Elk Hunter Story

[Kessler10]

Sharing my story. Ive been hunting all my life. Mainly archery whitetail deer and turkey on our farmland in Nebraska. My dad always went rifle elk hunting when I was young but it was before I had a real interest and passion for big game hunting. After I started really getting shooting mature whitetails with my bow I wanted to try elk hunting. Mainly because I wanted to push my limits and try something that only 8-10% of applicants achieve each year. I also needed to find something to keep me out of trouble and keep me focused on a goal.

I went on a couple rifle cow hunts with my dad in WY probably about 10 years ago or. It was pretty basic. We took a camper and I hiked up hills and wondered around. I saw elk and shot a couple cows. But it wasn’t quit quenching my thirst.
Enter back country archery elk hunting.

The first exposure I had to information on elk hunting was this website. I want to say it was 6 or 7 years ago? My approach was that I wanted to learn in the field first. Joe (Indian Summer on this site) through his business Heading West Hunt Consultant. Joes service has a lot of different options depending on what you are looking for. At that time I was looking for a guided hunt, but a guide that would push my limit and teach me. After talking with Joe and him getting a feel for what would work best, He lined me up with his old outfitter that his brother was running at the time. I spent a week hunting with his brother during archery in Montana learning a lot. I went back out during rifle and was able to be part of a buddy getting a bull down and packing it out. I got some advice that "this is something you can do on your own and be successful, just do your homework find some spots and get after it"

So I was off....and determined

My first stop was coming back to this site. Where I met another able and willing friend, Vince. We shared some information and stories and he was willing to help me find a place to start my archery elk hunting in Colorado. It just so happened to be within an hour of my uncles place, so it worked out perfect. I wont go into all the details but let’s just say the first year was crazy. It was one of those years where I hit the rut just perfect. Bulls were going crazy. I had a couple really nice bulls within 20 yards a couple different times. I bugled in a bull that walked right up to me at 10 yards (facing me) and veered off behind some branches. I was very green at the time and for some reason thought my arrow could shoot through trees. I shot and the tree died.

I continued to hunt this area for a few years i want to say. I went on scouting trips in the summer and learned the area through scouting and Vince's advice and experience. I drew my bow back on numerous bulls. I shot at a raghorn bull a couple years back and my fletching nicked a branch. took the fletching clean off and redirected my arrow to go just under the bull. The amount of close calls and cool encounters I had in Colorado are too many to count.

After a few years I was ready to change things up. No doubt 100% Ill go back and hunt Colorado, if you do your homework and work your but off you can get on elk. Colorado, Montana, WY, Idaho, wherever. some states have different numbers, hunting pressure, bigger bulls, smaller bulls, easier to work bulls, wolves, etc, but its my experience (which is limited I will say) that it all lies in the hunter. How hard do you want to work. Keep at, do your homework and you can get on elk. Sometimes it may take longer, sometimes you might stumble on them, but the main thing is to keep getting up every morning, hunt in the afternoon, and scout and do your homework as much as you can. And by doing homework I don't mean watching a couple elk hunting videos, looking at google earth a couple times and buying a bunch of gear. I mean talking to conservations officers and/or hunters with experience to learn from them, spending hours and hour on OnX/google Earth and looking over maps, laying out a plan A b and c, preparing mentally and physically, shoot 1,000 arrows, get boots on the ground etc. That type of homework/.

Ok back to my story. I always kept in touch with Joe (Indian Summer) and told him I was ready to head back to WY. I had just had my 3rd boy this past year and my time to scout is very limited. Joe has options for any hunter depending on what you are looking for. This time I needed the help doing scouting so I could hit the ground running. I made clear to Joe what I was looking for and he had a fairly good idea Of what I could or couldn't not handle. He settled on a hunt plan for me and sent me out the maps and detailed instructions on how to best attack and hunt the area. When I had a questions or ideas I called him and bounced it off him. I was able to get away and do some summer scouting in the area as well, my wife wasn’t to pleased but seeing an area yourself before the season I have found is so valuable so made it happen. Joe will open the door but you have to walk through it and do the work.

The first day I hunted the area in Sept I hiked in about 4 miles. As soon as I got over a ridge where Joe had talked about I heard several bugles and got on elk right away. Now, don’t let this fool you. It was a hard a$$ hike to get where I was. and I had scouted the spot in the summer. The area I was hunting is no joke. Its not for everybody. What’s the use of hunting if you hunt a spot you cannot handle and you are too tired or sick to hunt hard each day?!!

that would be the advice I would give anyone going elk hunting or looking at Joes hunt plans. Often times people eyes are bigger than their stomach as they say. You do not have to go 4,5,6,7,8 miles back to get on elk. Go as far back as your comfortable and know you will still have the energy to hunt hard each day.

