My first bowhunt (with a Damon Howatt Hunter) I walked into the Bob Marshall Wilderness for a week by myself. I wasn't smart enough to know better and carried no bear protection, no tent, no sleeping bag. I brought iodine tabs for water purification and uncle bens instant rice for food. Multivitamins, instant rice and tobasco. That's what I ate. To this day, it's the greatest hunt of my life. I found a basin with bulls screaming and not a person for 10 miles.
On the second evening I glassed a huge 6 point bull with a bunch of cows across the basin and spent the whole evening watching trying to figure out where he was going. I remember counting points and thinking that he could just about scratch his haunches with his tips. Big, old bull.
The next day I moved across the basin to a small cliff above the meadow where the bull had pushed his cows. I sat there all day with my legs hanging over the edge glassing and sun bathing. I remember watching a golden eagle soar slowly over the meadow doing some glassing of his own. When he few by my head he was at just about my level (because I was sitting on the cliff) and seemed like he was only 15 yards from me.
Late afternoon found me obsessively watching the wind and trying to predict when the thermals would change, but I was in a good spot waiting for them. There was a long, thin stretch of meadow to my left that was like a runway coming out of the timber. I was about 5 yards into the woods near the mouth of this stretch and the wind was right in my face. I started to hear the bulls bugling and the cows crashing around in the brush moving towards me. They burst out of the timber and I thought that I was the best bowhunter in the world because I was about to kill a 6-point bull on my first outing. As they fed towards me, the bull decided he needed some water and pushed the herd to a hard left down slope. He came to about 70 yards, then disappeared into the think brush of the basin.
That night I layed on my wool blanket back on top of the cliff, listening to 4 bulls scream at each other all night long. I didn't sleep a wink. I got dressed and readied myself in the dark hoping that I could pintpoint a bull and move in at first light. They completely shut up about an hour before light, and what had clearly been an exciting night for the elk apparently warranted an early bed time.
After no action I decided to regroup and cross the basin back to the spot where I originaly glassed the bull. I was crossing these long, flat rock ledges that were puctuated by 10 or 12 foot drops. As I came to the edge of the last ledge at the bottom of the basin I saw a cow standing at the edge of a small creek. I froze and started to feel the woods come alive with elk. I had walked into the herd and the terrain had kept my scent above them. I watched cow after cow appear and disappear through the creek bottom. And then he was there. The bull I had been after for 3 days was standing silently at the base of the ledge I was standing on, 8 feet directly below me! Talk about freaking out, I could barely pull and arrow from my quiver, let alone nock it and concentrate enough to keep an eye on the bull and be quite.
Now,a funny thing happened. I had huge bull literally feet from me - every bowhunetrs dream - and I didn't know where to shoot it. As this was playing out, it seemed like I was deliberating for hours. I had a straight down shot. Spine? Sure, but these things aren't whitetails! There's a tone of bone to make it through before you can sever the spinal column. So that leaves me a head shot? No way. This was about to turn into a Lord of the Flys pig hunt slash bareback rodeo.
So I'm waiting, about 1/4 drawn out of pure nerves and adrenalin, and hoping that this bull will move so I can let fly on a hard quartering away shot. In the time that I was waiting, I was concentrating so intensely that I didn't even notice the cow that fed into about 5 yards right behind me. When she barked, I wouldn't have been more scared and surprised if a grizzly had tapped me on the shoulder to ask for Grey Poupon.
As it turns out, this was the best possible outcome. I was by myself 12 miles from my truck with no one lined up to help me pack. It was early september and I'm sure that I would have lost all that meat. I've packed a bunch of bulls by myself and it's not fun - even if it's only a couple miles. There's no way I would have gotten that animal out of the woods. So, in its' stead I was left with great memories and a passion for bowhunting elk. I think it's a fair trade.
Topic: Roughing It (Read 688 times)
