Bittersweet Closing Weekend (mostly bitter)

[BRazz]

I just returned from my last weekend bowhunting, and I'm probably as down as I've ever been - down on hunting, down on myself. What a rough go... I'll try and be brief but give the full story.

The first three trips I made were relatively uneventful, which made for a long a tiring season. But I stuck to my guns, knowing that elk were in the area I was hunting, and when the final four days of the season arrived I headed up...

Thursday
The wind was brutal. My go-to spot during this time of year is a series of meadows atop several finger ridges. These meadows - which span nearly a half mile - are cut by aspen groves, dark timber, and semi-open areas of sparse pine: pretty much a guarantee that elk are in there somewhere, and on a quiet September morning a guy can nearly always hear some bugling to chase (key word is "quiet"). This particular morning I got into some elk, but never got close enough to see them through the trees. But I had a good idea where they were, which was a win.

I spent the mid-afternoon sitting by a wallow near their bedding area. When I decided to try and intercept them moving from beds to feed, I moved from there about 5 pm. I have a game camera setup, and later I discovered a nice 5x5 was in there from about 6:30-7:30!!! I saw a couple cows slinking through the trees but could not get close enough. No bugling at all.


Friday
Woke up to a slight drizzle, and hiked up to where the elk were the night before. Due to the storm arriving, the wind was finally calm, and I was able to hear some bugles to chase. But they weren't on fire, so I kept losing them and misjudging their direction. Saw a couple bulls feeding across a meadow, not bugling, and would not respond to my calls. As I hiked my way to a nearby ridge, where I figured the Mr. Bugles was headed at first light, I blew out a bugle in desperation. Naturally (works every time, riiiiight...), he responded not more than a couple hundred yards up the ridge... and off I go! I caught up to them and got close enough to have some bum-puckering bugles resonate, but I never got a look at the herd bull. I did see a satellite bull, so tried to sneak up and make some cow calls - when a cow and calf responded and came running over!!! I crouched and drew my bow on the calf as she crossed an opening, but then decided to wait for the cow who was trailing closely. The calf slammed her brakes and stared at me (ugh.....) for a good 10 minutes (not exaggerating), during which time that satellite bull came up to the cow/calf from the other side of the cow. Now the calf is in the opening through the tress, the cow in the trees just to the left, the bull in the trees just to the right. Whichever way this calf heads, I'll get a shot at one of the other two. I had time to range 35 yards. Finally, they headed up hill to the right, and out stepped the cow. I drew and found my pin. I cow called and she stopped. I released - and then watched my arrow sail devastatingly, unexplainably, unbelievably, off target - striking the cow just in front of her hind quarter. The moment should have been so glorious, but I was immediately heart broken. Not sad that I didn't fill my tag, but that I injured this beautiful creature. I hoped and prayed that it would turn out okay, but an hour later as the drizzle turned to sleet and snow I decided I needed to try and find her. I actually found a really encouraging blood trail that lasted about a quarter mile. Then it started to get faint and my heart started to drop. After a couple painstakingly slow hours of trailing, the snow was starting to stick over top of her tracks, and the sleet had covered all the logs and rocks with a layer of wet sheen, making blood much more difficult to see. I tracked and trailed until I was exhausted and hope was gone, circling the last spot of blood for an hour, getting desperate and following likely routes.

Long story short, she's gone. This was the first animal I have wounded and not recovered, and the thought of how I ruined her life brings tears to my eyes. There is nothing to blame but my shot, and I don't have any good excuses. I choked. It's my fault. I consider myself a very ethical hunter, never taking questionable shots, respecting the creature enough to give it a quick and painless death... and I failed. With tears in my eyes I apologized to her from the bottom of my heart, and gave up.

Five hours later I needed to go home and rest my heart, and would come back the next morning to look some more after the storm was gone.


Saturday
I convinced my brother to come with me, so we hit the road at 3 a.m. and hiked up to the hunting hole where I shot the cow the morning prior. It was bitter cold and windy - maybe the coldest I'd ever been bowhunting - but it seemed to fit the mood of the day. We still-hunted along the ridge, assuming my cow was gone, but in reality were looking for a carcass more than we were hunting. After another couple hours of searching, we had no luck, and no other bugles to give us hope for other elk.

I was trying to shake off my bad moment, and due to some encouragement from my wife and my brother, I was making progress.

That afternoon we sat by the same wallow I was at Thursday night, which had some action on the game cam the last couple days (snowstorm day excluded). About 3 in the afternoon, we heard a light-hearted bugle up the hill. We waited. 30 minutes later we heard another little growl, so we figured he's bedded just up the way. I ran out to the wallow, splashed around with a stick and made some noise (but nothing intimidating), and ran back to our blind. 30 minutes later we see his silhouette lurking in the trees behind the wallow. He made a big circle, and kept walking away. Must have winded us...

