MO Sherpa and elk

[j yenney]

great story, Makes me wish I didn't have to pay for a new mortage, otherwise I wouldn't have to work in Asia and completly miss the archery season> Somehow the rockies look so much better than Asia rite now!!!!!!

[Shaun]

A little over a week ago I was at my local sport shop shooting the indoor range with my newly made take down yew bow. A special bow made just for this western hunt and made to pack in a hard tube for horse back transport. The new archery tech kid from the nearby counter had come back to shoot his wheely thing and he was very interested in my bow. After admiring my bow profusely and admitting I was shooting well enough to kill any deer at the 20 yard range he asked if I would try his compound. He was so polite and seemed like a likely convert some day, so I obliged. It had been two or three years since I'd set one of these things off and I was impressed with the improvement they've made since my 1979 Jennings round wheel was produced. I was easily able to put each arrow into the five spot target, though I could not cut the X's as he did. Standing on carpet with my feet spread and my eye to the peep I could shoot a little more accurately than with my 60# long bow, but... I had to be very careful, slow and deliberate, the arrow delicately balanced on a device that raised it towards the end of the draw and dropped away as I pulled the hair trigger release. No way I'd want that with a mad bull charging me on a steep slope from an unknown angle at point blank range.

Well, Eric had done everything right. He'd moved when he heard the bull scream. He placed himself with a solid back drop of brush to break up his outline (and blocking him from John's view), drawn his complex wheely arrow launcher before the bull came over the rise, unlike Jacob a the week before who had waited till he saw antlers coming and was caught too late. Now he stood at full draw with just eight yards separating him from an angry bull that had stopped to look for his rival. Too close, all the pins were on the chest. He tried to pick a spot just off center of the sternum and let fly.

I'm not at all sure I would take this frontal "gusher" shot with a bow, but he and John were prepared to take it and do what had to be done afterward. He's not sure what happened, what went wrong with this much too complicated device. Did the arrow fall off the delicate elevating prongs? Did the bull duck his head to turn out of the limited peep sight view? Whatever it was he missed by a foot at eight yards!

He was greatly dejected to see the arrow protruding from the bull's neck just below the head. Six inches of plastic vained carbon light weight arrow waving as the bull turned and ran. I did not see it or hear the shot, but I heard the unmistakable high speed retreat of hooves. A mad rush back down the creek drainage and no crash of downed game after the first burst, but an ongoing clattering off into the distance.

John hurried that way and called for me to join them.

[Chris Surtees]

Shaun,,,awesome story and great pic's. Keep it coming.          

[Shaun]

Eric has put in eight seasons of this mountain hunting without taking an elk. He told me of a release failure that spooked a slam dunk shot, of failing to take into account the forward motion of a walking bull on a long shot, something we do intuitively with a stick bow when we can see the whole picture instead of a sight picture through a peep. I could tell at once this was the last straw. I asked him, "could you have made that shot with a stick bow?" "Yes", he said.

But wait! There is blood. Not a little, not a muscle bleed, but bright arterial blood! Did the archery goddess Dianna smile on this hard hunting man? Yes! A jugular hit. And look a little farther down the blood trail - frothy blood. Did the arrow make it into the lungs, at least one lung? Yes it did.

[Shaun]

Moderators I hope you bear with me. This is not a totally trad bow story at this point, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that Eric will be shooting a stick the next time I see him. Why do we shoot traditional bows? Its not just the challenge, the mystique, the sense of history, the feel of our fingers on the string, the muscles of our backs at full draw and the joy of the arching arrow. Sometimes, this time, a real bow it the right tool.

Sometimes there is no right answer of what to do next. Here is an elk fatally hit, but not heart or double lung hit, not going down quickly. He will run a few hundred yards and lay down. We will find him there tomorrow morning. "When in doubt, back out."  But remember that cloud shrouded valley this morning? Now its starting to rain, there is thunder in the nearby peaks. Tomorrow the bright heavy blood trail could be a memory, no path to the elk. How far will he go if pushed? Half a mile? How far is that with darkness falling and some of the toughest terrain in the US between us and him?

[Shaun]

John and Eric quickly decide to follow the trail. I try to keep up for a while, but I am holding them back. I tell them I will follow as I can but it soon becomes clear to me that I won't be there in time to help if they find him. I leave a note and go back to the horses. I build a small warming fire as rain and darkness descend. I comfort and calm the horses and wait for the hunters. Around 8 they return. They found him in a wallow, fading but still alive. Another arrow and he thankfully jumped out of the wallow and made it only another 30 yards before expiring. John works hard to quarter and hang the meat then they make their way back through the now very dark timber.

It seemed like a very long ride down the scary slope and back up to camp. I could see sparks from the steel horse shoes on the rocks as Smoke and I followed John on his Sylvester. We arrived around 10 and were almost too tired to eat - almost - before falling into our bags.

[Shaun]

Caffeine running out, tomorrow morning for the rest of the story.

[tradtusker]

awesome stuff great story Shaun! Wow that place is amazing.

[RayMO]

Shaun, this is just great! Thanks so much for sharing with us!

RayMO

[Missouri Sherpa]

Morning all.  Good story thus far Shaun, thank you for all the photos and text.  I couldn't tell it any better.  I did not take many pictures this year but do have a few to add sometime later.  I have been busier than a one armed paper hanger catching up after being gone for two weeks.  I have to put out fires at work today and have a wake and internment to attend the next two days.  I will try to make some additions later in the week after I edit and resize some photos.

