Mistakes

[cnelk]

Everyone has made them
Everyone has learned from them.

Please share some of the simple mistakes that are memorable, and that only you have made



1 - If you use a call with a neck lanyard, be sure to tuck your call(s) away before making a shot at an elk.
The bow string will surely find a way to hook that call and screw up your shot

[JohnFitzgerald]

When cold calling, make sure you give it plenty of time. We were in 4 miles and stopped 500 yards from our spike camp. Gave a series of lost cow calls. Decided we were too hungry and wet to stay more than 1 minute. Then 10 steps down the trail we ran face-to-face with a nice 6x6 bull who was coming in.

[cnelk]

Not clearing out branches above your bow when you set up to call, or not clearing out sticks, leaves where you are kneeling/standing

[Mikeha33]

Make sure that if you are planning on hunting with sunglasses on, practice shooting with those same sunglasses on. NOTHING more frustrating than drawing back, looking through your peep, and having nothing but a sunglasses frame in your way, blocking whatever you may be trying to see. Trust me, it can happen. 2 years ago on a spot and stalk whitetail hunt, I was walking directly into the Western setting sun, and didnt even think about having my sunglasses on. I got to within 30 yds of a 170" buck bedded with a doe. In the swirling winds, the doe scented me, and jumped up and took off, but the buck stood, and I drew back, and then he pranced to 40 yards, never noticing me, and stopped perfectly broadside. It didnt matter. I found myself looking into the nose-piece side frame of my sunglasses, and paired with the sun directly in my face, I couldnt see through my peep. He was dead to rights, but I screwed it up. I threw my glasses down and stomped on them. Now its a little extra black face paint for me under the eyes, and always a hat with a bill or brim.

[WapitiTalk1]

DO NOT leave your diaphrams on the dash of your truck, or, sitting out in the sun anywhere on a hot day. They can and will melt into very unuseable shapes

[elkmtngear]

When moving in on a screaming bull in the timber, sometimes they can be on you before you can blink. If you are walking on a heavily used game trail, and he comes a charging....GET OFF THE TRAIL. Preferable 10 to 20 yds on the leeward side.

Lost a bull on a 10 yd frontal shot because of this mistake, if I had jumped off to the side of the trail, it would have been a slam dunk.

[WapitiTalk1]

When cold calling, make sure you give it plenty of time. We were in 4 miles and stopped 500 yards from our spike camp. Gave a series of lost cow calls. Decided we were too hungry and wet to stay more than 1 minute. Then 10 steps down the trail we ran face-to-face with a nice 6x6 bull who was coming in.

Every single year, I mean every single year I fall prey to this mistake. it seems like I'd know better by now

[tdiesel]

I know this one is nothing new and probably the most common but nock an arrow before you call!!! man you would think I would learn. I guess I just never knew how sneaky I was until you call and 10 sec later he is looking at you fumble with crap trying to get him shot then he busts about the time you finally find the string but oh ya it all too LATE chock one up for the elk. I really am getting better at this but the first few years it seemed to happen more than I care to admit

[Rojix]

1. Drawing on an elk that was quartered away and thinking he won't see me, Wrong

2. After a long hike, sitting down to take a break and do some cold calling, then standing back up and Mr. Bull is 30 yards behind me looking confused why that tree is making those sweet cow calls. It's incredible how quiet they can be when they want to be.

[cnelk]

I know this one is nothing new and probably the most common but nock an arrow before you call!!! man you would think I would learn.

Happens to everyone

[>>>---WW---->]

Never drop your rompers to take a ( well, you know ) in the woods. It's often called getting caught with your pants down!

[WapitiTalk1]

Unless it's 20 yards or less, establish shooting lanes and do a quick rangefinder check on inanimate objects prior to starting a calling sequence. It's normally too late once a vocal or silent elk is coming in. I've made this mistake a few times resulting in an arrow "thwack" in the ground underneath a bull's chest or sailing an arrow over his back.

[CrazyElkHunter]

Mistakes! Had my share over the past 35 years. To many to count. It's part of elk hunting, and the learning process. Just make sure you learn from them. I am hard headed and have repeated one that I should not, especially since I am not so young any more with bad knees. I usually go with friends, but hunt alone mostly. I throw some common sense out the window when I hear bulls screaming in canyons and basins that were not meant for human traffic. I drop off anyway and pay the consequences later. The sound of a big bull, no matter where, has made me do some really stupid stuff. Packing only 30lbs of meat at a time, just to climb out, almost done me in back in the early 80's. Last year, fortunately, I took a younger, first time elk hunter, and when we dropped off, my right knee gave way while crawling over wind falls, fell into a hole and was wedged so bad I could not move. If he was not there, who knows. In my head, I think I am younger. My body says I am not. Dang bulls!

