Archery again

[six]

Archery Elk 2016

After a 5 year break from Archery, 2016 found me back in Colorado with my bow in my hand.

It all started earlier this summer when my son told me he was playing middle school football in the fall. This was bittersweet. No coaching for me this year , however it freed up my schedule to get in on an early season archery hunt . My plan was first week of archery for elk.

Time to start the planning process. I have rifle hunted with a couple of friends from high school for the past 5 years so my first call was to them. It went something like this.

Me: Hey I’m going to archery hunt this year instead of rifle. Would you like to join me? I’ve got an extra bow if you want to use it.

Tom: NO! I’m not a bow hunter.

Jim: I wasn’t planning on going this year.

Me: Well if you guys want to use my wall tent for a rifle hunt let me now.

I decided I’d like to go back to an OTC archery unit in Colorado where I had archery hunted before.

Now to find someone to go with. Everybody has that one guy who is always saying he would go if you ever get an opening. Hey Zack wanna go to Colorado with me on and archery elk hunt? YES!!! Music to my ears. Ok one down. There was one other guy who had expressed interest in the past. Hey Mark would you like to go to Colorado on an archery elk hunt? YES!!! Ok that was easy. Both guys had killed their fair share of whitetails. Neither had ever been elk hunting before and Zack had never been out of the state of Michigan. I divvied up what extra gear I could spare to help alleviate the greenhorns budget.

Fast forward to August. After numerous emails, text messages, pictures, and a couple face to faces. We all climbed into the pickup truck at midnight on August 24th. Turns out 4 a.m. is a pretty decent time to drive through Chicago. We arrive in central Colorado around 8 pm on Thursday during a heavy downpour. Not feeling real good about the hour drive up the mountain on a clay road in the pouring down rain we spent the night at a hotel. One last shower and hot meal in the morning and we were off. We reached the trailhead around noon. One last check of our equipment and we were headed up the trail into a wilderness area. We reached the end of the trail around 4 pm and set up camp. We soon found out there was no water close to camp. The seep had dried up. The creek was only a quarter mile away but it was a pretty steep climb with the water. Night came quick and we were still recovering from the trip. We made dinner and a game plan and we were off to bed. We had elk close enough to camp we could hear them chirping at each other about 11 pm.

Welocome to Colorado.jpg (247.97 KiB) Viewed 4508 times

Day 1
Mark and I did a little recon from one of the glassing spots. Zack would head up the mountain to a spot I had I shown him on the map. Mark and I heard 2 legitimate bugles. We decided to wait until we got our mountain legs to go after him as he was on the next mountain. We met Zack at camp around 11 and he had seen a good amount of sign. We had a snack and decided to go check out a wallow not far from camp. Zack stayed at camp to go over his gear. We were in some pretty thick deadfalls and jumped something. I motioned to Mark to ready his bow and I began cow calling. I made a couple cow calls and realized it wasn’t an elk. We had put a cub bear up a tree and momma was not happy. She was about 30 yards away smashing, crashing, and huffing like crazy. We exited stage left and momma bear calmed down. We soon found the wallow and it looked like it had chocolate milk in it. Mark and Zack came back later and hunted “bear wallow” until dark. While I hunted a small funnel the opposite way from camp. No elk seen on day one.

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Day 2

Zack and I teamed up and head up the mountain. Mark hunts a meadow at the end of the funnel where I hunted the night before. Zack and I found a large water hole/pond with a few elk tracks near the top of the mountain. Quite a bit of grass and water no reason for the elk to leave. We saw a lot of sign and did some cold calling but no elk. Zack and I headed back down the mountain and soon it started raining. About halfway to camp we jumped an elk as we were hurrying to get back to dry out. We had been taking our time doing some cold calling and such up until it started to rain. Well at least we know they exist. We got back to camp and decided to wait out the rain. Good news Mark had seen elk also. 4 cows. Not bad for our second day of hunting. It rained pretty steady for the rest of the day. I was glad to be sleeping on an air pad because once the ground became saturated water began seeping out of the ground inside the tent.

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Day 3

Morning hunt went well Mark saw some cows in the meadow again and I saw another bear. Zack went back up toward where we saw the bull the day before. That afternoon we decided to check out a different wallow about a mile beyond camp. The wallow looked good so Mark opted to stay there until dark. Zack headed back to bear wallow, and I sat a spring on a north facing slope. Zack didn’t see anything. I saw 3 elk on my way in and Mark had a bull bugle not far from the wallow.

That night Zack said he wanted to just hear a bugle and his trip would be complete. I don’t think I ever saw him without a smile on his face during the trip.

Day4 (Zack gets his wish.)

That morning Mark hunted the meadow while I hunted a couple of trails heading into a bedding area. Zack opted to stay back and hunt above camp where we had been seeing fresh sign. Zack heard two bugles that morning and thought it was Mark and I messing with him.

