2023 what would you do!!! Slide over RJ ;)

[Elkhunttoo]

My turn for a minute with a true story to see what you would do

Sept 17 2021
Somewhere in the elk woods

Morning hunt brings no bugles and no luck so the group of 4 hunters split up for the evening to sit water and travel routes. One member of the group sitting a bunch of trails just out of a main saddle catches movement coming from his left. Pretty soon he can make out a decent 5 ish point bull that is coming at a walk on a trail that will put him at almost exactly 30 yards for a perfect broadside shot. About ten yards before the bull is in the clear he spooks from a squirrel that runs down a tree right by him. The bull jumps down the hill to a lower trail and stands and looks at the squirrel for a minute. Then he continues on his way left to right but because of the squirrel is just over 45 yards now. The time is about 15-20 minutes before sundown.

You draw, take aim, he is perfectly broadsided and turns his head to look down. Can’t get better than this. You rest your site behind his shoulder and let it fly. Only before your arrow gets to the bull you see it deflect off a branch. Once the arrow deflects you lose sight of it and off the bull goes.

One of the other members of your party was about 80 yards to your right and was able to watch parts of this play out. The bull takes off and you cow call and listen for a few minutes…you hear nothing.

The far right hunter moves over to the shooter to start the “mandatory archery shot rundown” and you both fill like you need to wait at least 30 minutes before doing much moving. With about 10 minutes left of shooting light you are looking for the arrow and tracks and bingo! We got blood! Not much blood but blood. Blood is on the left side so we know we have a pass through.

They give a little bit more time looking for the arrow to help them out. No luck. So they start on the blood. Not great but not terrible for the first little ways to where the bull slowed back down to a walk. By this time it’s and hour after dark and the other 2 from the party (me and my wife:) have contacted you and are on our way to help. We get there and when I see the blood trail it’s not looking good. They tell me at the beginning there was a bit more blood but not much.

We talk it out and decide to back out and come back in 5-6 hours. The best part about this whole thing is we are only about 200 yards above the road.

We are back on the trail with lots of lights about 1 1/2 hours before daylight and making way better time…we have gone about 400 yards and one member of the party right at daylight says the famous words! “I see your arrow” he picks it up to inspect it and is looking at it kinda funny and says “it’s not your arrow!”

Now what do you do?

[Swede]

First of all I would not take that long of a shot. Others do and are comfortable with it, but it is too far for me. You cannot be sure you had a pass through. You could have hit an offside leg. The likelihood of getting this bull is not good.
I would get one person to go with me and return to the last blood. Start carefully tracking from there. Look for any and all sign. Maybe you did get a pass through. We are guessing. I would ask the two others to go out ahead and look carefully all around. You will need some luck to place your tag on this 5X5. As you and your partner track, you need to be watching to see if the bull turned or fell off the trail. About 0900 I would go to camp and get some breakfast and some snacks. If you have gone as far as possible tracking, then do the best general search you can for as long as you have any hope.
I may get some criticism here, but if I did not find anything to encourage me to go farther, I would quit the search about noon and go in for lunch. After lunch I would go out for an afternoon/evening hunt. In two more days I would go back to where the bull was last tracked and start another search. This is just to see if I can find evidence that the bull was killed.

[Tigger]

Since you have seen or heard nothing from another hunter, I would treat the bull as being shot by me and make all attempts at recovery. I may ask around later to see if I can find the hunter. But given that there was a decent blood trail at the beginning, my first inclination is that the other hunter did not put forth enough effort.

[WapitiTalk1]

EHT, tell us more about the arrow that wasn't yours. Did it have fresh blood, paunch goo, hair on it? Interesting situation, I'm curious to hear the rest of the story.

[Swede]

I have found so many old arrows out in the woods, that the arrow in the scenario we are following did not pique my interest. After RJ's question, I wonder. Was the arrow near the bloody trail of the bull you hit? If the arrow was shot at any elk, there should be another person looking for or butchering an elk nearby. It is unusual that two hunters, not from the same party, to be shooting at the same elk right before dark. That sounds like quite a coincidence or a very high-pressure hunting area.

[Elkhunttoo]

We had been tracking close to 800 yards when we found the arrow…arrow is in almost perfect condition covered in fresh blood laying right in the middle of the trail.

[Tigger]

.....the plot thickens......