I do have a couple ready now.

This is a steaming pile of fresh bear scat we came across above camp.

 


I don't want to get too far ahead of you but this is a picture of Eric caping the head back at camp.  Perfect 6x6  bull.
 

Picture of Shaun in the camp barcalounger.
 

[BMN]

Great stuff guys! Thanks so much for taking us along.

[Killdeer]

One of the best stories I have ever read, and it came with new wallpaper, too! Shaun, you were born for the keyboard, your photography is splendid, and this adventure is being snarfed up like hors d'oeuvres by a starving Wall Street victim. This has all the elements of a Killdeer dream, and I never want to wake up.

Thank you!
Killdeer  

[bbassi]

I started to read this but I think I'll wait till after chores tonight so I can read it all in one sitting. Great stuff so far though!

[Shaun]

Wednesday Sept 10th

Meat day. The elk was down and quartered but still a long way from in hand.

When I awoke, I lay there telling myself that there was work to be done. Jimmeny Cricket on one shoulder telling me to get up and get going, the little Devil on the other telling me it's not your problem, go back to sleep. Common sense finally overcame self pity and I was up.

We ate and planned the retrieve on the map. It looked like there was a chance we could get a couple pack horses through the timber to a point down hill from the elk. This was only a theory since even with Eric's GPS mark there was no way to be sure because of scale just where the elk was on the map. Plus a map does not tell the conditions on the ground, there could be boulder fields, dead falls, and many other impassible barriers.

We saddled up our steeds again and took Tank and Blue along for packers. The trail up to Pumpkin Lake was becoming familiar now. We planned to ride up the clearing in the previous picture and leave the riding horses, then see how close we could get the packers on lead and tie them while we retrieved the meat. Good plan.

All went well up to the point of departure from the pack horses. We managed to get them in as far as a point near the creek but still a steep climb down to the water and then we headed down and up to look for the elk. There were no pictures taken today, we were in pure work mode - more photo's later.

Up the other side we went, and up, and up. We were approaching from a different direction since the wounded elk had taken a torturous route the night before. The good news is we scouted some great country. The bad news is we did not get to the elk. We climbed until even John and Eric were done in completely. We were so tired that we were teetering on cranky and unreasonable. But we persevered. Too tired to go much further we stopped and talked it over. The elk was either down and up one small valley to the north or back between us and the horses. Reason said on north, the GPS said back. We only had energy to do one and we chose the GPS.

[Pinecone]

Absolutely glorious pictures!  Thank you for sharing the photographs and the story!

Claudia

[Shaun]

It was still a tough route, but what a relief to come on the tiny hanging valley wherein lay the prize undisturbed and waiting. It took a couple hours to recover from our search and to finish boning the quarters and collecting the trophy head. We packed up loads and followed the little stream down from the valley. This was the little cut that we had hoped to find and follow to the elk earlier but it turned out we had just missed it where we descended to larger creek valley on our way in.

When we arrived at the bottom it looked like maybe the horses could be brought around to this point and an uphill meat carry could be avoided per our original plan. I collapsed and waited while John and Eric went to find the packers and see if they could be brought back to this point. We were running late again and even if the horses could be brought around it looked like another night ride down. Another great relief when I heard the horses whinny to the approaching wranglers and they made it back to the stream bed with our helpers.

I was rested and we all made one more trip up the hill and back with the final load of elk. We transferred meat to the horses and found our way back to the riding horses with a few minutes of daylight left.

Horses can be fussy about blood and it took quite a while to find a equitable string set up for easy decent. John's mount Sylvester wanted to do a parade side prance to keep an eye on the meat behind him. This would be humorous on a wide trail with flat ground, but not so funny on a dangerous switchback mountain trail. It was a circus for about half way down, but we got it sorted out and made the bottom half of the decent in the dark again. At the bottom we left the head which was hard to keep properly rigged and we were afraid the rodeo antics might lead to breakage. Sans the head the last mile went smoothly and we made it back to camp at 9. Now I finally knew what tired really was!

[Shaun]

Thursday Sept 11th

You could guess it was a slow morning today. After a nice breakfast John and Eric mounted up to head back the mile and pick up the antlers. Eric rode Peppe who was too small for John or I and they took Fritz who was well rested. It turns out that Fritz is oblivious to the smell of elk blood and he was perfectly happy to be the trophy horse.

 

Pleased as I'd been to get back to Smoke the evening before and get a ride down the mountain, I was just as pleased to give him and myself a day off from riding, so I did not go. It was not that long before a very pleased Eric came into view with his trophy.

 

[Shaun]

We planned to lounge and hunt a little today and head out tomorrow. This was a day early but we had meat and we had a sense of completion. Tranquility rested on Happy Valley as we rested and watched out friends the camp deer. A fuzzy fork horn buck had joined the does and he was just as fearless.

 

The stock was tired too and they grazed in peaceful harmony with the visiting deer.

 

[Shaun]

Eric worked on his trophy and John fixed us canned ravioli for lunch. Hunger is the best cook and this simple meal really hit the spot.

 

John has said he thought this was 300 inch bull. Nice even six point and moderate mass. He broke out a tape and called the numbers out for me to write in my notebook. Very unofficial green score was 310.

 

[Shaun]

I took my flyrod afield again and caught a couple more slightly larger cutthroat trout but not wanting to deplete the resource and having no need for more food, they went back right after pictures. Cutthroat can be distinguished by more spots near the tail and a red orange slash of color at the throat.