That night we surrounded Marks meadow. Mark was at the bottom. Zack was on the east end and I was at the west end. We all agreed at 7 pm I would bugle and do some calling. At 7 I heard some sort of cow call that had the pitch of a bugle. What the heck was that? I heard it a couple of more times and thought Mark was punching the hoochie mama I gave him. “dang it I told him to only use that thing after he shot”. About the time I was thinking this I caught movement out in the meadow. Elk pandemonium. I was catching glimpses of elk through the Aspen trees. They were 70 yards from me, 80 yards from Mark and 100 from Zack. Now a satellite bull joined on the commotion and bugled from on top of the meadow. This sent the heard bull. Yes I said heard bull and 15 cows back out of the meadow the way they came. After dark we met out in the meadow and the look on my hunting partner’s faces was priceless.



Day 5 (re supply day)

We hunted our way to the truck for more Mountain Houses. A hot bowl of soup, and to charge electronics. Well we got to see a cow and calf Moose near the trailhead. Another bit of excitement for the flatlanders.

Yup we are headed back to the meadow tonight for hopefully another show. Nothing doing. Not even a bugle.

That night we had a visitor in camp. About 15 minutes after we went to bed our cooking pan got tipped off a log and made a very distinct clang sound. Mark broke the silence with “you guys up?” Zack and I said “no” in unison. Zack and I rolled out of our tents to see a fox running off with a bag of instant coffee singles. We yelled at the fox and he didn’t seem to mind us at all. He came right back and went in a backpack lying next to a wood pile. Zack picked up a box of the coffee singles and threw it at the fox. It didn’t hit him, but landed close enough to scare him and he was off. It was a late night before anyone fell asleep. We decided to take the next day off and try some fishing.

Day 6 (Game on)

Even without much sleep we woke up the normal 5 am and ate breakfast. Mark said he didn’t bring a fishing pole so he was going to just bring his bow and hunt by the river. I told him no way I wasn’t taking a bow if he was so we all took our bows and 2 fishing poles. We were almost half way to the river and I let out a bugle. I got an immediate response from the next mountain. I turned to the newbies and asked “are we going fishing or are we going to kill that bull?” I was greeted with a resounding “we are going to kill that bull.” So off we went. It was already 730 and he was still bugling quite often. We hurried when we could and it was safe to do so. When we reached the river we dropped our packs and took the bare essentials. Bows calls and a knife. We had him pegged. He had been stationary for 30 minutes now right below a rock face. Our “plan” was to climb up to his level approximately 100 yards down wind of the bull. Then deploy the deadly triangle setup on the bull and scream in his face. If I’ve learned one thing in my 14 years of elk hunting it’s this. Things seldom go as planned when you’re trying to kill an elk. We were ¾ of the way to the level we thought the bull was at when things got crazy. As I rounded a pine tree there he was 20 yards staring right at me. The bull wheeled and took off. Mark who was behind me knocked and drew but the bull did not stop. I didn’t think about trying to stop him because I was too busy looking at a cow. She was watching the bull run off and was clueless I was even around. During the commotion Zack had slipped in the mud. As Zack was picking himself up off the ground he saw Mark at full draw and me knocking an arrow. I ranged the cow mentally at 50 yards as I was sure she was about to bolt. I drew and put my single pin that was set at 30 yards right at the top of her back just behind the shoulder. I shot and heard the arrow hit. She flinched and just stood there. I thought to myself how could I miss something so big. I knocked another arrow, turned my slider to 50 yards and sent another arrow her way. 10 ring’d her right in the V. She crashed off and I turned to see 2 flatlanders with the biggest smiles on their faces high fiveing me. They were both watching right over my shoulder as the second arrow flew through the air and hit its mark. We talked for a quietly for about a minute then heard a crash and a cow elk rolling down the mountain. I ranged where she stood and it was 47 yards. I went to where she stood and found my first arrow was a pass through. Second arrow a double lung and the broadhead buried in the offside shoulder. She wasn’t hard to find lying against a log with 2 feet in the air. We gave thanks and started breaking her down.

The rest of the day was spent hauling the elk and camp back to the truck as the flatlanders were done. We slept at the truck that night and headed back to Michigan the next morning.

[82ndreddevil]

Excellent job! I know those OTC hunts are hard as heck at times.Great story too man.

[six]

Couple more pictures.

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Elk down grab your packs.jpg (306.55 KiB) Viewed 4505 times

[Marshmstr]

Great story!!!


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[Fridaythe13th]

Great shot. Nice story. I bet you have two new hunting partners for life now.

[ElkNut1]

Great write up! Thanks for sharing the stories! Congrats!

ElkNut1

[MT Bound]

Nice hunt report! Sounds like a great hunt w some friends, awesome!

[Timber]

Sounds like a great hunt! Congrats on your cow!

[WapitiTalk1]

Yes! Way to get it done Mark. Congrats on pulling a hunt together with your buds and harvesting a freezer filling elk!

[oldnovice]

Nice. Sounds like this will be a regular thing with you guys!

[Elkhunttoo]

Congrats... Great write up

[six]

Thanks guys. I have learned so much from this site. One thing I didn’t realize
is how much more tender and tastier a
cow is compared to a bull. The meat is the best quality of wild game I have ever had. I definitely have a couple of hunting partners for life here. Best part is they are almost half my age which is a
very good motivator for me to stay in shape. They also don’t mind working their butts off to get an elk which is just what we did. We are already planning next year’s adventure.