But 30 minutes after that, I saw a cow sneaking along in the same spot. Soon another cow appeared, and they fed their way toward our wallow!!! The far side of the clearing was only 35 yards away, yet they were acting hesitant to come out into the open. So when I had a nice broadside shot at her, I collected my composure, and threaded the needle between two trees close to me in the opening. Perfectly placed through the gap, the arrrow sailed on-target toward her vitals, and made a huge smacking sound as it hit the only 1.5-inch diameter sapling right in front of her. At 40 yards, if my arrow was maybe 3/4 inch to the right, she was toast. But I hit a tree (didn't even see it!) and the cows ran off... The emotion was very different than the cow I injured the day before. I almost felt happy, and knowing I had made a good shot (and especially knowing that no elk were injured), I actually laughed at the comedy of errors unfolding itself.

We sat there until dark, thinking maybe the stars would align, and all these mishaps would culminate into something great. But no other elk came in.


Sunday (last day of season!)
Without a better plan, we again headed to our meadows area. But the wind was ripping so hard that we figured the elk would definitely not be feeding in the open during the evening, but more likely in the aspens and sparse timber. So we worked our way down into some aspens, hoping to hear a bugle, but also preparing ourselves emotionally for the end of the season and tag soup. There is something nice about going home after working so hard for so long. This was my 12th day hunting this season, and I missed my weekends with my pregnant wife, and I needed to be helping with the house hunt and baby preparations... Nevertheless, we tried to put ourselves in a position to get lucky, and we walked downhill into the timber with the wind howling from our right to left. Sure enough, no more than 5 minutes had gone by when we heard a deep gnarly bugle downhill and to the right (upwind). He sounded pretty close - maybe 200 yards away (but tough to judge with the wind), so we hustled downhill to get on his level and keep downwind. After another 5-10 minutes, we waited and waited and heard no more indication of elk, so I turned my bugle tube uphill and gave a high pitched whistle, hoping to let the wind carry the sound and make it appear far away. Nothing... I looked at my bro and said, 'Screw this, it's the last day of the season, no reason to fiddle-fart around...' and I pointed my bugle tube toward where the bull was a few minutes ago, and let 'er rip. Before I was halfway through my bugle, he cut me off with a big nasty of his own from no more than 100 yards away!!!

We again ran to position, and covered maybe 40 yards when we stopped to turn on sneaky mode. The wind can be miserable, but this was actually working out great. Consistently keeping us downwind from the elk, and covering our noise in the meantime - I'll take it. We had stood there for just a few seconds when we heard some branches snapping and some stomping around. I snuck forward to the butt end of a fallen tree, while my bro stayed back. Through the trees below me I saw a couple cows feeding their way right to left. I drew my bow but they weren't stopping, and there was only one 10-foot opening that would give me a decent shot. I let down my draw to pull out the rangefinder, when here came another cow, so I drew again. But again, she trotted through the opening. Should I move to find a better shot? Are there any more elk coming? Where did that bull go? Just then another cow appeared, but this time stopped short of the opening, feeding. I drew my bow when a chuckle resonated from right behind her, and I spot a big blonde body moving behind her - toward the opening. I would have taken the shot at the cow, but again she trotted through my narrow shot window. But I was at full draw when the DANDY (seriously) bull stepped forward. I saw the brow-tines reaching out to his nose, and I knew he was legal and then some. When he stepped into the opening, I called and he stopped. Textbook. I used my 40-yard pin, squeezed the trigger, and watched the arrow make an impeccably perfect flight right into his boiler room. He kicked his hind-legs and ran off, taking the herd with him. I made some cow calls into the wind to try and slow him, then celebrated with a joy that words cannot capture. I was doing snow-angels in the grass. I was so beyond excitement and joy that I can't even remember what we did. We hugged. We said a prayer of thanks. We took a couple photos. And then we crept down to find my arrow.

The shot was 44 yards, slightly downhill - so my 40 yard pin was a perfect guess. We found my arrow at that very spot, right where it should be, covered in blood and one of the vanes ripped off. We started to see lung blood, pink and frothy, and we felt so very good about everything. I thought of the cow I had injured on Friday, and I still wished I could have that back. But I was sorry - so sorry - and I felt like this moment was a sign that the elk had forgiven me. While we waited a good 40 minutes, we talked and discussed - 'Could you see it from there?' 'Oh yeah, it was a perfect shot!!!' 'Did you see how big he was?!' ... This was the biggest bull I had ever seen up close like this, and would easily be the biggest bull I'd ever shot. My brother's guess was 325+, and I have no clue because I was so focused on the shot and it all happened so fast. I can't even explain the elation we were feeling.

