headed back to camp.
Tuesday 9/13 and we’re up early again. We head back up the ridge we tried on Sunday night and it’s dead quiet. No bugles. No cow calls. Nothing. Okay, this is weird. Where the hell did the elk go? Dad and I are moving along a long ridge and we get to a saddle. As I’m glassing through the trees, I see a couple dozen cows/calves, some bedded and some up and feeding about 125 yards away. I get my lead cow call out and mew a couple times and immediately I get responses. Sweet! Dad is walking toward me when I tell him to stop so he does just on my right side. Low and behold, a crazy cow is running, yes running down the saddle and up the other side toward my cow calls! I quickly range the trees in front of me where I think she’ll pop up…14 yards. As soon as she gets to the bottom of the saddle and starts working up the slope, I draw and hold. About 30s later, the cautious cow’s head pops up to see what is making the noise. She’s looking straight at me and I let my arrow fly right into her neck/chest for a perfect lung/heart shot. She goes 20 yards and piles up! Funny thing is she didn’t spook the rest of the herd! So I drop back and try cow calling another one for dad. They ended up moving down the saddle too much and winded dad so that didn’t work out. But, what a helluva morning! We were 3 miles from the trailhead, so it was time to whip out the knives, debone her and pack it out. I carried most all the meat but dad and I did it in 1 trip.
We hunted another 3 days to try and fill dad’s tag (had some close calls but weren’t able to make it happen in time) but had to call it quits on Friday 9/16…dad’s back was hurting too much and unfortunately, after years of back issues (neck surgery, bulging discs, etc) and prior physical abuse during his custom home construction days, we had to pull the plug and head home. It was a great trip and having dad there to share in the hunt and kill was awesome.
Here's a quick pic from my phone...I'll try to upload some additional shots later but they are on my camera at home.
At any rate, here's the quick rundown of my MT archery elk hunt. Dad drove from CO and I drove from NV to MT. We met Saturday night 9/10, ate a good meal and slept in a nice hotel bed. Left early Sunday morning for the hunting grounds. Got to an area where lots of outfitters were but decided to roll the dice.
Sunday evening we headed out and got into elk within a couple hours of hiking several miles from camp. Woohoo! A few bugles but not really getting into it yet (the rut seems to be pushed later this year kind of like last) so I primarily used the cow calls. I did have one bull tucked up in thick timber with his harem but all he would answer back to my cow calls was "get your ass up here and bed down" and I couldn't get him to budge. We never got closer than 200 yards or so, but hey, at least we were into them!
Monday 9/12 morning rolls around and we're up and at em before dawn. Hiked up into a canyon where the we figured the herd might move...jackpot! They were in the canyon we thought! Dad and I are hiking up this trail and get to a ridge and peek over to discover a couple cows and a couple spikes about 100 yards in a brushy meadow. Nice! The wind was our nemesis (theme of the hunt) but we made the best of it. The changing wind was blowing our scent right to the elk and no sooner than we were moving to get the wind right than one of the spikes let out a bark. And another. And another. I quickly cow call to try and settle him down. Plus we get out our spray and try to cover our stink. It worked...he calmed down and quit barking. However, the barking and my lead cow calls seemed to coax a nice bull from the bowels of the dark, wet forest. We were positioned on a knob and that smart bastard didn't just come directly up to us...he got silent and ended up working around and on top of us. SOB! So now I've got this beautiful 6x6 at 35 yards but it's solid thick fir and blowdown between us. There was no clean way out of this mess and we couldn't find a shooting lane. So we trickled off the cow calls and he made his way up over the ridge and away from us. At least he didn't wind us. Damn!