Joes hunt plan was detailed and gave me more than enough routes and spots to hunt. I think what made it so successful is that Joe knew me fairly well and I was up front on what I wanted and knew what I could or could not do/handle in a hunt plan. So when you provide Joe details don’t fool him or yourself. Im for sure no expert, but i have been through a lot of ups and downs figuring out my own path as an elk hunter. And one I thing I know for sure. Its never as easy as you think, and you have to make sure you get up every morning and hunt through the days while your on the hill. I always took a break after 3-4 days on the hill to recharge back at the truck, but while I was on the hill all I do is hunt from sun up to sun down. There was even times I would stay at the truck and just do a big loop day hunt and end up back at the truck.

Ok, so a couple quick stories from my hunt. I cannot count the number of bulls I saw in total on my Setpt archery trip, but its was a lot. I saw a few big bulls. I never have gotten into scoring bulls so I cannot say were they 250, 300 etc. But I know a big bull when I see one and I saw several. I drew my bow back 3 different times in one day. Watched elk go to their beds, listened to them bugle throughout the day, and heard bugles each night in my tent. One morning at 4AM the loudest bugle I have ever heard woke me up. This bull was right outside my tent. I heard him walk right by. I was camped up top in a little patch of trees and he walked right be.

Each morning I would open my tent here a bugle and head that direction. Now I strategically picked this spot to camp for that reasons to be up high and could hear a few different drainages, the downside to this particular spot was water was not close. Although I was able to locate and get on these bulls they were really difficult to work away from their cows. It was later in the season. One lesson I learned this year was I needed to be more aggressive after seeing that they were harder to pull away. There are times to be aggressive and to not be aggressive and looking back I needed to be more aggressive on some of these bulls.

Ok, so here is goes. I had hunted a huge loop all day, up and down off trail hunting, and had been into bulls/elk most of the day. I had circled around past my camp to sit a ridge as it started to get dark. I heard bugle below me but they were on the other side. I was getting very low on water as well and my tent was not camped near water as I mentioned, so needed to hit a creek on my way back to camp. I dropped all the way down to this creek and it was bone dry, no water. It was abnormally dry all around the area I would say. The only other water I knew of was actually past camp on the other side from where I was. So knew if I didn't find water down here I would be hiking in the dark an extra mile to get water. I walked the creek and started following a little drainage up in the same direction my camp was up top.

All the sudden I heard a drip and found a spring. It was probably about 700-715PM at this time. I filled up with water and was about to head up top to my camp when I heard a bugle right about where I thought my tent was. It was pretty far up there. Just then I heard a another bugle behind me from where I just came. The wind was swirling a bit, at that exact time wind was going more towards the bull up by my camp. So got behind a tree and setup on the bull that was behind me. Did some calling back and forth with him but he just never seemed to get closer. Just then I hear a loud bugle from the bull that was in the direction of my camp and he was closer, and wind was now coming down in my face. So I abandoned the setup I had on the bull behind me and walked about 75 yards across the creek and a little bit up towards that bull that was coming down towards me from the direction of my camp/tent.

I let out some chuckles and he replied right away. And the bull behind me was going off as well. The bull in front of me was being very responsive to only chuckles. So we played that game for about 5-10 minutes. I saw his body through/behinds the trees that was across an opening crossing in front of me at about 100 yards going from my left to my right out of view. I gave one more chuckle and put my bugle down. I ranged a tree that was 30 yards. I was setup right behind some trees with good cover. He slowly came back into view on my right coming back to the left but this time was on the other side of the trees where I had first spotted in that clearing. He was going to come out right into this clearing.

He came out well beyond the 30 yard tree I marked. I drew my bow as he came out but with him being well beyond where I marked I didn't have a good feel for his distance. At least not enough to shoot. My guess is he was between 55-65. At that distance I need to know exactly how far to be comfortable to shoot. I waited at full draw as he worked his was further to my left but was also coming a little closer. He was walking diagonally from my right to left so getting little closer with each step. He stopped and let out a bugle. I peeked over at my 30 yards tree and felt confident he was at about 40 yards. I settled my pin and let it fly and immediately heard a soft whap and saw blood in the entry side. He ran up to where I first saw him come down behind the trees across the clearing and stopped when I cow called. He then slowly walked up hill. The time now was about 745 and it was 5-10 mins left of light. I waited for a good 30-45 minutes and started up where I shot. Did not find my arrow but found good blood where I saw him stop.

tracked him straight up the hill and his blood trail was about 200 yards from my tent up top when I got to the top. the blood trail then went back down into bottom on the other side. I decided to wait until morning to go down into that hole on the other side.
Got back on the blood trail at first light and followed in total about ¾-1 mile up from where I shot him then about half way down on the other side. He never bedded down, which I felt was not a great sign.

