Interesting encounters and funny stories...

[FemoralArchery]

This elk season got off to a rocky start. I showed up in camp the evening before the season opened. I noticed smoke from the other side of the mountain, but didn't think much of it. When I arrived in camp, I asked where the fire was. Nobody was sure, so we took a drive to a high vantage point...

Uh-oh. The fire is on the far side of the drainage we like to hunt. This is not going to be good. We decide not to hunt in the morning, but rather to come back and look at the fire. And we do, this is looking better. The fire has not moved much since last night, and has laid down nicely. No large flames and very little smoke. We decide to head back to camp and eat breakfast. While heading back to camp we spot 9 bulls. No monsters, but several 5x5s and 6x6s. Their horns are still white from recently shedding their velvet. Makes counting points much easier.

We go and eat breakfast and decide to go look at the fire mid day. We take the ranger to get down a rough road to get to a better vantage point. Things have gone south again, the fire is roaring now. Several helicopters and planes are attacking the fire, but due to the extreme terrain, the can't access much of the fire. Every thing my dad scouted prior to the season is already gone, and some of our favorite areas seem to be in danger.

While we are watching we see 3 bears. They are right near the fire. Within a couple hundred yards. And they stayed that close and closer the entire time we watched. Very strange.

The fire has now reached the bottom of the drainage and starts coming up our side. We decide to head back and have some dinner and think about what the next day will have in store. After dinner, we decide, lets go check it out this evening. No sooner than we pull out of our secluded campground, a sherriff's deputy comes pulling up and waves us over. He tells us that we now have to leave. We tell him we will leave Monday, (today is Friday and we all have a 4 day weekend). We aren't very concerned at this point because we are roughly 6 miles from the fire, as the crow flies. Probably closer to 12 miles if you count all the up and down, at least that's how I feel after hunting the area. Anyway, after he tells us that and heads towards the fire to notify other camps, we follow him. We are at least going to get some pictures before we take down camp. We catch up to him and we show him where some other camps are, (he didn't seem too familiar with the area and with roughly 80 years experience between us, we figured we could help him). He was very grateful for the info we gave him and was a very nice guy in general. We made it to our original vantage point and the fire was nearly up to the road that we were on earlier. Its gaining ground fast in every direction. We get several pictures and head back to camp.

Its well after dark when we get back and we decide that we will pickup camp in the morning and head home. We awoke early enough to hunt and decide to drive over and check on the fire again before a morning hunt. Again, the fire hasn't progressed much since the night before and isn't showing much activity at all. We decide that they will probably have this fire under control and we should probably be able to stay. We head to a hunting spot and wouldn't you know it, there are people there. So we drive to another, and people are there too. We head back to camp and regroup. We have some breakfast and decide on a midday hunt. I agree to drop off two guys and then pick them up at the end of their hike. I can see a section of the drainage they are hunting, and decide to glass while they are moving through to maybe see some sneaky animals trying to get away. I park on the main road and get off the road a little ways with my chair and spotting scope. I sit there for a over an hour and there is LOTS of traffic, traveling both ways. I figure its time to go pick them up and when I leave, I run into a forest service guy. He asks if I know whats going on. I say kind of but not really. He informs me that the entire forest is now closed to all activity and we need to pack up sooner than later. So we do. I pick them up and we tear down camp and head on home...

This is chapter one. Not much hunting, but that will change soon enough. The funny and interesting stories will follow shortly...

[FemoralArchery]

Apparently you can't post pictures from tapatalk? The few pics I have are on my phone...

After we head home, we decide to go to a new area and check it out. We get up early and head out. We arrive just after daylight(running a little behind) and all 4 of us split up and head in different directions. I get dropped off about a mile and a quarter from the pickup to walk down a locked logging road. I take off and there is lots of tracks, but someone has been driving the CLOSED road on a fourwheeler. I was 95% percent sure I heard him ahead of me, so I'm not to enthusiastic about this morning. I turn back a little earlier than normal and when I get back to the gate, no one is there waiting. No problem, I will walk back to the truck. Its fairly warm and I take off my longsleeve shirt and put all my hunting stuff back in my pack. I still have on my release(this will come back and bite me) and my bow is in my hand. I hit the main road and head back to the truck. I'm not hunting and making no effort to be quiet. I see that some elk have been crossing the road and don't give it much mind. I'm only a couple hundred yards from the truck when I hear something. I look to the downhill side of the road there is a cow's head, roughly 11 yards away. I freeze and start thinking, "Do I have my release on?" I don't know why this was such a hard question for me to answer because I could have looked down or felt it with my hand. But in any event, she spins around and heads into the 6 foot tall brush. I determine that I do in fact have my release on. I nock an arrow and follow her. I know she's close because I can hear calf calls very nearby. The steepness of the hill and height and thickness of the brush limits visibility to roughly 10 yards and they were farther than that. I come up to an old burned stump and decide to climb up and try to figure out if I can get a shot off. As soon as I get balanced on top, the stump starts rolling over downhill. During the fall, I was torn between the decision to save myself (and not get impaled on the broadhead, or save my bow and take my chances. I opt to take my chances and hold my bow at arm's length (broadhead away from me) and made a surprisingly soft landing in the brush... No damage to equipment and no injury(except my pride).