[cnelk]

Putting powder Gatorade in my water bladder...
BIG mistake

[Jahnke76]

Last year i setup and did some cold calling. After 45 minutes i decided nothing was happening so i took a little siesta. When i woke up there were elk tracks in my foot prints ten yards away and one of the guys in camp said he saw a bull heading my way about that time. Just trying to figure out how my snoring didnt scare him into the next county.

[JJ Overkill]

KEEP YOUR PIN ON THE TARGET!!!!!!!!

my big mistake on a forsure dead cow. i snuck withing 40-45yds of a small herd on my first elk hunt. they had no idea i was there. i was kneeling by a small pine tree at full draw . settled my pin in the v in her shoulder she was broadside and stopped. released my arrow and dropped my bow to watch the arrow fly. the arrow was dead in line but 1 1/2' low. its the only thing i can think of that went wrong. at that range my pins from 30 to 60 will be on the animal somewhere. i figured if i miss judge the range i would have had an arrow in a bad spot on her. i replay that shot in my head a lot. i hate the fact that i missed but im glade it was a clean miss.

[Swede]

You folks have "mistakes." I have blunders. The difference between a mistake and a blunder is that with a blunder I absolutely knew better, but did it anyway. Maybe a blunder could be defined as a stupid mistake.
When I got to my tree stand one afternoon, the drop cord was missing. I did not want to return to the truck, so I assessed the situation and decided I could carry my bow and other items and climb one handed to my stand. Things worked fine on the way up, but it clouded up and got cold that evening, so I got chilled and had to get out early. I was still 12 feet up when I had to release my one hand hold. At the same time a limb, I had one foot on, broke. I hit the ground so hard I was unconscious for over 1/2 hour. When I got up, I was literally sick to my stomach. I did not know where I was or what I was there for. I saw I was wearing camo, so I decided I was out hunting. At first, I wondered where my son was, but slowly remembered he was not out hunting with me. Fortunately I could see my pickup off in the distance, and slowly walked out of the woods. As I walked towards the truck I regained some of my faculties. I am not sure I ever recovered all of them, but I was fortunate that the fall did not kill me. I have never tried that stunt since.

I met a young man when I was driving to an area I planned to hunt. He worked with my wife and was new to hunting, so I invited him to accompany me that afternoon. We had lunch at our trucks, then we walked to where I thought we should wait until a little later in the afternoon. As we sat in the shade, he asked me to demonstrate an elk bugle. I said we were next to a good bedding area, so I wanted to stay quiet. He acted disappointed, so I said I would give out a short low volume call, just so he could hear it. After the call I kicked back and set my grunt tube down. My bow was resting on a log several feet away. Within 5 minutes, my new friend asked "what as that?" As you have already guessed, a branched bull had come right up behind him and spotted us just sitting there. Blunder one was now made.
I was totally disgusted. I knew better that to call and not be ready for something to show. Well I grabbed my pack and bow and said "lets go on." As I tromped off, we jumped a whole herd that was bedded about 70 yards from where we sat. Blunder two was chalked up.

Another blunder came on a rainy afternoon. I spotted an elk standing in the timber. Its head was in some brush, so I was not sure if it was a bull or a cow, but it was big. I slipped in to 30 yards of the broadside animal. I drew back my bow, but some limbs were in the way, so I let down. I trimmed the limbs, and drew back my bow again. Good deal. I had a clear shot right into the vitals of the elk. I released the arrow, and watched it strike a branch about 20 yards out. I knew I needed to focus some on the branch, so I would avoid it, but in my haste, I neglected to account for it. In the end the arrow stuck into the wet ground just under the elk's belly.

[Huntography]

Right before a hunting trip, do not wash your boots in hot water in the laundry machine and then put them in the dryer for "a little while" just to dry them a bit.

As soon as I went up and down that mountain on opening day, the soles delaminated.

Duct tape saved the day but boy that was a bonehead move. Doh!

Lesson learned.

Rudy

[RockChucker30]

I learned two good lessons last year and they're both regarding the same situation.

You spot 4 bulls in a park 500 feet higher than you and 500 yards away. They are feeding right to left. There is a deep gully between you and them with a creek in it. The sides are very steep. There is no way to get closer without being spotted.

I watched the bulls, one of which was a very good 6X6 for 30 as they continued feeding. The big bull went behind a small group of pines and disappeared. The other bulls continued down and took an almost vertical trail down into the gully to cross over to my side.

I tried to head the bulls off at the other side, but I didn't want to bust in on them and spook them, so I circled wide and did some blind calling setups. I never got on them.

