I struggled for a long time looking for a theme to characterize my 2001 archery
elk hunt. I finally decided on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, because this hunt
had some of each. This is the same hunt that Chip Heffelfinger writes about in
Stump Shooting Put Meat On The Table. I hope that it’s interesting
for the reader to see the hunt through two sets of eyes and experiences.
The Good
As usual, the majority of the hunt is what I would put in the "Good" category.
As many of us know, just getting drawn is a major accomplishment. John
Heffelfinger and I have been exceptionally lucky in this respect; having missed
being drawn only a handful of times in the last 30 years or so of trying. We
didn’t get our first choice, bull elk in Unit 5B South, but we did get drawn for
cow elk permits in that unit.
To me, the essence of any successful hunt comes down to four factors: good friends,
good food, good weather and finding animals.
- In my piece on turkey hunting published earlier this year, I explained how John
Heffelfinger and I had been hunting together for nigh on 30 years and how his son
Chip had joined us. We had the same crew for the archery elk hunt. Enough said!
- Over the years John and I have fine tuned our menus so that I would challenge
any hunting camp to provide a better fare. A sampling of this years dinners include:
carmelized salmon with a citrus salsa, BBQ ribs, bratwurst and peppers, portabella
mushroom ravioli, grilled swordfish steaks, wild turkey breast (from our 2001 spring
turkey hunt) with all the trimmings, chicken reuben, grilled pork chops, taco soup,
ham steaks, and pork loin chops with sauerkraut.
- For a camping trip the weather was great. Cool in the mornings and warm to hot
in the afternoons. There were a couple of mornings when the temperature was in the
high 30’s or low 40’s but mostly it was 7 to ten 10 degrees warmer than that. The
afternoons were mostly in the 70’s.
- For the most part the elk were where we expected them to be. Each one of us had
days when we didn’t see anything, but there were only two days out of the two week
hunt that at least one of us didn’t see animals. We saw both cows and bulls in
enough quantity to validate our choice of spots. In addition, we saw the usual mix
of birds, squirrels, and rabbits plus deer, coyotes, fox and turkey.
The reader will notice that I didn’t put "killing an animal" on my list of essentials.
Certainly getting an animal is a bonus and a fitting end to any hunt. But if I was
strictly a meat hunter I would have given up hunting many years ago as being not
very cost effective. That said, let me congratulate Chip Heffelfinger on getting
his first archery elk. Chip got his elk with a homemade recurve bow on the next to
last day he would be hunting.
Even though I’m not a meat hunter I love elk meat. Chip gave me some of his elk meat
after it was butchered and I have already had several meals off it. This definitely
fits in the "Good" category.
Another thing which contributed to the success of this year’s hunt is that I’m finally
becoming more comfortable with my GPS. I got a new E-Trex this year and I’m amazed at
how much faster it acquires satellites than my old GPS40 unit. We used the GPS’s (in
conjunction with FRS radios) to get together in the woods, to get back to favorite
hunting spots, to re-locate blood trails and to mark promising new areas we want to
hunt in the future. It sure is nice to know where camp is or where your truck is
parked after roaming the woods all day. The biggest problem with the GPS is
remembering what all those cryptic location names mean after you haven’t looked
at them for a while. They sure made sense when I entered them!
"Good" is also the opportunity to hunt without running into other hunters behind every
tree. The hunting pressure in our area was relatively light. We didn’t see more than
a couple of vehicles a day go past our camp. And it was a rare sight to see another
hunter in the woods. Most, if not all, of the water tanks around us had tree stands
set up on them. But since we are not "stand" hunters this had little effect on our
activities.
The Bad
As I said above, the weather was great for a camping trip. But, this was an elk
hunt, not just another camping trip. This was the second year in a row that the
weather was exceptionally hot and dry. As last year, there was only one afternoon
where we had a brief rain shower. Other than that, it was completely dry. By the
end of the hunt it was like walking on corn flakes. Without any moisture in the
air we did not even have the morning dew to help. The heat made it hard to hunt
much past 9:00 in the morning, and going out for the afternoon hunt was a joke.
I remember elk hunts past where we had continual rain for 4 or 5 days on end. I
don’t want that either, but something in between would sure be nice.
Health problems don’t help contribute to a fun hunt either. I was plagued by a
sore shoulder for most of this year’s hunt. I strained it several weeks before
the hunt and suffered with it throughout the hunt. One of the things we usually
do in the afternoons around camp is target shoot to keep our aim sharp. Well, this
year I didn’t even want to pull the bow back unless I had an animal in my sights for
the first week of the hunt. During the second week I started out shooting 3 arrows
one day and added 3 more each day until I felt comfortable shooting a dozen practice
arrows in the afternoon. John had back problems the whole 2 weeks and sure could
have used his chiropractor in camp. Getting old is not for sissies.
"Bad" is missing shots that you’ve worked hard to get. Both John and Chip had clean
misses. But, Bad is better than Ugly as you will see below.
It’s not often that seeing nice bull elk falls into the "Bad" category but I’ll put
it here because we had antlerless only tags. By the end of the hunt I could have
had at least 6 shots on bulls within my self-imposed 40 yard limit. These bulls
ranged from a little two point to a nice 6x6 herd bull. I’ll take this kind of
"Bad" any day.