Elk exit stage left, trotting.

All parties encountered elk this morning, and not one other hunter is sighted in the woods or on the road. My dad came upon a young bull in the thick brush glunking. The bull was all alone and my dad was within 20 yards, but the thick brush prevented a shot...

We opt for dinner in town as opposed to an evening hunt, but are encouraged by the elk sightings and lack of hunters in the event that we cannot return to our preferred area... End chapter 2.

[FemoralArchery]

Skip ahead to Friday the 13th. I arrive to camp before daylight and opt not to hunt because I only got about an hour of sleep the night before... Part of our area is now open and we have limited places to hunt, but with all the rain we've been getting, we expect it to open the rest of the way soon.

I take a nap and go for a drive midday. When I arrive back at camp ealy in the early afternoon everyone else has arrived. I now hear that the other section will be open in the morning and we decide to go see if we can find some elk for tomorrow's hunt. My buddy and I go for a drive. We follow an old logging road through a thick patch of timber on a north slope where some cows have been spotted in the mornings from hunts earlier in the week. When we get there, my buddy realized he forgot his calls and asks me to throw out a locater bugle. I don't have my tube, so I just cup my hands and give it a shot. Nothing. Oh well, bugling from the ranger isn't really my thing, but hey, I'll give it a shot. We drive farther into the timber and try again. Nothing. We drive to the end of the road and stop. We just sit there for a few minutes talking and he says to give it another shot. So I do. This time he hears an answer, way off. I try again, he hears an anwer. I can't hear anything, so he must be way out there. I tell him to get after him. At first he says no, because he forgot his calls. Then he says, I will head up there and you just bugle every 5-10 minutes so I can figure out where he's at.

Sure thing, get going man. He takes off, I wait a little then bugle. He answers, but still very faint. I bugle again after a bit and he answers, slightly closer. A little more time and a couple more bugles and then I get an answer that sounds like a person. Very yodely, very human like. And its much closer, if it were him, he would be at the top of the small ridge that was between him and I. I decide not to answer because I think my buddy might have found a bugle tube in his pack and be toying with me. I ignore him again, and now I hear 2 different bugles up the timber, where we drove in from. I'm not sure what to think. So I sit on a stump and start dozing off. Then I hear something coming from the area of the closest bugle. I think it might be the bull, or my buddy so I just sit quietly. It was my buddy. He got within 90 yards, but got busted on movement. Darn, but still a great encounter since we hadn't even planned on hunting that evening. It turns out it was in fact the bull bugling at me, he just sounded like a person. Apparently he started doing the nervous grunt when he bugled at me from the top of the little ridge (which was only a few hundred yards away) and didn't get a response. I never heard him do that, but that's what my buddy said.

While driving back to camp, we spot the bull and 3 cows on an open ridge. My buddy tells me he had more cows with him earlier and he must have lost some to a bigger bull. The bull never winded my buddy, so we were confident we could come back in the morning and give it another shot.

