I Ate An Elk Roast Tonight And That's No Bull
09-24-2007, 11:32 PM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Heaven IA USA
Posts: 2,597
I Ate An Elk Roast Tonight And That's No Bull
A full moon casts an illuminating beam of soft light on the near vertical trail in front of my partner and me. A gazillion stars light up the night sky in a dazzling display of incandescence. Some would call it “breath-taking”. While the view was spectacular, the only thing I felt taking my breath away at the time was the effort involved in climbing a mountain at high altitudes (that would be anything over two thousand feet for a flatlander like myself.) loaded down with what I considered to be essential gear needed for bowhunting the majestic wapiti.
Soon the burning in my lungs and the searing muscles of my old legs would force us to momentarily postpone our ascent. This stop and go scenario was repeated numerous times on our journey. By the time we reached the top darkness had turned to daylight, my legs had turned to jelly, and my dry clothes looked like I had walked through a car wash. The descent later in the evening would be just as painful but in a different way. Now my knees would take the brunt of the punishment, followed by hips, feet, and any deficiencies in the last manicure of my toes. At different locations on this mountain face, a wrong step resulting in a stumble could be fatal. I read about people climbing and conquering a mountain. I’m not sure that is all that accurate. From my perspective they have endured and survived; I am happy to survive.
While on top we find a watering spot. We sit for several hours and sure enough near evening a beautiful Pope &Young bull comes in. When I walk on this forest floor it sounds like I am walking on those extra crispy potato chips; he weighs about five times as much as I do and has two extra legs but makes no sound as he approaches and stops. I range him at twenty- seven yards but the angle is bad and I can’t get an arrow cleanly to his vitals, I must wait for a shot to develop.
Like so many of these types of locations the animals instinctively know they are vulnerable and come in on full alert. While I have seen wider racks, his is tall with good mass. I always wonder how they get that headgear through the timber when they travel, especially at top speeds. He looks directly at me as he studies his geography lesson. I remain motionless the bull relaxes and continues forward at a slight angle to a point where he is perfectly in line with a tree. His entire body and rack are now blocked from view. I ready my bow and wait for a shot. A side step in either direction means I can send an arrow his way. I feel the “moment of truth” is about to unfold. Without warning a fickle mountain breeze betrays our presence, the bull swaps ends and high steps it out of there. It would not be my last disappointing moment.
A few days later in the last bit of day light on the way back to camp as we are checking out a couple of mule deer we get surprised by a bugle less than a hundred yards away. I catch his movement on the steep “up” in front of us. I am able to make a hurried stalk to within forty three yards of the feeding bull. There, on that steep mountain, on that fateful day, again in the last bit of light, I “drew down” or more accurately up on what I knew would be the bulls last day on earth. I held as steady as I could and touched the release…Whack!!! I knew from the sound I hit a tree. The bull bolted and was gone; I had shot over his back. A clean mmm….I said a clean mmi….a miss!
I am living proof a person can tune their equipment meticulously, shoot softball size groups with broadheads consistently at sixty yards, and entirely miss a stationary animal bigger than a Volkswagen at about forty yards.
Ironically the following night, in the same location, at same time of day, we ran into what we think was the same bull. This time my buddy was the shooter. He “one-bettered” me by missing him twice. We then named this elk Untouch-a-bull.
Fast forward two weeks... We were sitting in a bottle-neck high on the mountain. A decent bull came in and started raking a tree sixty five yards away. He wasn’t going to come any closer so I attempted a stalk. I got to within thirty four yards but there was never a time like I felt I had a good angle to his vitals when they were not covered by clutter. Although my buddy was calling very proficiently behind me the bull completely ignored his attempts. He left the way he came and never knew I was there; another bittersweet moment.
In the mean time between elk encounters my partner arrowed a decent black bear. He has not been bow hunting very long but he has three species of game under his archery belt; a nice bear, a nice bull, and an outstanding mule deer. Pretty good for a guy that has not been at it that long and only gets to hunt a couple of weeks a year.
I had another close call a few days later when I was within forty yards of a decent bull raking a tree before things went south and he too left the way he came. We were running out of time but I was never discouraged. I was in fact encouraged to see the number of animals we were seeing and have the encounters we did. As long as there were reasonable numbers of elk to be hunted I knew we had a good chance of scoring.
