Craziest elk experiences!

[elkaholic]

What are yours? Did they end in you arrowing the elk or result in the elk escaping?

I have two that come to mind immediately. To top it off it was with the same bull on the same day.
My first run in with this guy went like this:
My buddy and I had moved as close as we could (he set up probably 150 yards from the bull and his 8 cows while I crept to within 100 yards). He was getting the bull fired up and just as the bull committed to coming and kicking this intruders @$$, one of his cows erupted from her bed, sprinted in front of the bull with her ears laid back, and proceeded to herd him back to the rest of the group. As if that wasn't enough she then gave her "let's move" signal and away they went at a trot. I know they didn't see us and they absolutely didn't smell us. My jaw was on the ground...

A couple hours later we are able to locate them again. This time the plan was spot and stalk. My buddy was to stay back across the canyon and keep the spotter on them as I attempted to move in. Fast forward about an hour later and a little luck and I am kneeling behind a small bush and pile of rocks while the group is bedded less than 10 yards away. If I raise up slightly I can see the top of this bulls rack bobbing as he catches some afternoon Z's. I think to myself, " I have him, i will wait patiently and when he gets up to feed, bingo!" I have been there squatting behind this bush for a couple hours when I notice this pair of crows flying in the distance.
I can tell they do not have any specific destination in mind. Instead they are simply gliding along looking for the first opportunistic meal they can find. I really dont think much of it as they get closer and closer. Next thing I know they are hovering over us giving this weird gurgling/cawing sound. It freaks the elk out and the cows erupt from their beds and run out about 25 yards and stop. I figured the bull would be right behind them so I had come to full draw. Well I was wrong and he was standing in his bed looking at me through the bush. I held as long as I could but had to let down and away they went.

Crazy day, but what should I have done differently on that second encounter. I keep thinking instead of waiting I should have drawn, raised up, lip squeaked and tried to get a shot...

[Swede]

I don't think this is weird, but it is fun to see. While sitting in my stand over a water hole a herd of cows and calves came into drink. The calves ran ahead of the cows just like you would expect your kids to do as you approach the swimming pool. They ran in and danced around splashing. Soon the cows arrived and just waded in and drank. I have watched this a few times. No I have never shot one. I don't mind taking a cow, but prefer to wait early in the season.

[WapitiTalk1]

Ran my dad over, literally, with a bull I called in on an alder choked trail in Montana in the mid 80s. That was a fun day

[Lefty]

Ive repeated parts of this story a few times
I was sitting in my blind at some water
After blowing a shot at a 6x6 at 11 yards the bull stood and stared at my blind from 30 yards for 10 minutes while the cows and calves played. An hour later well after shooting time I was packing up and I could hear elk coming back.
The night was dark but I watched from my blind what I could see,.. not much, but the 9 elk were noisy, stomping and kicking and rolling, drinking, the calves romping, the cows mewing, the bull bugling, I moved from the window and tipped my head back and just listened to the going on. One of the elk were just feet behind me, a nose poked through the viewing hole of the blind, the nose just 4-5 inches from my head sniffing and sucking air.
It was the bull he blew snot and got it all over my face then he whacked the blind and bugled.
Sort of startled me
Im glad I was in a solid blind and not fabric,
The next day I checked , the elk had walked the cow trail I parked on and had bumped my mirror out of place on my pickup and had rubbed against my truck walking by

[LckyTylr]

Just kind of a funny one . . .

I was eating an early evening snack while waiting for "that feeling" when I thought I could get a bugle response. I was perched on a 25' ledge with a steep (unpassable) shale slope below that. On my right, there was a sharp knife-edge that wound down to a saddle with game trails dispersing into the browse. This comes into play. After a few minutes of overlooking a huge bowl full of really thick browse, I got the sense that I could get a response, so I packed up my stuff and started making some soft cow calls. The air was dead and I could hear my calls echoing back from all the way across to the other walls of the bowl. After only a few calls, I heard something crashing through the brush and it was headed directly at me. I kept thinking that I needed to pick a direction, left or right, but somehow I needed to get off that ledge. Well, the crashing turned out to be a small rag horn that was literally bounding through the brush to my calls and making a B line for me. I never did pick a direction and just sat there waiting for "the noise" to make an appearance. He popped out at the bottom of the shale slide about 80 yards below me looking up at the ledge wondering how in the heck a cow was up there. He desperately wanted to come up on the ledge and play my game, but he just couldn't figure out how to get up there. I had zero cover (rookie moves all day) and was pretty much skylined. He stood there and bugled, then trashed the brush, then bugled some more. Pretty soon he was barking in frustration as he danced around his little trashing tree.

