As elk season approaches....

[CODAK]

Let's hear some of your best elk hunting stories. No need for where, what season, just good ol ' hunting stories! Let's get those hearts pumping in these last few weeks...

I'll start....

It was 2015, fresh out of college, and I burned every day of PTO I had to take a week off to head to the hills. My brother met me up at our spike camp late on the Saturday before Labor Day. The usual near sleepless elk hunting nights started with bugles on the first morning. Like usual, we shadowed the herd and set up where we thought they would funnel as the day went on. About mid-morning rolled around and I heard the beautiful sound of a cracked stick, and here the herd came. RIGHT TO US. I mean so close, so fast, I barely had enough of a chance to grab my bow. My brother had dozed off and was leaning on a log about 3 ft off their main trail. As the lead cow approached, with about 15 gals with her, she stepped on the log, and froze. In the most awkward stare down as you can imagine between a sleeping hunter and a lead cow only 3 feet apart, I used the distraction to draw on the upcoming bull who was 40 yards out. (Lesson here, always range areas when elk are not present, for situations like this...). Anyhow, I drew, bull stopped. Perfect. I mean picture perfect broadside. Behind a spruce, the only spruce in the meadow. I held as the cows started chirping and scattering and the bull made a 90 degree straight away.... no shot.... and that was bowhunting elk in a nutshell. As we came to the next day, we moved to another herd and again shadowed until almost noon. The herd moved through as a squirrel scared the crap out of a cow and they somewhat split up. I luckily had my decoy out and was able to set it against a bush so I could ready my bow. Out of the corner of my eye, my brother was waving his arms pointing uphill. In a thicket I couldn't see through, he made the "bull" signal. Then, some 2 seconds later, 20 yards away out he jogged like a whitetail dogging a doe. I drew, he saw the decoy, and B-lined it straight at me. I put my pin on the money and let it fly at a whole 8 steps. But just as I released my arrow, not knowing my brother's distance and lanes, I here the beautiful zzzzzzzing and pop on a double lung from the side. What are the chances?!? So darn cool. He managed to make it some 400 yards with no lungs or heart (yay rutted up elk) and we found him, only to realize he was the same bull I had drawn on the day before!!

Long story short from there, we boned him out, took out the first load and our camp. The next morning we packed in and at the last second I decided to bring my bow in for the long trek (~7 hrs in) to get the rest of the cooling meat. Once we got in, about 1 hour before sundown, they went off!!! We went from loading packs to stalking bulls faster than an arrow flies. As the next hour we went on, I saw 11 different bulls within 100 yards. They we going off so crazy they just wouldn't stop moving!!! My brother, who had laid down flat and was cow calling (due to lack of camo and hiking clothes for the pack out) had two bulls (a 6x6 and 7x7... NBD) walk 2 steps and literally over top of him respectively. The worst best problem I have ever had bowhunting elk was this; too many... I was hard to get them pinpointed when they were screaming and moving too much. All in all, I shot at a 300+ bull at a daunting 30 yards and he bugled, stepped 2x, bugled, stepped 2x, bugled, ranged, bugled, SMACK. I saw my arrows flight and it looked true. Right after my release, I was surprised by a scream some 5 yards behind me. I turned to see a raggy staring me down, eyes bulged. I proceeded to sit down, take it all in, and wait 40 min to start the track. Upon retrieving my arrow, I realized what had happened... a small horizontal branch, covered by my pin, had made the smack, and deflected down. Just an arrow of fur, without blood. We were both so speechless after what had just encountered, we didn't talk for the first 2 miles of our pack out, when we stopped and said "What the hell just happened?!?"

Good luck this fall fellas

 

[Bonecollector]

This September I plan (optimistic) to arrow my first elk....
(To be Continued)

 

[JimP]

My first Colorado elk hunt stated just the next day. Friday myself and hunting partner were working late, very late into the evening. We got home around 11:30 that night and planned to have me pick him up at 6am the next morning.

At about 7:30 I got a phone call from him asking me if we were going to go hunting? I threw on my clothes, grabbed my rifle and pack and was out the door in 5 minutes. When I got to his house he came out and asked if we could go get some coffee which I agreed on.

We headed south of town and hit the turn off to head up the hill at shortly after 8am. There was about 6" of fresh snow on the road and we could tell that we were not the only ones headed up the hill. At the first turn off a couple of vehicles turned to the right and a couple turned to the left, the way that we were going. At the next junction one of the vehicles turned to the left and one to the right, we were headed to the right. The next junction that truck turned to the left and we went right, nice fresh snow without a vehicle track on it.