But the story does not have a happy ending. The highest of highs, followed by the lowest of lows. I can't even tell the rest of this story without a sick feeling in my stomach. We never found him.

We tracked pretty promising blood for a couple hundred yards. At first, I continually looked ahead to spot his body piled up against a tree. Just over the next knob. Maybe in that pile of deadfall. Maybe behind that spruce tree... After an hour of that, the thought crossed my mind for the first time that this doesn't seem right... 'He's dead, right? You saw the shot.' 'Oh yeah, perfect shot. Perfect.' After another hour the blood trail was intermittent and threw us off a couple times, and I was worried, but hopeful and determined. Still confident, even. After another hour we sat down for a break and to collect ourselves and to focus. Over the next six hours we found blood and lost blood, found it again and lost it again. We had now covered over 1.5 miles as the crow flies, and the blood was clearly old. This elk was running the entire way, never once stopped to lie down. What took us 6+ hours probably took the elk 10 minutes or less. Eventually we lost blood and only had tracks to follow - a daunting task. We found a spot of blood down in the bottom of a drainage, considered ourselves lucky and that it was a good sign, but that turned out to be the end of the trail. Tracks were everywhere, which were his??? No blood anywhere. We circled that spot for another hour, until I sat with my head in my hands and the deep dark hole in my heart.

I'm sad about wounding a cow on Thursday, I'm bummed that I have an unpunched tag this season, and of course I wish that I could hang those big heavy antlers on my wall and tell the story to my great-grandkids someday. But at the moment, more than anything, I'm perplexed and I'm even pissed. I would not lie about this - the shot was good. I was 100% certain, and my brother, watching from 10 yards behind me, agreed. The arrow passed right through, leaving lung blood on the ground. But all signs point to an elk that was not immediately fatally hit. He was exactly and precisely broadside, so I can't figure out how it could be a one-lung shot. Has this ever happened to anybody else? I promise the shot was money, yet he was able to run so far... How is it possible??? Is there any feasible anatomical explanation in which an arrow can fly through the sweet-spot and not kill an elk? If not, the only reason could be that my shot was not as great as I thought, but we are both 100%, without a hair of a doubt, positive about it... How can I do everything so right, and have it still go so wrong?

I wanted to call in sick to work today. This is a tough pill for me to swallow. I'm having a really hard time.

[bnsafe]

brazz that's a tough story. im very sorry
first off anybody who hunts, bow or rifle or slingshot, has hit animals and they get away. most actually live believe it or not, some don't. any ethical hunter is sick about it an there are no words to heal that right now. it gets better an you will get over it. don't give up on bowhunting though. you know you did the best you could an hang your hat on that.
as far as the shot there are a few things that are possible. im not questioning you at all so please don't take it that way. I personally have thought I hit whitetails perfectly only to have them get away. its possible the shot wasn't quite as perfect as you thought. although its also possible you hit a rib an deflected the broadhead just enough. you will never know for sure.
keep your head high brazz. crap happens but theres always next time

[BRazz]

bnsafe: Thanks for the good words. I don't take it as questioning me, I think it sounds like the only logical explanation. If I had made the perfect shot, he couldn't have run a mile.

Just hard to admit after being so positive - it's like somebody telling you that today is a Friday (unless, Reader, you are reading this on Friday, in which case it's not like that).

One of the blades on my muzzy 125 was bent slightly, but I've had that happen before just from going through a rib.

[BRazz]

We headed back up yesterday afternoon to hike around for a couple hours before dark. No sign of our bull in the direction where we last saw blood/tracks headed. I suppose I need to come to terms with this bull being gone, and however hard it is to admit, the shot was not as good as we thought... The next 11 months will be very long.

Careful, elk hunting can cause some serious psychological disorders.

[elkmtngear]

Sorry BRazz.

I feel like I'm better off not having drawn my bow, when I read your posts

[BRazz]

Here is a photo of the trail that cow from Friday a.m. left. Sorry to be gruesome. I wanted to show this so that (1) you can see why I went from being very upset with myself to hopeful, and (2) I'd say this is a typical example of muscle/heart blood.


But we never did find her...


Here is a photo of the angle I had to shoot through at the cow on Saturday p.m. She was in the trees in the background; I put the shot in between the two trees in the middle of the foreground (the gap is bigger than it looks in this photo):


And straight into this sneaky tree, which she was immediately behind:

Dang.



Here is the shot I had at that bull Sunday morning. It was through the opening you see in the middle of the photo:


And here is my utter excitement after I stuck him:


Here is my arrow after the passthrough:



Dang dang dang...