And we do. All 4 of us come back. 2 guys from the top, and 2 guys from the bottom. I go in with my buddy's dad from the bottom. We hike up a trail in the dark and sit down and wait for daylight. We hear a bugle up the draw and when its light enough we start up the draw. We come to a fork in the draw and decide to split up. I go straight and he goes off to the right. The draw is pretty steep and the bottom 40 yards on either side is brushy and has quite a few trees growing in it. The hill side I'm on is open and grassy. I head up the trail slowly and quietly just above the brush. Since there are 2 guys coming down the draw, elk could be headed down at any minute. I get 200 yards or so up from the split and sit down. I let out a location bugle just like the night before. The answer I got was from the guy I just left. I don't think he knew I had a bugle with me, so I stopped calling so that I didn't call him back to me. I sit quietly for a few more minutes and then at the top of the draw on the far side, directly across from me, I see a grouse fly out and soars off into the morning sky. I think, I'll wait a little, something may have spooked said grouse and it could be an elk. Then I see an elk. A bull. directly across the draw from me, roughly 250 yards. He's moving up the draw, parallel to the bottom. I'm not really sure what to do at this point to make him come to me, and before I can make a decision, he turns and heads straight towards the bottom, and straight towards me. He goes in and out of sight, due to the trees growing in the bottom. When I see him again, he's going into the bottom and angling slightly to my left, upwind. I range the bottom of the draw, 45 yards. Perfect. I range a small opening up the draw from me, where it looked like he was heading. 55 yards, perfect. I have an arrow nocked, and positioned myself towards the opening where he was last headed. I hear him moving and he sounds like he's on course. Its very quiet, and then I catch movement, rougly 9 yards away, directly in front of me. He sees me about the same time I see him. Uh-oh. I draw and he wheels and takes off. Guess what? He comes out right where I thought he would. He stops and I shoot, over his back. Now he is running uphill and stops long enough for me to range. 75 yards. I'm comfortable shooting this far. He trots a little more, now he's directly above me on the hill. I give a fawn bleat and he stops broadside. I hold for 70 because of the steep hill and shoot again, over his back. Apparently he was closer than that. Damn.

I head back to the road feeling defeated. No other shots taken by the other guys, but my buddy got to 30 yards on the same bull again. And he was right, there was a bigger bull in there... I got a pic of the smaller bull, but its on my phone.

[FemoralArchery]

Now Saturday evening is where the interesting encounter occurs.

We head to the area where we saw all the bulls opening day, but couldn't hunt due to the fire. We drive to the top and 3 of us head down the ridge. A ways down, the trail splits and makes a big loop around the top of the ridge. My dad and I go left, and my buddy goes right. We have radios and agree to call each other if we find elk. My dad and I make it down the trail a couple hundred yards and I think I hear a bugle. It was kind of windy, and I wasn't sure, so I dismiss it. We stop above a small rocky point that overlooks the drainage below us. I hear a bugle below us. This one has chuckles on the end, not like the first one. I tell my dad, he's half deaf so sometimes he can't hear them. We walk down to the rocky point and carefully peak over. No elk, but we see 2 guys way down at the bottom, I mean way down there. They are headed up the draw. We hear another bugle to the left, about half way up the draw, between the guys at the bottom, and where we parked at the top of the draw. Then another from down near the guys. We decide that there are some elk in the draw. A small finger ridge prevents us from seeing the entire draw, and the offside of the small finger ridge is covered in timber, most likely where the elk are.

Past experience in the are tells us that if the elk are spooked, they will go out the top. There are 3 different saddles at the top end where they are likely to exit. We head back to the first one, just on the other side of the small finger ridge. We can see down the draw better now and see the timber, although we still don't see any elk. We are in one saddle, the one at the lowest elevation, our ranger is parked in the middle one, and the farthest and highest one is across the way and its pretty far, so we think that one is least likely to be used today. We call my buddy back and he is on his way. We sit atop a rocky outcropping. The most likely exit point is about 60 yards to our right, wind in our favor. I bugle a couple times and get a response. Then a couple times with no response, then I get responses that sound like the people (with chuckles, like the one we heard come from the direction of the guys earlier). Then we start thinking that we are hearing the people. My buddy arrives and tells us about a giant buck he missed. A non typical that was probably in the 190 range. He shot over him at 30 yards. We tell him what we heard and saw, and now we are thinking that we are actually calling in 2 hunters. My dad decides that we might as well call in the hunters to the top of the mountain. My dad is an ornery cuss. My buddy and I both start bugling. We are just goofing off and seeing if we can bring a couple hunters in. We haven't got any answers except for the one that we think is a person, so we decide that we have been duped. Oh well, its too late in the evening to head back down the mountain, so we get up to leave. My dad and buddy both stand and before I get up, I look and see a bull through the branches of a tree that I ranged at 157 yards. I tell them to get down, elk are coming. They don't believe me. Then they see him move. Now they are scrambling to get behind some rocks and get positioned for a shot. There are 2 bulls now, a 5x5 and a raghorn. They are coming right up towards us, but they are moving slowly. I am still laying in the open, but the rock ledge affords me a little cover and I stay still. Now the bulls are at 140 from me, but I last ranged my buddy at 45, and they are moving towards him. I hear a rock or something and so do the elk. They aren't too spooked and change course and walk over the small afore-mentioned finger ridge. No chance for a shot. My buddy jumps up as soon as they are out of sight and sprints through the saddle. Hoping to catch them when they come around. My dad walks up to the saddle and waits for my buddy. I stand up and strecth out, hiding from elk is hard work. While standing there, I see the two guys directly below us, their body language implies that they think they have been played. I don't know if they ever saw the elk. I walk up to my dad and tell him the two guys made it up there. He was amused, I guess his plan worked.