We bounced over the rocks in the road and came around a corner and the both of us looked up on the hill. There about 200 yards away stood the small herd of elk. I shut off my truck and put my coffee cup up onto the dash opened the door and bailed out with my rifle. I hit the ground and sat down and looked through my scope and picked out an nice looking cow and pulled the trigger. All I saw of her was when she rolled over with all 4 legs up in the air and then it was done.

I place my rifle back into the truck and my partner told me that she had gotten back up. I grabbed my rifle again and looked up the hill. Sure enough there was a elk standing right were mine had been but she was looking the other direction and then before I could pull the trigger she was gone.

I knew that she was hit hard and wouldn't go too far, I just hoped that she would stay on this side of the hill. We hiked up the hill and over to where the elk had been standing and started to look for blood. My partner had gone a little ways up the hill the way that they elk had ran. Then I saw my elk, she was laying there on her back with her legs up in the air. A one shot hit and drop. The second elk was one that way laying down next to the one that I had shot and when mine went down she stood up.

I was home with a full elk skinned and hanging in my garage by 9am in the morning. My partners wife called and told me that I was a liar and that there was no way that we had left her house when we did and were back home by 9 with a elk. That is until they came back over to pick me up to go to a movie that night. She had to walk out to my garage to see if I really did have a elk hanging up in it.

That was the quickest elk that I have ever got, well almost. The one that I have hanging on my wall was shot at 7:05 on the opening morning. But it took me and my brother in law until 3:30 that afternoon to get him out.

But then that is another story.

 

[Slugz]

This September I plan (optimistic) to arrow my first elk....
(To be Continued)

yeah!!!!

 

[Slugz]

Geez......so many....as I sit here at the key board I can only smile. The glow from the tent, bugles in the middle of the night, the smell of the fire, meeting new people and helping them out on the mountain, telling stories around the fire, the scenery, the weather fronts coming through........man I can't wait. Nothing like elk camp.

A buddy and I (who started me bow hunting, God bless him) packed into a drainage for more of a scouting/hunting trip. Nice trail in but steep on both sides. We go at it and have a few close encounters but no drawbacks as we were still neophytes and couldn't get our set up between the caller and shooter right. One evening he decides to stay in the tent and I venture off on my own about 1500 or so. I get into the woods and decide I'm gonna take a small nap. About 45 minutes into it I'm awakened by a bugle and man its close. Being the newbie caller also.....I have no real game plan......so I blow on this older tube bugle with a messed up latex diaphragm like thing on it. I let out an awful high shrieking bugle like dying animal sound. I think to myself...Jesus I did not mean for that to come out of the call and no sooner than I thought that, 3 bulls bugled with grunts and chuckles. Leaves were falling off the aspens. They were all close but I couldn't see any. That after noon I was barked at, saw a huge bull gather cows up and take them up the mountain, had a smaller satellite come down wind on me and sneak in underneath me, had rocks tumble down on me from elk and....... called on the radio to my buddy in camp...."hey man I have animals all around me making noise and I have no idea what to do to get them closer"

Now many years later......I fell asleep right next to a bedding area ( about 70 yards away in thick timber with undergrowth ,couldn't see past 50 yards) The first bugle was a bull in his bed. My shrieking call pissed them off as they thought I was a young bull making noise.

16 days till the opener!!! Good luck gents.....and more importantly ....have fun!

 

[mallardsx2]

In 2002 I was hunting the FlattTopps in one of my friends favorite zones.

On the second day of the hunt we were around 10,500' sneaking down a trail right after daylight and I looked down below be in the meadow and there was a cow and a calf standing there. I drew back and let the arrow fly. At that very moment my buddy who was in front of me and had no idea I was drawing or shooting heard the bow go off and almost jumped out of his boots.

Meanwhile the arrow went exactly where I wanted it to go but the cow whirled just as I shot. The arrow hit the cow in the left ham and traveled the length of the elk and almost popped out its brisket. (This is why I shoot muzzy 4 blades to this day).

I was unhappy with the hit so we decided to give her a couple hours and pursue a bull we heard roaring up the hill from us. 1/2 hour later a huge snowstorm came rolling in on us. We literally ran 500 yards back to the blood trail and ran as fast as we could on that blood trail.e of the biggest cow elk I have ever seen to this day and she was tougher than a boiled owl and tasted like a pine cone. She was dead a down across the meadow and across the creek. My friend killed a nice bull a few days later that I had called in for him. If I could have done it over I would not have shot that cow but being my first elk hunt I wanted to get something. I could have killed several bulls during that hunt.

Honestly that was some of the best hunting that I will probably ever see. There was a TON of animals in that unit and today it is nothing but hunters/tents and outfitters burning their trash every single night. Its a shame the hunting there went to crap but the good times lasted for a long time for us in that unit. We hauled a lot of bulls out of there over the years.