The Ugly
Ugly is wounding an animal and not being able to recover it. This is the greatest
fear of most bow hunters and the kind of thing that gives the anti-hunters ammunition
in their campaign to outlaw hunting as "cruel". In fact, I was so disappointed with
my performance this year that I debated even writing this piece. What caused me to
change my mind was the hope that telling my tale may keep somebody else from making
the same mistakes I made.
Accurate shot placement of a razor sharp broadhead with enough velocity to reach
vital organs is just as deadly as any rifle/bullet combination. Accuracy comes
with practice and shot selection (shooting within your range). Penetration to
the vitals is dependent on the equipment used and shot selection (knowing the
anatomy of the animal hunted).
My equipment included a PSE compound bow with a draw weight of 60 pounds and a
65% let off. My arrows are Easton aluminum 2117 shafts with new Razorback 5
broadheads. I have fiber optic sight pins and shoot a mechanical release. This
combination has taken several animals and has proven adequate for elk at the ranges
I feel comfortable shooting. No problem here.
I had been practicing at Ben Avery archery range weekly throughout the summer
and felt that I was ready for the hunt. My sore shoulder might come into play
in drawing the bow, but because of the 65% let off I felt that if I could get
the string back, I could make the shot. I had already decided that my preferred
range was 30 yards or less with a maximum range for any shot of 40 yards. No
problem here.
Both my shots were under 25 yards. This appears to leave "shot selection" as
the reason for my problems this year. Let me explain what happened.
On day two of the hunt I was creeping along the side of a hill when I heard a
bull elk grunt ahead of me. I just had time to get an arrow out of my bow quiver
and nocked on the string when I saw the elk approaching. There were several cows
and a nice bull. They were headed in my direction and about 20 to 25 yards above
me on the hill.
As the lead cow went behind some trees, I had an opportunity to draw the bow without
alarming her. I let her keep walking into a little clearing and released the arrow
(later measured at a distance of 23 yards). I saw the arrow hit her and a second
later heard it hit the ground on the other side. Complete penetration!
But wait, it looked too far back to have hit the heart/lung area. The elk ran about
10 yards and started milling around. They were too close for me to get another arrow
nocked without having them see me and spook. After a few minutes they wandered off
in the same direction they had been heading. After waiting a few more minutes to
calm myself down I went to look for my arrow and for blood sign. The arrow was right
where I expected it to be and covered with blood from point to nock. I then went back
to where the elk was standing when I shot and looked for blood sign. There was none.
I got in touch with John and Chip via the FRS radios and they came to help look for
the wounded elk. John found the first drops of blood probably twenty yards from where
the elk was hit, but I knew right away we were going to have a hard time tracking her.
The blood was just drops and they were few and far between. John and I have had a
lot of experience blood trailing and I think we do a pretty good job. But this was a
lost cause.
After an hour or so we completely lost all sign. Using my GPS I went back to the last
blood sign later that day and looked some more but never did pick up any more sign.
One lost elk.
Two days later we were hunting a different area when I heard elk bugling across the
valley from my position. I was behind some waist high rocks and could see game trails
coming up the hill on both sides of my position. I decided to stay where I was and see
what would happen. I stood there for quite a while listening to the elk and had plenty
of time to scope out the trails and estimate distances to several points where the elk
might likely pass. At last here they come!
I could see a good size herd crossing the valley and walking up the hill toward me.
There were probably 20 cows and a half dozen bulls, several of which were playing
dueling bugles. Unfortunately, most of the herd passed about 70 yards to my right.
But at the back of the herd a cow and one of the big bulls made a turn and were
coming almost directly at me. They stopped about 40 yards below and just to my right.
I had them in my sights and could have taken the shot at this point but decided to wait.
Sure enough the cow turned uphill and stopped about 20 yards (later measured at
19 yards) to my right and above me. I let the arrow fly. Oh no! Another bad
hit. The arrow was sticking high in her shoulder with very little penetration.
In a flash, the elk were gone.
Once again I got John and Chip to help look for sign. This time it was even worse.
The sign was very sparse and we lost all blood sign very quickly. I spent the rest
of that day roaming in the same general area looking for blood or crows feeding on
a down animal but had no success. Another lost elk.
What went wrong with these two relatively easy opportunities? I spent a lot of time
agonizing over this and trying to determine how I screwed up. My conclusions are as
follows:
On elk one, I think the problem was that I shot as the elk was moving. She was not
walking fast but she was moving. The spot where I hit her was consistent with the
direction she was moving. Elk are long legged animals and can cover a lot of ground
with each step. Even at relatively short distances we need to be wary of any shot at
a moving animal and adjust our hold accordingly.
On elk two I think I made an even dumber mistake. As I said, my first good shot at
this elk would have been at 40 yards. I had my sights on her and had the distance
locked in my brain. When she moved and I finally got the shot I took I don’t think
that my brain processed the range change. My mind was set at 40 yards and stayed
there. This is the only explanation I can find. My hit was consistent with a 40
yard hold on a 20 yard target and I don’t normally miss by that far at only 20 yards.
Even with a good hit, finding an elk can be difficult. Read Chip’s article for his
experience. John also had a good hit on a cow that I helped him track. In this case
there were puddles of blood at times and hoofprints filled with blood. We kept
expecting to see a dead elk at any time, but we never did. We tracked his elk for
about a mile through the woods before we lost the sign. This just reinforced my
feelings of angst about screwing up what should have been easy opportunities.
On the positive side, I plan on using this year’s blunders as learning experiences
to better prepare me for successful hunts in the years to come.