My final day of carrying my bow in hand found me sitting in my tree saddle about eighteen feet up with three wallows within twenty five yards and a fourth forty yards away. One trail ran past me leading down the mountain to an open meadow/marsh at the very bottom only about three hundred yards away.
I had been up the tree almost twelve minutes when I hear what I think is a transmission from my buddy on my radio. In making an attempt to contact him I notice my radio will not stay on the channel we agreed to use. Being that I am “techno-illiterate” I am punching all kinds of buttons to try and correct the situation. With each push of a button a distinctive beep would be emitted from the unit.Although I don't know 'Morse Code' I am sure from the many sounds coming from that little radio I would have filled up a page with my diatribe.
Shortly thereafter I hear footsteps coming up the trail that is to my back. Turning my head expecting to see my buddy chugging up the hill instead I see a legal bull nearly close enough to spit on. He is limping but I see no blood. He stops and scans the horizen less than twenty yards away. There is a tuff of hair by his right shoulder that looks like it might be dried blood. I thought he might have been creased by a muzzleloader being that the season just ended a couple of days earlier. Though he isn’t the biggest bull on the mountain by any means, it is a no-brainer for me. If I get a chance I will cure that limp.
Before I can do any “surgery” on the bull I have to get my bow in hand and then position myself for the shot. Had I not been preoccupied with that silly radio it would have been a slam dunk operation. Now I am afraid he will spot my movement being that all of those beeps from the radio put him on full alert and he is almost close enough to mount.
My plan was to let him walk under me and beyond if he would. He would not. The bull decided he didn’t like the path he was on and turned to his left. As he passed behind some bushes I quickly grabbed my bow, lifted it over my tether, across my body, and twisted to my left. I felt my opportunity slipping through my fingers as the bull angled away. Anyone who has hunted elk will tell you even when walking an elk covers ground quickly. It appeared another encounter was about to go sour as I drew my bow.
What happened next is just a blur. I went on “autopilot” from Whitetail days gone by. It was a good thing and a not-so-good thing all at the same time. Experience saved me, habit almost did me in. I had to some how stop forward momentum of this bull. Common sense says cow call. Not a problem right?!
In my infinite wisdom I let out a Mmmaaaa, not an Eeeooo, in other words a grunt instead of a mew...it immediately became obvious this elk was bilingual because he understood that was Whitetail dialect and he wanted no part of the conversation. He stopped for the briefest of moments at the sound before whirling in an effort to escape. Fortunately that was all I needed, the arrow was on its way at the moment of his hesitation. The arrow caught him on the right side two ribs from the end of his torso slicing through the liver, taking out a lung lengthwise, cutting the wind pipe, and lodging just inside the skin under the neck at the front of the chest. He didn’t make it fifty yards and collapsed easily within view.
I looked over the bull wanting to find the wound that caused his limp. The spot on his shoulder turned out to be dried mud. As I further examined his right front leg I noticed fresh blood just below his “ankle”. Upon further scrutiny I could see a hole going completely through the leg between the tarsals (the bone not the glands). It was triangular in shape so it wasn’t hard to guess where it came from.
I managed to get a fix on the right channel of the radio and ask my buddy if he shot an elk. Sure enough he was all excited trying to follow a blood trail on the bull he had shot. When I asked him why he shot him in the “foot” he declared he didn’t. He informed me he got a complete pass through and his arrow was covered in blood to prove it. Later he took me to the spot where he shot the bull. He shot from an elevated position on the mountain. He obviously misjudged the yardage and the arrow passed through the far leg. From his angle, the sound, and the reaction of the animal, it looked to him like he made a good hit. He recovered his arrow and it was covered end to end in blood. Furthermore, when I back tracked the bull there was decent blood on the ground before I made the fatal shot and in a few places there were bubbles in it, obviously mimicking a double lung hit. It was a great lesson even for a guy that is well up in the triple digits on tracking bow hit animals.
As it turned out I had to gut the animal to retrieve my arrow which by the way was fully unbent and intact. When I found it (way up front) I gently pushed it forward and it immediately popped through the hide and easily came out. For those interested my set up was an 05 Bowtech Allegiance, shooting an Easton Super Slim 300, tipped with a Montec G5. Total arrow weight is a modest five hundred grains.