[Swede]

Do you estimate the blood on the arrow on the trail was concurrent with the elk you shot passing by that location? Was the arrow left there on purpose as a marker? If the hunter and the bull you shot came together, you should also be looking for the hunter. It is odd that you are not seeing more of a blood trail after finding the arrow. I would still say the bull is his/hers unless you can show convincing that you had a lethal arrow in it and you would have recovered it on your own.
Maybe Elkhunttoo, you are pulling our legs or are leaving out something.

[Elkhunttoo]

I wish I was pulling your leg but nope!

We talk about all the things we have seen so far. All the blood was on the left side of the trail. When our guy saw the bull he never saw the left side. But he is swearing up and down that this bull wasn’t hurt in any way. He reminds us that the bull spooked from a squirrel.

It’s super early morning. We are on fresh blood. We have seen no other hunters or head lights. We decide we are moving on and following the trail….

To be continued

[Swede]

After an arrow hit something, it can dramatically change directions. The arrow does not always pass through and continue in the same direction. Especially, if the elk turns upon impact that arrow can go in any direction. Did you or your team members look to see if the elk was somewhere in the surrounding area when you found the bloody arrow? Is it possible that another hunter killed the bull shot earlier and after making the shot, he left to get help? As long as you guys were out, you should have run into someone if another hunter shot any elk around there about the time you guys got a shot.

[Elkhunttoo]

Morning breaks and with 4 of us and the bull sticking to good game trails we are able to move along fairly fast. Very very little blood now and we have gone close 2 miles…going sometimes 80-100 yards with no blood. The bull has never bedded down…never ran…never has given any sign of even being injured.

With over 2 miles on the trail and working with little to no blood our hopes are draining fast. We stop at 9:30-10 to pow-wow and I tell my brother in law (shooter) that I want to go back to the scene of the crime and look for his arrow now that it is daylight. I am convinced that this elk has travelled this 2 miles in about 30 minutes and someone else had shot this bull in the shoulder previous to my brother in law shooting at him.

So we split up. Shooter stays on the trail and we start the hike back. This location was ideal with a road that parallels the side of the mountain and this bull stayed about 200 yards above the road the entire way..we walked the road all the way back up. We are just getting to where the bull was standing when I look up the mountain and see two guys on there hands and knees right where the bull had spooked from the squirrel and dropped down the mountain… they hadn’t seen us yet and they were talking to each other and looking for blood so I said a little loud good morning.

They both stood up and looked a little surprised to see us. They both had their bows and I could see that one of them had the same fletchings as the arrow we found. I pointed at him and said, “let me guess, you shot a bull last night in the left side”. He was a little surprised but said yes…I told him, well, crazy story but my brother in law shot at the same bull right here last night and the blood trail is right here…showed them where the bull had spooked and told them we left his arrow on the blood trail right where we had found it….this guy had shot the bull about a mile from where we were and they said the first 200 yards they had lots of blood and he thought it was a good shot…we back tracked the tracks from where my BIL had shot and sure enough blood all the way..we think There was a little more blood right there just from the bull jumping from the squirrel and from the arrow shot at him. As soon as he slowed back down there was very little.

The shooter from our party was able to track the bull another half a mile…we took the guys to there arrow and then my BIL showed up and said he had lost blood…he had marked it on his maps and had even took a picture of the last blood drop on a big log in the middle of a meadow on the top of the ridge. We gave these guys all the information we had and turned it over to them. I’m almost certain my BIL hit that branch and his arrow when way high but we could never find it.

This bull had traveled over 3.5 miles and got shot at by two guys in the span of about 30 minutes. I’m certain the shot hit this bull in the shoulder and did little to no damage as he didn’t act hurt at all when my brother in law shot at him.

I’m not sure if that bull was the luckiest bull on that mountain that day or the most unlucky

[Swede]

The story was not adding up in my mind, but now it makes perfect sense. You have put the story together very well. At least it had me thinking about it while I was exercising and going about my chores.
I remember one season when I was about to draw my bow on a bull that came into water. Just as he bent his head to get a drink a squirrel started a loud chatter. The bull blew out of there and I had nothing left. If looks could kill, that squirrel would have been toast.

[Lefty]

I spend a lot of time looking for any arrow, I want to find that arrow.
Any remote miss I still track and search