The Elk Opera

[jhg]

I was only half an elk hunter (if I can say that), until the archery season I experienced the elk opera. Anyone who hunts elk archery has heard about it. Buglefest, buglemania, elk madness, elk-insanity. Whatever its called every archery elk hunter should be gifted the experience first hand at least once in their lives. It is not overstating it to say not experiencing an elk opera is to miss out on one of the worlds greatest dramas.

Half an elk hunter?

 The four days of non-stop theater I witnessed exhausted me mentally. It also galvanized what I knew about elk, erasing the doubts that were always shadowing my mind undermining my confidence that my decisions in regards to hunting them were sound. All these went away after experiencing the elk opera. Four solid days of constant bugles to the point you actually were wishing they would shut the hell up.

This story that follows is true, believe it or not. And arrows were flung.

[jhg]

There are a few different ways to go after elk. There is the major trailhead technique practiced by almost every elk hunter on earth, (or so it seems), the "way-backcountry" wilderness epic bivy hunt, the "horses horses horses horse packing" wall tent extravaganza, the "get in a truck and drive" to a new spot two or three times a day (ugh) and then there is the "where the hunters are not" model.
 This last one that is my style and I practice it religiously.
I read somewhere that an elk hunters odds of success went up if they returned to hunt the same unit every year. Do that 6 years in a row and you built up some serious credit! Right?

Right. Definitely right.

 Knowing where you hunt is not so much about where the animals might be but about where they never are. Figure that out and you start seeing elk. I found an access point that was old twitch trails (logging) feeding into some regenerating timber, feed zones and bedding areas. Best of all there was a major hell hole of thick down fall, wets and otherwise dastardly thick old growth that elk love to use if pressured. No one is going to better an elk in that snarl. Trust me, I know. 
The question then became, would there be other hunters?
This wallow is in a meadow that borders where I experienced the elk opera. This is where hunters go and the elk know that. It is classic elk mating terrain and I have noticed that they avoid these areas more and more as hunters seek them out on g-earth and hit them hard in archery season. They become night haunts at best and old reminders of past, abandoned usage at worst.

[kennym]

I'm all in! 

[4dogs]

 

[Over&Under]

“ It is not overstating it to say not experiencing an elk opera is to miss out on one of the worlds greatest dramas.”

As true a statement as I’ve ever heard

I’m following this one 👍🏽

[jhg]

I chose a small hard to see pull out that was one of the landings when the logging was being done. Overgrown now, it was just enough to get a pickup into and once there hidden from the road. Best of all, stepping out of the camper put you right onto the access trail/road into the area I wanted to hunt. I had hunted this place before and the elk sign was generally excellent once in a mile.

The first two days were typical elking- get up early, walk down the access trail, sit the transition zone awhile, explore for fresh sign and otherwise do what archers do when not seeing animals yet. I am not a bugle your head off to locate a bull elk at first light kind of hunter. It is a great way to hunt if you don't mind driving around a lot in a truck hoping to find that responsive bull. But, mostly, it alerts the elk a hunter is in the woods. I have experienced hunters coming into a drainage, bugling without learning the tone of the area and blowing the elk out. There are a lot of impatient elk hunters out there and they all seem to bugle a lot.

 One morning as I stepped around a deadfall across the trail I surprised a bear. He had his head down but he saw/heard me instantly. He was gone in less than a second and there was no time to nock an arrow, no time to even consider it.

[jhg]

On the way in the trail looked down onto this. Fourth morning came the first bugling out of here.

[jhg]

The elk liked to feed on the tender forbes and grasses along seeps. This seep was near the bottom of the drainage and fed a small creek.

I would wait for them as they came up into their bedding area from the bottom. I don't know why other hunters were not doing the same. But they all gravitated to the big meadows and majestic scenic spots they had been told to hunt.

Here is the creek and my spot was above a well used crossing that I am still blown away did not have a tree stand on it.

[Bvas]

Keep it coming!!!

[jhg]

The bugles began on the opposite side of the drainage. Then, while I was still walking in to my sit spot, the whole valley opened up with bulls bugling everywhere. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

Bulls bugled, others answered. Above my sit spot there was a herd bull, fighting to keep control of what was his. I could tell it was the apex and the center of the drama. His bugles where altogether different. Raging, guttural and defiant. He was under attack, sort of, as the satellite onslaught was aimed not at him, but at his cows coming into estrus. He chose to defend. His genetics and his nature demanded it. Not all bulls have the mentality to be herd king. Its is not always size, or antlers or age. It is attitude. Some animals cannot be second and he was one of those that could not relent or back down.