My buddies bear...
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My supper tonight....
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Soon the burning in my lungs and the searing muscles of my old legs would force us to momentarily postpone our ascent. This stop and go scenario was repeated numerous times on our journey. By the time we reached the top darkness had turned to daylight, my legs had turned to jelly, and my dry clothes looked like I had walked through a car wash. The descent later in the evening would be just as painful but in a different way. Now my knees would take the brunt of the punishment, followed by hips, feet, and any deficiencies in the last manicure of my toes. At different locations on this mountain face, a wrong step resulting in a stumble could be fatal. I read about people climbing and conquering a mountain. I’m not sure that is all that accurate. From my perspective they have endured and survived; I am happy to survive.
While on top we find a watering spot. We sit for several hours and sure enough near evening a beautiful Pope &Young bull comes in. When I walk on this forest floor it sounds like I am walking on those extra crispy potato chips; he weighs about five times as much as I do and has two extra legs but makes no sound as he approaches and stops. I range him at twenty- seven yards but the angle is bad and I can’t get an arrow cleanly to his vitals, I must wait for a shot to develop.
Like so many of these types of locations the animals instinctively know they are vulnerable and come in on full alert. While I have seen wider racks, his is tall with good mass. I always wonder how they get that headgear through the timber when they travel, especially at top speeds. He looks directly at me as he studies his geography lesson. I remain motionless the bull relaxes and continues forward at a slight angle to a point where he is perfectly in line with a tree. His entire body and rack are now blocked from view. I ready my bow and wait for a shot. A side step in either direction means I can send an arrow his way. I feel the “moment of truth” is about to unfold. Without warning a fickle mountain breeze betrays our presence, the bull swaps ends and high steps it out of there. It would not be my last disappointing moment.
A few days later in the last bit of day light on the way back to camp as we are checking out a couple of mule deer we get surprised by a bugle less than a hundred yards away. I catch his movement on the steep “up” in front of us. I am able to make a hurried stalk to within forty three yards of the feeding bull. There, on that steep mountain, on that fateful day, again in the last bit of light, I “drew down” or more accurately up on what I knew would be the bulls last day on earth. I held as steady as I could and touched the release…Whack!!! I knew from the sound I hit a tree. The bull bolted and was gone; I had shot over his back. A clean mmm….I said a clean mmi….a miss!
I am living proof a person can tune their equipment meticulously, shoot softball size groups with broadheads consistently at sixty yards, and entirely miss a stationary animal bigger than a Volkswagen at about forty yards.
Ironically the following night, in the same location, at same time of day, we ran into what we think was the same bull. This time my buddy was the shooter. He “one-bettered” me by missing him twice. We then named this elk Untouch-a-bull.
Fast forward two weeks... We were sitting in a bottle-neck high on the mountain. A decent bull came in and started raking a tree sixty five yards away. He wasn’t going to come any closer so I attempted a stalk. I got to within thirty four yards but there was never a time like I felt I had a good angle to his vitals when they were not covered by clutter. Although my buddy was calling very proficiently behind me the bull completely ignored his attempts. He left the way he came and never knew I was there; another bittersweet moment.
In the mean time between elk encounters my partner arrowed a decent black bear. He has not been bow hunting very long but he has three species of game under his archery belt; a nice bear, a nice bull, and an outstanding mule deer. Pretty good for a guy that has not been at it that long and only gets to hunt a couple of weeks a year.
I had another close call a few days later when I was within forty yards of a decent bull raking a tree before things went south and he too left the way he came. We were running out of time but I was never discouraged. I was in fact encouraged to see the number of animals we were seeing and have the encounters we did. As long as there were reasonable numbers of elk to be hunted I knew we had a good chance of scoring.
My final day of carrying my bow in hand found me sitting in my tree saddle about eighteen feet up with three wallows within twenty five yards and a fourth forty yards away. One trail ran past me leading down the mountain to an open meadow/marsh at the very bottom only about three hundred yards away.
I had been up the tree almost twelve minutes when I hear what I think is a transmission from my buddy on my radio. In making an attempt to contact him I notice my radio will not stay on the channel we agreed to use. Being that I am “techno-illiterate” I am punching all kinds of buttons to try and correct the situation. With each push of a button a distinctive beep would be emitted from the unit.Although I don't know 'Morse Code' I am sure from the many sounds coming from that little radio I would have filled up a page with my diatribe.
