Two VERY Important Lessons Learned

[cohunter]

This season I learned to VERY important lessons. Fortunately for me, it all ended up fine, but here they are:

1. Always be sure your bow and cams are absolutely clear of any obstructions. I know, it seems obvious, but as a self-taught archer and hunter, this never came up in any of my reading or experience. Obviously, I'm not going to let a stick get caught in my cam, but a stem of grass or a fern? Here's what happened to me: I was sitting on a wallow waiting for some elk I heard coming in. After about 1.5 hours of cracking sticks and cow talk, I finally saw a cow, but never had a clear shot. She was followed by a legal bull and just before he stepped from behind a thick bush at around 25 yards, I drew. He stepped out and stopped with his vitals directly behind a large stump. I held my draw and as he took a few more steps, I swung my bow over to follow him. Unbeknownst to me, as I did this the stem of a fern caught in the notch at the bottom of my cam. (most cams have this notch where the string is attached) When I squeezed the trigger, the fern was sucked into the rotating cam, spraying my face with fragments of fern and yanking my bow to the side. I'll never forget the horrible feeling of watching my arrow sink directly into the bull's paunch. It took several minutes for me to piece together what had happened, but finally I noticed the smashed fern stem, the fragments of fern pulp all over myself and the bow and I was finally able to put the pieces together. Maybe I'm just stupid, BUT I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who hasn't really thought about the consequences of a stem of grass or small, soft obstructions in your bow cam. Just imagine how hard it is to hold a bow steady with the unexpected sideways force of an ounce or two. At any rate... Lesson learned. At that point I decided I'd be the new "make sure your bow cams are TOTALLY clear" evangelist.

2. Sit tight after a bad shot! I'd picked this one up in my reading. After the bad shot I felt horrible, but I didn't move at all. I sat as still and quiet as possible for the next hour. At that point I marked my location with flagging (on the offending fern stem) and snuck out of the draw as carefully as if I'd been stalking a bedded elk.

DSCN0884 - Version 2.jpg (26.64 KiB) Viewed 5877 times

When I returned with a pack (thinking optimistically), my flagging was laying in the dirt in a pile of slobber As I tried to find a blood trail I didn't have a drop. I followed tracks for 30-35 yards and found a place an elk had been bedded and tracks that looked like it had tried to get up in a hurry. As I tried to piece together the direction of travel, my eyes picked out the form of an elk lying there... dead.

DSCN0885 - Version 2.jpg (61.3 KiB) Viewed 5877 times

By sitting tight, the elk was relatively un-spooked. He bedded as soon as he found cover. He actually didn't travel as far as the dead-on-the-money shot I made on a bull last year which piled up within 10 seconds.

[sojurner 65]

Congrats to you, a nice bull!

[Mike_Parson]

congrats!!!!!!

[Elkhunttoo]

Congrats

[TurkeyBowMaster]

Congrats on a nice bull.

So many things to go wrong bowhunting. Even if one limited their self to 30 yard shots with a gun, it would still be 3x as difficult to get the job done with a bow.

Major arteries in the midsection are quick kills but miss them...not so quick. You did the right thing by waiting.

Learning from mistakes is part of a he process. Lot of advantages to going bow only for everything... shortens the curve when you are killing 20+ animals per year.

[ishy]

Great job. I've had a bull at 2 yards that I had a stick get into my bottom cam and I had to let back down which doesn't work at two yards.

[elkhuntfever]

Great job and story.

[baddaddy]

Great Job!

[JKaboom]

Well done and thank you for sharing

[redtop]

Well done and thanks for sharing your lessons. We've all been schooled many times by bowhunting for elk over the years. I always hated school. The time it all goes perfectly and according to the plan? I'm still waiting for that one.

[cohunter]

Thanks, Guys! I really appreciate that this board is a place that people share ideas and lessons learned without fear of being called an idiot (definitely felt that way on my own after this hunt, thank you very much!)