I sit in my tree stand for another 15 minutes, trying to control the shaking, trying to collect my thoughts and enjoy the moment. Not happening, I need to get out of my tree stand and go look. I go to the last place that I saw the bull standing and cast around for blood which I find a short distance from where he stood. I want to share this with my hunting partner, Martin, so I back out and head to the truck.
I call Martin from the truck and tell him the story. He's as excited as I am and willing to come and give me a hand. Two minutes later he calls me back and asks if his 17 year old son, Ben, and his wife Leeza can come. Are you kidding, with hopefully an elk down and needing to be packed out it sounds like a win, win situation to me.
I wait until Martin and his family arrive and off we go to follow the blood trail. Now Martin had told me that Ben had an eye for following a blood trail and I got to experience this first hand. The kids good and he'll do to take along anytime. After slowly following the trail for about 60 meters we lost it and started casting around looking for more sign. Ben was looking to the left, me to the right and Martin was slowly moving forward. Martin called softly to me that he had found the next blood and for me to come over there. As I was looking at the ground for blood Martin put his hand on my shoulder and pointed at horn tips above the underbrush.
When I walked up to that magnificent animal I can't even describe the feelings and emotions going through me. Martin had to ask me if I was going to touch the bull to bring me back to the here and know. As I touched him and lifted his head a feeling of accomplishment rolled over me as I realized that I had harvested my first trad kill. The bull was a non typical with 8 points on his right side and 8 points on his left side with plenty of mass. I have been blessed to have harvested 12 elk with my rife and 5 with my compound bow but this magnificent animal, this first kill with my recurve, will forever remain the best.
I am still unable to post a picture of him so if anyone can help me I'll e-mail them a picture and maybe they will have better luck than me.
Topic: A Traditional Journey Elk pics added (Read 1281 times)