Shortly thereafter I hear footsteps coming up the trail that is to my back. Turning my head expecting to see my buddy chugging up the hill instead I see a legal bull nearly close enough to spit on. He is limping but I see no blood. He stops and scans the horizen less than twenty yards away. There is a tuff of hair by his right shoulder that looks like it might be dried blood. I thought he might have been creased by a muzzleloader being that the season just ended a couple of days earlier. Though he isn’t the biggest bull on the mountain by any means, it is a no-brainer for me. If I get a chance I will cure that limp.
Before I can do any “surgery” on the bull I have to get my bow in hand and then position myself for the shot. Had I not been preoccupied with that silly radio it would have been a slam dunk operation. Now I am afraid he will spot my movement being that all of those beeps from the radio put him on full alert and he is almost close enough to mount.
My plan was to let him walk under me and beyond if he would. He would not. The bull decided he didn’t like the path he was on and turned to his left. As he passed behind some bushes I quickly grabbed my bow, lifted it over my tether, across my body, and twisted to my left. I felt my opportunity slipping through my fingers as the bull angled away. Anyone who has hunted elk will tell you even when walking an elk covers ground quickly. It appeared another encounter was about to go sour as I drew my bow.
What happened next is just a blur. I went on “autopilot” from Whitetail days gone by. It was a good thing and a not-so-good thing all at the same time. Experience saved me, habit almost did me in. I had to some how stop forward momentum of this bull. Common sense says cow call. Not a problem right?!
In my infinite wisdom I let out a Mmmaaaa, not an Eeeooo, in other words a grunt instead of a mew...it immediately became obvious this elk was bilingual because he understood that was Whitetail dialect and he wanted no part of the conversation. He stopped for the briefest of moments at the sound before whirling in an effort to escape. Fortunately that was all I needed, the arrow was on its way at the moment of his hesitation. The arrow caught him on the right side two ribs from the end of his torso slicing through the liver, taking out a lung lengthwise, cutting the wind pipe, and lodging just inside the skin under the neck at the front of the chest. He didn’t make it fifty yards and collapsed easily within view.
I looked over the bull wanting to find the wound that caused his limp. The spot on his shoulder turned out to be dried mud. As I further examined his right front leg I noticed fresh blood just below his “ankle”. Upon further scrutiny I could see a hole going completely through the leg between the tarsals (the bone not the glands). It was triangular in shape so it wasn’t hard to guess where it came from.
I managed to get a fix on the right channel of the radio and ask my buddy if he shot an elk. Sure enough he was all excited trying to follow a blood trail on the bull he had shot. When I asked him why he shot him in the “foot” he declared he didn’t. He informed me he got a complete pass through and his arrow was covered in blood to prove it. Later he took me to the spot where he shot the bull. He shot from an elevated position on the mountain. He obviously misjudged the yardage and the arrow passed through the far leg. From his angle, the sound, and the reaction of the animal, it looked to him like he made a good hit. He recovered his arrow and it was covered end to end in blood. Furthermore, when I back tracked the bull there was decent blood on the ground before I made the fatal shot and in a few places there were bubbles in it, obviously mimicking a double lung hit. It was a great lesson even for a guy that is well up in the triple digits on tracking bow hit animals.
As it turned out I had to gut the animal to retrieve my arrow which by the way was fully unbent and intact. When I found it (way up front) I gently pushed it forward and it immediately popped through the hide and easily came out. For those interested my set up was an 05 Bowtech Allegiance, shooting an Easton Super Slim 300, tipped with a Montec G5. Total arrow weight is a modest five hundred grains.
My buddies bear...
My supper tonight....
09-25-2007, 07:31 PM
#9
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location:
Posts: 13,082
RE: I Ate Roast Tonight And That's No Bull
Man, the first antler eater article of the season!!! I look forward to these each and EVERY year.....If I had HALF the writing aptitude.....I literally felt I was on that mountain with you......
Congrats seems......almost anti climactic, but it's all I've got. Thanks so much for sharing your stories with us.
Congrats seems......almost anti climactic, but it's all I've got. Thanks so much for sharing your stories with us.