There were a couple spots I could tell he stopped and stood still and a little bit more blood in those spots. Then at the end of that ¾-1 mile there was a fairly larger spot of blood and could tell he paced back and forth on this side hill. From there I could never find another drop. The last blood is where he paced back and forth a couple times. I was on my hand and knees for a couple hours trying to find which direction he went from there. . I then grid searched the hill where I saw last blood as well as the hill on the next ridge where I thought he could have went. As it was starting to get dark the reality fully set in. the night before while I was tracking and then back at camp I was mentally preparing myself to walk up on this dead bull.

Its not easy to talk about or write about, but it’s the reality of what can happen, even when you try and feel you did everything you felt was right.
Did the bull live or die? If Im honest with myself I give him 50/50. From what I saw the arrow buried. It was not a pass through but I did not see any arrow sticking out. The only blood I tracked was only coming out of this left side where I shot him. The shot was where you would want it left to right but a couple inches low of where I was aiming. Brisket and maybe clipped a lung? If the arrow worked itself out would think he has a better chance at surviving? How big was this bull, he was a big bull is all I can really say.
I felt good about my shot. It ended up being 43 yards and I shot him at 40. At the time it looked and felt really good. But hindsight, the conclusion is it was a couple inches low.

From there I did make the decision to keep hunting and had other encounters. I also met a guy up on the hill that was riding with his 8 year old son. He used to guide in the area and we hit it off. We exchanged numbers and stories and he invited me back up for rifle season. I took him up on that offer and joined him and his family at his rifle camp. He shot a bull and his daughter shot a cow. I had a 500 yards shot at a small bull that I shot just under on the last day.

It’s a huge benefit to hunt in a state where the permit allows you to hunt with your bow and if you don’t fill get back out with rifle.

This was a long one, and its crazy how many details and encounters Ive left out and its still this long. I wrote this to thank those that have helped me along the way and also maybe help newer hunters as they try to find their own path through elk hunting and some resources/info that can help that process.
Thanks for reading!
Luke

[Trumkin the Dwarf]

Thanks for taking the time to write this up! I really appreciate the story and your honesty. If he made it that far, with an arrow in a good horizontal alignment I'm thinking you hit brisket and he's gonna survive. They're tough, but not "mile and a half then dead" tough if you hit them in the lungs.

[lilshootergirl]

Really enjoyed your story, had my heart pumping! Your story will help rag horn like me Thanks for your story

[Old school]

Thanks for the write up Luke. Like you, Vince helped me out the same year he did you - put me in one of his areas and you in the other. We had a great hunt there in Colorado as well but never turned an arrow loose. Next year I’ll probably be in Wyoming on a general tag and hope to find success there. Thanks again for the recap

-Mitch

[Tigger]

I haven't heard from Vince in a while. I hope he is okay. I know his health caused him some issues this year. Anybody know how he is doing?

[Kessler10]

I haven't heard from Vince in a while. I hope he is okay. I know his health caused him some issues this year. Anybody know how he is doing?

ive touched base with him the other week. In his words things going well but "nothing to brag about"

[Swede]

Interesting story Luke. These things happen. I appreciate how hard you worked to find the animal you wounded. It is not easy to keep after one when you run out of blood and tracks. You are just guessing and have no idea what has happened to the elk or where it is. Anyway thanks for sharing. I too have some of that experience. I shared a tragic story of one I lost in 2019. I found it too late to salvage.

[Tigger]

Luke, next time you talk to him, tell him that the guys over at WapitiTalk miss his posts and wish him well!

[Old school]

Vince and I had plans to get together to elk hunt Colorado this past year, but it kind of fell apart. Was looking forward to it, but some health issues for both of us - and then the fires pretty much cancelled the trip. Top notch guy. Glad he’s still hanging in there.

-Mitch

[Lefty]

Great write up

I'm going to challenge you to fill in the details, it may be 10 ,. 20 or 50 , years but you won't regret the time spent