Elk Tracking Tips

[WapitiTalk1]

Allrighty, that looked like a pretty darn fine shot. Arrow flight looked good, distance was within your effective range, and you visibly heard and saw the broadhead tipped arrow impact pretty close to that (>) pocket behind the shoulder. Upon impact, Barney bull took off like a rocket up the hillside through the sporadic brush and pines and disappeared over the top of the finger ridge. You make a mental note of the last physical sighting of the bull before he dropped over the ridge, mark the spot you shot from with a piece of flagging ribbon, and ...........

What do you do now? Take us through your method of tracking an arrow hit elk from now in the scenario to tagging the bull.

[Swede]

After marking the location where the elk was when hit, I would follow probably take a time out. That elk did not go down fast like I thought it would. Something is not quite right. I would get on my knees and take time to pray. These things don't always go well. It should bed down soon, but if it is alive and sees me coming, it will take off for parts unknown. Based on what I saw about the hit I would wait. That could be 1/2 hour or more. When I start tracking, I would follow the path it took to where I last saw it. Along that path I would take mental note of the amount of blood it was losing. I would note when the blood was at and the tracks. The tracks can tell you some about how well it was hit. When you get to the last place you saw the elk start looking carefully for the critter. Watch to see if it made a turn. If it was with a herd, it will turn off the path of the other elk and bed down nearby.
It is my lunch time now so I will leave the tracking and make something to eat.

[7mmfan]

I try to solidify everything that I know while it's fresh in my mind. I walk to the shot location and mark it. I then carefully get as close to the last spot that I saw him as I can, confirm it, and mark it. Then at least I can focus on the ground between the two marks and look for sign, tracks, blood, hair, arrow, etc...

Since you know he is out of sight over the finger ridge, you have no issues tracking to that point. In that distance you should be able to get a good idea of the quality of the hit and whether you should press on or leave him be a little longer.

I mark every piece of sign I find with flagging ribbon. Some folks use TP so they can just leave it, I like flagging ribbon because it's so visible. I just have to pick it up before I leave.

The last time I had to track an animal, I kept losing the trail in one particular area of thick fir saplings. I could back up to the edge, line of sight the ribbons and continue on but never could find sign on the other side. At this point I started circular gridding out in tight circles and within 10' found where he had turned inside the fir trees and went down hill before falling and sliding down off the edge of the cut bank below me.

[Swede]

I would agree with 7MM, but I remember trying to help a hunting partner find his elk after he tried the same thing. My partner shot his bull and thought he had a good hit. He saw it go out of sight, so he followed it for a way. The trouble was that the elk saw him coming. Even though the elk had gone out of my partners sight, he was soon spotted by the elk when he got closer.
If you are sure, you can close the distance without being seen it is ok to follow, but why get in a hurry? If the elk is wounded don't risk pushing it farther. You know you can't get to where you can see it without being seen so be patient.
When I went hunting with RJ in Idaho, I bumped the little bull I shot. Right then it took off again. That time I was very fortunate as it made finding him easier in heavy brush. There was almost no blood trail to follow, and the brush made it impossible to see very far. At the end of the day, you make your plan and take your chances.

[saddlesore]

Had two different hunting partners that got in too much of a hurry.The first took a tracking job of about 1&1/2 miles. Shot too far back and only clipped a lung and a gut.She went down twice,but I could not get him to wait a 1/2 hour. Second one was a bull Shoulder shot,not enough penetration. Down one side of a mountain 1/2 way up the other side. I told him to look for the elk while it tracked. He was looking to close in and the elk saw him from abut 150 yards,jumped up and took off.
My first action if I didn't see the elk fall, is always sit down and think of what I saw, where the elk was, sight picture, where I thought I hit it.,last place I saw it.

After that there is s no set of rules.Everyone is different

[7mmfan]

I probably should have been clearer. When approaching the spot that you last saw him always do so without revealing yourself if possible. In this RJ indicated the bull went up and over a ridge out of sight. I would probably get up close to the ridgeline without revealing myself over it and mark that location. I would also give at least 1 hour before tracking up and over. I would spend as much time glassing ahead as I would looking at my feet for sign, especially once a general direction of travel is established.

[Swede]

The problem with thinking you can get closer is, the bull will often turn and find a good vantage point if he still has the strength. RJ's bull went out of your sight over the ridge, but did he keep on going? I was absolutely shocked when one time a bull turned uphill and was watching me as I was carefully tracking it on a trail below. How/why was he up there? I wrote a magazine article about that incident, and I think it is mentioned in the tree stand book. I was so unsettled by the whole incident, that I tied it up after it was dead.
When I shot the bull in Idaho and bumped it 1/2 hour later, I immediately hiked out and went to camp. I had lunch, washed every dirty dish I could find and cleaned the camp better than it had been for days. All of this to give that little bull time to die. I know it is hard to wait, but sometime waiting will save you from losing a critter.