I'm a lucky guy in a lot of ways, not the least of which is I can hunt deer and elk within a few minutes of my house.
This morning I got on my ATV and was in my tree stand by pink light. Within minutes elk were bugling down the mountain from me and one startled me just a few hundred yards to the west. I cow called softly twice and within seconds he was coming across the opening you can see in the photo below taken from my stand.
I was concerned because he was heading straight for my tree and I only had a few openings from which to shoot. As he reached the trail you can see above running right to left in the photo, he started to go south. He was 22 yards away, probably actually a little further since my stand is 20 feet up and he was on a slope below me. I had to shoot or he'd be out of my lane within a step or two. The shot was a little forward and hit the shoulder blade. He spun and I saw that I didn't have full penetration and the arrow (or part of it as it turned out) fell on the ground.
He stopped after I cow called and bugled and he stood for 10 minutes or so about 75 yards from me, then walked off. I would have sat for a couple of hours, but it looked and smelled like rain, so I decided to go check the arrow and the blood sign. The arrow was broken off about 7-8" from the broadhead and had blood showing a total of 16" penetration.
He had actually only gone another 20 yards and laid down, but he was in some trees and I couldn't get a finishing shot without him busting out of there. So I sat down and watched for about 30 minutes...He got up and trotted off!
I backed out, waited almost two hours, called my brother and the ranch owner (friend) and went to check his bed. Not a drop of blood! He laid there for all that time and lost no blood. We found no sign where he had trotted off, so I told my brother, "I'm going to go ahead while you continue to look, he's got to be dead." I only went 100 yards and saw him...
Terminator 175 grain broadhead, 63# Dale Dye bow
Topic: Montana Elk (pics) (Read 1696 times)