 He chose to fight.

[elkken]

 

I no longer hunt elk seriously but I venture into elk country every fall to hear the elk opera .... it keeps me alive

[Killdeer]

This is some seriously good storytelling! Love your pictures, love your prose.

Killdeer
(I’ll be back!)

[jhg]

When did I become a bowhunter? Or should I say a traditional archer?  In my father's hunt closet were shotguns and rifles and fly rods and boots and one very old, well used wicker creel. If I held it close to my nose I could smell the trout. The oils of fish after fish after fish had over time wicked into the wicker around the woven square hole that allowed the fisherman (or woman) to basket them without lifting the lid.
But in the way back of the closet, in the dark corner that was blocked by jackets wool and canvas, the rod cases, the hats hanging on hooks several deep and every other clothing piece an outdoorsman acquires through living a woods life, was a longbow. Did it begin there, my bowhunting?
I don't know. Maybe it was always inside me  and needed no prompt. When I began hunting whitetails it was with a rifle. Yet I removed the scope and went with aperture sights. I aleady wanted to get closer. Then it wasn't enough to hunt the back forty. I had to paddle a canoe across a lake, hike some miles and hunt out of a lean-to for a week. All I needed was a bow hunting mentor to make the change from rifle, but there was none.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. I am an archer now, chasing elk.

[jhg]

This photo is of the game trail that led up from the creek to the bedding area. Although I took this picture another year when we got some weather, you get the idea. It is a great spot to wait and I would get there early before the elk moved upslope. I would sit back off the trail and just above it, maybe 15 yards. I did that for two reasons: 1) to keep my scent stream out of the trail corridor and 2) any elk 15 yards off the trail on either side would be in my kill zone. Animals do not generally use trails like we do, welded to the track. The game trail represents a corridor, the animals may walk it but just as likely they will be either side of it, feeding along.

The bugles continued and I spent some time chasing them locating satellite bulls. Early on I got within death range of two young 4x's. They must have been long time buddies, same age and size. This may have been their first real mating season, when the chemical cues in their bodies left them no choice but to participate.
The two stood on the tip edge of a finger ridge and were looking down into the timber that blocked our view of a big park beyond it.  I think they were not quite sure what to do. Down there were bigger, more experienced bulls very willing and able to kick teen elk butt. So they held themselves a little away.
Intent as these two were, listening to the drama below- bugles from every direction, loud bugles and far away location calls, nearby screams and course challenges, they never saw or heard me approach them.
The nearest youngster was perfectly broadside at 20 yards. I nocked an arrow, came to anchor and released. The arrow fluttered meagerly across the distance and stuck into the ground under the nearest bull. He jumped a little but they both continued to stand there. I had time to make another shot, but realized my heart wasn't really into it. I was after bigger bulls. I had made that decision a long time ago to go big or go home and it showed with the anemic half baked shot.

[jhg]

Finally the two youngsters bolted off and hearing more bugles I headed down to the creek crossing. On the other side was a long 3/4 mile slope steadily rising until it made some small benches. Beyond those it was a black timber drop off- no feed, no bedding, only the perfect fuse for any elk pushed so far as to need it for escape. The elk were bedding on this slope about 2/3rds high every late morning.
On the S side of the slope was the hell-hole.  This next photo was taken inside and you can see how dense it becomes.

Some time had been used up chasing bugles, shooting at young bulls and missing. So wasting no more time I hiked upslope and found a nice tree to lean my back against. There was a great field of view into some open timber that was part of the corridor the elk were using. I no sooner opened a sandwich when a bugle ripped the woods just 75 yards below me. I got to a kneeling stance and faced the music. Another bugle hit me but closer. He was coming my way. Soon enough I could see the white tines of his antlers, then his body in flashes as he wove through the timber. He walked right out into the open timber in a beeline that would take him just under me at 20 yards. He was still 60 yards away and I nocked an arrow. My palms were wet. I tried hard to get a grip on my breathing and heart rate. A nice bull this and I already wanted him badly. On he came. My palms seemed to have been dipped in water. I wiped them again on my wool pants and cussed the material almost wishing for cotton. Another 20 yards he came. He bugled again 40 yards away, facing me but not seeing, I motionless, ready.