So we hike up the ridge a bit more then sit down and have a snack/lunch while the adrenaline slows. After a break, we're feeling refreshed so we take off up the mountain again, cow calling as we go. In a basin farther to the north, another bull again commands me to get my ass over to him in the dark timber. And, in the same basin we're in, a faint chuckle can be heard so we keep working toward it. We realize the wind sucks, so we start moving to circle downwind. Just then, we hear sticks breaking and a bit of a stampede – across the basin there’s probably 25 elk, primarily cows/calves/spikes but two nice bulls – a 5x5 and 6x6 trying to herd the pack. They winded us and headed up another ridge and into another patch of dark timber. Damn damn!
We decide to head back to the main ridge we were working up and just as we get near the top, I notice a nice, big stinky bull bed. I look across the basin and see a couple elk bedded right on the ridgeline but in the shade of the trees and their backs are to us. Cool! We continue moving up the ridge and I look down the near sheer cliff to a meadow and notice a calf and two spikes in their beds looking straight up at us. Caught off guard again! Damn! They move off slowly and we continue up the ridge to the absolute top. We sit down on some burned blowdown and have another snack and try to figure out what to do next. I cow call up on top for a bit and hear some distant chuckling/grunting but not much else. Thunder clouds are moving in and it’s getting super windy plus it starts hailing. Not much we can do so we hang out for awhile and wait for it to pass.
Cow calling isn’t having the effect we wanted and even a few scratchy bugles didn’t pull some challengers out of the forest. So we head back down the mountain as evening nears. I’m cow calling as we go, hoping the stick breaking sounds like a couple cows moving through. Then, I hear a squeaky bull bugle about 200 yards below us. So we get aggressive and move quickly through the forest and come upon a knob. So much for my distance estimation…the 5x5 bull was only 100 yards away, much closer than I thought! Damn again! He had a cow and calf with him and he was trying to figure out what we were. Problem is that when we stopped, I ranged this bull at 50 yards. Dad was 10 yards to my left on the other side of a big tree and didn’t hear me whisper the range. He let an arrow fly and it went right over his back. The bull moved down the knob a bit and like an idiot I didn’t retake the range. I let one fly and it went under his belly. The 3 elk moved off quietly into the dark forest and I wasn’t able to get them to respond to any calls. Clean misses but a cool encounter! By that time, it was getting close to dark so we headed back to camp.
Tuesday 9/13 and we’re up early again. We head back up the ridge we tried on Sunday night and it’s dead quiet. No bugles. No cow calls. Nothing. Okay, this is weird. Where the hell did the elk go? Dad and I are moving along a long ridge and we get to a saddle. As I’m glassing through the trees, I see a couple dozen cows/calves, some bedded and some up and feeding about 125 yards away. I get my lead cow call out and mew a couple times and immediately I get responses. Sweet! Dad is walking toward me when I tell him to stop so he does just on my right side. Low and behold, a crazy cow is running, yes running down the saddle and up the other side toward my cow calls! I quickly range the trees in front of me where I think she’ll pop up…14 yards. As soon as she gets to the bottom of the saddle and starts working up the slope, I draw and hold. About 30s later, the cautious cow’s head pops up to see what is making the noise. She’s looking straight at me and I let my arrow fly right into her neck/chest for a perfect lung/heart shot. She goes 20 yards and piles up! Funny thing is she didn’t spook the rest of the herd! So I drop back and try cow calling another one for dad. They ended up moving down the saddle too much and winded dad so that didn’t work out. But, what a helluva morning! We were 3 miles from the trailhead, so it was time to whip out the knives, debone her and pack it out. I carried most all the meat but dad and I did it in 1 trip.
We hunted another 3 days to try and fill dad’s tag (had some close calls but weren’t able to make it happen in time) but had to call it quits on Friday 9/16…dad’s back was hurting too much and unfortunately, after years of back issues (neck surgery, bulging discs, etc) and prior physical abuse during his custom home construction days, we had to pull the plug and head home. It was a great trip and having dad there to share in the hunt and kill was awesome.
Here's a quick pic from my phone...I'll try to upload some additional shots later but they are on my camera at home.