My buddy comes back about 10 minutes later. We asked if he caught up with them. Oh yeah he says. He was running down the trail, hoping to catch up to them thinking they had trotted on around the hill. He looks over and sees them just beyond where we lost sight of them from the other side. Apparently they stopped when they were out of sight. The smaller bull sees him but the wind is in my buddy's favor. He lays down in the sagebrush. The 2 bulls start walking towards him, he last ranged the 5x5 at 12 yards. He draws and takes a quartering-to shot at less than 12 yards. He slipped it right behind the shoulder. After the shot the bull ran a little, then started walking. Then he stopped for a minute, then walk slowly, then stopped then walked out of sight. He looked hurt bad and his side was covered in blood. All three of us are confident in the shot and decide to come back in the morning to pack him out.

As we were leaving, we see the two guys again, the bugled several times and I think they were voicing their displeasure, but we didn't care. Our plan worked to some extent and hopefully we would have a pack job in the morning.

We call for reinforcements and 5 of us take up the trail at first light. There isn't much blood after the first 300 yards, but the open sandy ground provided for easy following of his tracks. We followed him nearly 2 miles and the 5 of us spent 3 hours looking. No bull. Sad ending to a weekend, but there is lots of time left.

I'm headed out again on Thursday, and staying for as long as it takes or until the end of the season. Hopefully I will have more stories and encounters to add to this.

[FemoralArchery]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435664.833741.jpg (275.38 KiB) Viewed 2779 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435685.599105.jpg (261.65 KiB) Viewed 2779 times

[FemoralArchery]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435729.586609.jpg (298.06 KiB) Viewed 2777 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435789.116003.jpg (240.1 KiB) Viewed 2777 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435814.898856.jpg (224.88 KiB) Viewed 2777 times

[FemoralArchery]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435908.172884.jpg (247.74 KiB) Viewed 2775 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435923.932189.jpg (109.85 KiB) Viewed 2775 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435935.258911.jpg (112.2 KiB) Viewed 2775 times

[Vanish]

Thanks for the story!

[FemoralArchery]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435968.820426.jpg (195.37 KiB) Viewed 2772 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379435990.865564.jpg (119.52 KiB) Viewed 2772 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379436040.925944.jpg (122.16 KiB) Viewed 2772 times

[FemoralArchery]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379436100.781159.jpg (123.54 KiB) Viewed 2771 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379436133.358365.jpg (251.72 KiB) Viewed 2771 times

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1379436202.497009.jpg (106.86 KiB) Viewed 2771 times

[FemoralArchery]

Thanks to gcs13 I figured out how to post pics. These were all taken with my iPhone. Some were taken through my spotting scope.

Several pictures of the fire. The very last picture is showing the bear and the fire. The bear is bottom center. It was taken from over 1 1/2 miles so the quality is lacking a little.

[elkaholic]

Great story Adam. I wonder If the bear was picking off small game that was fleeing the fire? Love the picture of your son? Shooting the bow.
Good to hear that you were able to hunt your unit and get into animals.

[FemoralArchery]

Ya, that's my oldest boy. I took him up for an overnighter for his birthday. He got to see deer, elk, bears, turkeys, grouse and a great horned owl. His favorite was the bear.

I don't know what the bears were doing. I only got pics of one, but there were 3 of them in that area. Very interesting to watch. I wish we could have stayed and watched longer.

Red is the one that shot the bull that we couldn't find. I felt bad for him. We found the frog on his pack the morning we went to look for his bull. Turns out the frog was the only meat packed that day.

[one_elk]

Thnaks for the novel, oops I mean story...impressed with folks who can write that much...