[ron w]

Only hunted elk one time, this is like being there!!! Cool stuff

[Wudstix]

Bring it!!!
 

[jhg]

Between me and the bull was the tree I had chosen to lean against. Maybe 14 inches diameter it gave me just enough cover to not be left out in the open. The bull I could see by leaning one way or another allowing my vision to clear the tree trunk. He was right there, just forty yards and slightly below. It was a shot I could make if things were perfect. Perfect position (bull broadside), perfect stance (standing), perfect shooting lane (no lean out). But the bull, who had now stopped, was frontal. I was on my knees, a shot not yet mastered. And I needed to lean my body out to clear the tree. I just couldn't risk it. My own self-respect wouldn't allow it.

The bull bugled again, this time quietly. "C'mon!" My mind screamed it. "Walk on!! Walk on!!!" It was definitely not good for me he was where he was.
He turned his body slightly, sniffed the duff covering the ground and laid down.

Not good. Not good. He was facing me head on in his day bed. It was definitely not good for me.

I was trapped. Seconds. Minutes. Quarter hour. My knees started first, letting me know this would become unsustainable. I was aware that under the leaves it was wet. Moisture wicked into the wool of my pants. It was cold.
The bull, he was head up. Without any sign of recognition or alarm he was looking through me. As long as I remained rigid and motionless, I was part of the landscape. Move a muscle and I was toast. The bull started to relax. He even seemed ready to sleep but bugles everywhere kept him responding time to time. The back of my knees started next, the pressure of my crouch putting compression weight on the soft tissue there. Nothing tells you your age like a knee crouch.
 Then it was my lower back, the job it had asking it to remain still and supportive new and unusual. A back is at its best as a flexing, modulating unit that is part of a larger modulating machine. A back was never meant to be motionless for long. Incredibly strong in motion, it was never meant to be a motionless beam.

I think it was my mind that gave out first though.

As soon as I allowed the thought I could move, just a little, to present itself into my consciousness, the rest of me fell like dominoes. I leaned out. I moved a leg, just a little. If I could get so the tree was not a factor maybe I could make a shot when he stood. The plan, such as it was ill-considered and impatient, was I would let him see me move when I was ready, then draw as he stood up, sending an arrow into his broadside as he turned and ran.
So far so good. I moved my other leg, bringing my body a little out from the tree. The bull saw the change, but could not define it. He now was not looking through me. He was looking at me. I froze. Time again became the enemy. My knee pain again eroding my resolve.
The bull turned his head. I moved a bit more, almost ready to stand. But I misjudged an undulates amazing peripheral vision. The bull was locked on now, alarmed,  up and gone in the time it takes to read this sentence.

[jhg]

But I had grown up hunting whitetails in the thick woods of Maine and I had a trick left and throwing on my pack while same time trying to get the kinks out of my legs I re-booted my arrow into the quiver. The bull had bolted downhill straight away but out of sight almost immediately. So I really had no idea where he had gone.
Upslope there was plenty of action, bugles and screams. An elk cacophony. The regularity of the bugles and the intensity had been increasing all during my little stare down with the lay-down-bull.
I headed upslope at the best I could do for a run at 9800' above sea level. I pushed hard. The window of time available I figured was two minutes max and probably less. My lungs burned even though three times a week I played competitive ice hockey a very fitness demanding sport. At this elevation however, the slope and the distance brought the pain.
I wanted to stop and rest. My mind told me it was ok to stop. I didn't have to push so hard whats a little slowing down going to hurt?
Finally, after climbing maybe 100 yards something had to give and it was my legs and lungs. The muscles in my legs had exhausted their aerobic capacity. My lungs sounded like a bellows as they worked to get the carbon dioxide out of the circulatory system.
  I looked around and there he was already, the bull. He was watching me heave my chest in huge gulps of air.  Just as I knew he would he had circled above me to get my wind and see what I was. I was just a little too slow, a little too low.
The bull turned away and started walking uphill. I fell right in behind him as soon as I could undetected, being careful to stay close enough and centered on his back so his amazing peripheral vision was unable to alert him I was there.
It is amazing how much ground an elk can cover at a walk, uphill, at elevation. It was all I could do to keep up and eventually we were into the middle of the elk opera. Somewhere along the way the bull I was dogging became other satellite bulls and I was now stalking each one I encountered in turn and as wind and cover permitted.

[SlowBowKing]