All of this commotion caused quite a ruckus. It actually brought a sneaking cow up behind the bull, she came out right next to him, but he was so occupied with trashing that tree, he didn't see her. She quickly determined that he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box and decided that she was going to investigate that thing on the ledge. I could see the wheels turning in her head as she plotted a path that would navigate the steep terrain. She looked at the bull and licked her nose as if to say "shut up and follow me dummy" and starting walking at a quick pace towards the knife ridge. In only a few minutes, she was 25 yards above me rolling rocks down. Fortunately, she never had a chance to pinpoint where my calls were coming from so her search was over fairly quickly as she lost interest. Looking back on it, that was an opportunity served on a silver platter, I should have killed her. In my mind though, she had paved the way for that rag horn to come up and join in on the fun. He finally spotted her just as she was getting to the saddle at the bottom of the knife ridge. He watched her walk the entire ridge and pop out above me. The whole time . . . he'd look from her to my area . . . completely clueless as to how she made it up there. I remember being so mad at him for being such an idiot. He was the dumbest bull on the mountain . . . and I still couldn't kill him . . . must have been the blind leading the blind on a rock climbing course that day.

[JerryYong]

Got a call from my brother Tony late one night asking for help packing out a bull he had on the ground. Early the next morning I follow his flagged trail from the logging road up to the last flag he left and a pool of blood on the ground. Upon my arrival I hear my brother and his hunting partner Dan working their way up the draw to where I'm standing but neither of them had any elk on their backs. Thinking they had already packed the bull out before I arrived, I asked them (hoping!) if they were already done. Tony says "Nope, can't find him!" I asked, "What do you mean you can't find him? I thought you said the bull was on the ground?". Tony says, "Well, he was! I shot him right before dark last night and heard him fall right here under this tree. He was all twisted up so I pulled his legs straight and grabbed his horns and dragged him out from the brush as best I could to gut and quarter him. But by then it was pitch black, foggy and my flashlight was beginning to fade. Plus, I've never been in this area before and I wasn't sure of a safe route back to camp without light so I decided to leave him to go back to camp and get Dan and more light. When we returned to gut, quarter and pack him out, he was gone!" I asked him where he hit the bull and he said, "I aimed for the sweet spot at 30 yards and heard the arrow hit. I heard him pile up right here and when I got to him I was surprised to see that the arrow had hit him in the neck. I'm guessing the arrow got deflected by an unseen fir bough from the small fir he was partially standing behind. I asked him if there was a gut pile, thinking someone had come across the bull and decided to claim it for themselves while Tony was headed back to camp for help. Tony says, "Nope, there's nobody up here but us and not a speck of blood within a 300 yard circle of this blood pile that we could find and we've been looking for hours on our hands and knees, spraying hydrogen peroxide on everything that resembled even a speck of blood. He just disappeared." "So, when you checked to make sure he was dead, did you poke him in the eyes?", I asked. Tony's mouth drops and he says, "Uhhhhh, no, his eyes were closed now that you mention it." I asked him, "Do you think it's possible that the neck shot wasn't a mortal wound and that he wasn't really dead?" We realized at the same time that the bull had probably just went into shock, kind of like a video I saw once on Americas Funniest Videos show that showed a sheep passing out and going stiff legged from the stress of being attacked by a dog (or something like that). Even though that bull was never recovered, we're glad he didn't decide to start gutting that bull that night. Tony might not be with us today if that bull had awakened as he slipped that knife into his belly! Either that's what happened or there's one badass Sasquatch roaming those woods!

[JerryYong]

My brother Tony and I were hunting our then new elk area and it had been hot, dry and seemingly void of elk for the past three days. Hadn't seen or heard a peep from the elk. I was bugling from a logging road landing late one evening and I finally got a response from a bull about 1/4 mile down the hill below us. Not knowing the area yet we weren't quite sure how to get to him with only about 45 minutes of shooting light left, but a quick check of the map and we discovered an old 4WD trail that appeared to side hill the mountain we were on that would lead us to the approximate location of the bull. We bailed off down the mountain and came to the old trail. Tony was in the lead and we slowed down once we got in close to where we thought the bugle came from. Suddenly, he raises his hand and motions that he sees elk. Being in the rear I can only see patches of tan crossing the trail not 15 yards in front of us. We both nock our arrows in anticipation of getting a shot and then Tony suddenly draws his bow and just as quickly lets it down, turns his head slowly to me and mouths the words "It's a spike!" Our area, like most of Western Washington, is restricted to a three point bull minimum or cow, so a spike is the last thing we wanted to see! We can hear another elk feeding and a minute or so later another elk crosses the trail in front of us. Tony draws his bow back and again, just as quickly, he lets it down again. He turns slowly to me again and mouths the words "It's another damned spike!" A few minutes go by and it's now starting to get close to last shooting light. As we're motioning each other to leave we catch a glimpse of another elk crossing the trail. Tony comes to full draw and holds for what seems like a minute and I'm thinking "Yeah baby! Back straps on the BBQ tonight!" Just then, Tony lets down on his bow and out of pent up frustration yells at the top of his lungs "It's another F****** Spike! I can't F****** believe it!" Although those bulls were blown out of there, we didn't care and we both laughed all the way back to camp that night. That old 4WD trail is now called "Three Spikes Road" in our camp.