The two lessons I learned from this:

1. I should have had my lightweight spotter and tripod. With it I think I could have picked apart those trees the big bull disappeared behind and probably would have found him bedded. Then I could have had several hours to stalk in on him to get a shot.

2. I wasn't aggressive enough with the other bulls. I should have run at them, where I thought they would come out of the gully, and tried to call one in at that time. Two of the three were legal.

I did wind up shooting the big bull the next day at the crossing I found....but I still think I could have had a bull a day earlier if I'd played my hand better.

[dapper]

Thirty some years ago, early in my bowhunting career, a friend and I went on two drop camp hunts in Montanas Bob Marshall Wilderness. There was a mineral lick about a mile from camp. The elk liked to visit the lick which was mostly in an open meadow. It was hard to ambush them from the ground, since it was pretty open except for a few trees that stood about twenty yards from the lick. So the second year that we did the hunt, I made an aluminum treestand that broke down(using a few bolts) to a size that would easily stash in my gear for the 18 miles horseback ride in. The first evening on that second hunt, I was perched in one of the trees near the lick. Back then I was hunting with a 77# black widow recurve and apparently didn't have an arrow holder on it, so I had my arrow laying on the branch of a large pine tree that was very handy. A while after I was there I seen a cow come down the slope about 100 yards away. Soon a whole herd was making its way towards the lick. There was my arrow still laying easily within reach, I should have grabbed it when I saw the first elk, but I was concerned she would spot me and I also knew they were headed for the lick which I was guarding. The whole herd walked directly beneath my stand and the huge bull that took up the rear added insult to injury as he bugled about seven yards from my stand. Then they walked to the far side of the lick which was 55 yards from my position, a bit far for my ability.

Lesson learned, once the quarry is spotted start preparing for the shot. At 100 yards the first cow would've never spotted me and I would've been ready.

[idahoghost]

My biggest mistake was not thinking I had the time to use my rangefinder. As it turned out, I had plenty of time to miss....Twice.

[cnelk]

if hunting with buddies, be sure all have your GPSs set to the same Lat/Long setting.

Once my buddy had an elk down and called me on the radio with the coords. We didnt have them set the same so I wrote his settings down, changed my settings to his, then entered his data so I could go in and help him.

[Trophyhill]

tunnel vision. getting so focused on the bull you are working that you don't know the spikes, cows and calves are all around you until they explode outta there taking the herd bull with them. and then bugling when i should have been cow calling and cow calling when i should have been bugling

[eriks.]

Make certain that the animal you are calling to is not in fact in a pen! That's exactly what happened to me a long time ago when I pulled a beautiful stalk on a turkey that gobbled again and again to my sexy yelps. Finally, after much calling back and forth, I peeked over the ridgetop and spied my tom in someones backyard chicken/turkey coop which explained a lot about the fact it would not come a step closer to me!

Ok, I know its not elk but I don't have any to make mistakes on. Give me time and I'll be just as bad as the rest of you.

[Swede]

Idahoghost: I know that had to hurt, but it is funny to read.

[idahoghost]

The Elk liked it too...

[Lefty]

My biggest mistake was not thinking I had the time to use my rangefinder. As it turned out, I had plenty of time to miss....Twice.

My big mistake too, really sad when I sent 2 arrows over a bulls back

[easeup]

several times over the years the simple rules seemed to get chucked out when the moment of truth is coming upon you...
like the one that is states simply.....you dont draw if you can see his head. (he can see you too) How hard is that one?

I chalk that one up to reasoning to yourself... there is not enough time if I dont draw now, or if I dont draw now I wont get another chance.

Now having failed that rule several times. my patience level is much better and the fear of not getting a shot is not so bad.

[cnelk]

I forget a stocking hat once for sleeping in the tent for late season elk. Only once

[pikemaster]

One mistake I have learned is not having a secound arrow out of the quiver ready to go. Been a couple of times that I missed the first shot and the elk have stood there trying to figure out what just happened and while trying to get a secound arrow out of the quiver they have spooked and off they went. So now when I set up to call I have one arrow nocked and one out of the quiver close to me ready to go.

[Backcountry]

One of my bigger mistakes is calling too much once I get a bull interested. I need to learn to shut up sometimes and make him come looking.

[Solitude]

Do a trial run with your alarm clock prior to opening morning!

I had packed in a couple miles solo, set up my tent in the dark, hit the sack, set my alarm and in the morning was awaken by a bugling bull walking a few yards by my freeken tent!

I sprung up, and pursued the bull half naked/freezing w/o contacts in sockless boots. I must have looked like a total clown, glad another hunter did not come by.

Needless to say, I lost that encounter.

[cnelk]

I forgot to bring coffee for long weekend hunt once.
THAT was a long weekend