2021 elk w/ pack goats

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 1
Better get this year kicked off. Brought in 6 goats this year. No bow elk tag for me, deer only. WI buddy got a NR tag fortunately! Met them on Monday. One had it for 1 area and the other for a totally different area which made for interesting conversations who got the truck lol
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 2
We took a drive to check out some areas around where we were to make sure they were not closed because of all the fires . They were not, which was good. We did find the trailhead we wanted to go in on had about 60 vehicles parked at it, literally. Hikers, rafters, hunters, campers….. so it was onto plan B. Plan B did not work out so well, road was washed out…. So it would have been a 12 mile walk to start hunting . Onto plan C, which we went and checked out right before dark, on the way back to camp we stopped several times listening for bugles in the dark, we found a couple bulls and made a plan to move camp closer to possibly hunt them in the morning, which happened to be the other guys opening day in his unit. Thankfully he gave up his day 1 of hunting to let us go after this bull.
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 2 edit,
We got a bull going right at last light from camp, made the move and he got close but not quite close enough before dark. Good sign they were responding to calls though!

Day 3
We got up early and started glassing from camp, found a couple cows from camp and made the move to get around the other side of the mountain while the thermals were on there way down. A little too late and winds were swirling the whole time, never did see or hear them again. Hightailed it back to camp, got camp picked up so we could run over to the other area to drop off his partner Jake at the trail head he was going in on for his tag. Got there fairly late in the day, we decided to camp over there for the evening and then do some scouting around there on the next day.
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 4
We decided to head out fairly early with the goats. Planned a day or two exploratory hike into some new country. It was fairly successful, heard 2 different bugles on the way in, walked up on a pretty nice buck that wouldn’t stop for a shot from myself. After those 2 exciting encounters we went off trail…. Into a lodgepole blown down mess! Nothing really to report after going through the blowdown jungle. Finally right at dark found a campsite. Unfortunately it was right in the bottom next to the creek, going to be a frosty cold night! On another note we found a super cool old trappers cabin! They used carved wooden dowels to hold the cabin together! As you can see it’s been probably 150 years since anyone has been here.
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 5
We were done with the blowdowns…. We packed up in the morning headed towards the truck, circling back to where we thought we heard a bull yesterday. There was almost non existent elk sign, no reason to spend anymore time in this drainage. So Day 5 was a wasted day! Not to mention when we got back the smoke poured in, I had a flat on the truck, it was snowing ash….. Mark ran to town with the flat and luckily found a place still open, very messed up day!
Matt

 

[Sytes]

Your adventures are always a blast to follow. Thanks for the time sharing the pics and story

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 6
We let the goats rest after 10+ miles in the blowdown/lodge pole mess. Drove around looking at different trailheads and checking OnX to see how far we can get away from people! We decided on a trailhead to move camp the following day too.
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 7
The plan was to pack up our previous camp and move to the trailhead we had decided on. All went very smoothly after the fiasco yesterday. It was supposed to rain/sleet/snow for most of the day. So we pretty much sat at the trail head and went over maps on OnX. We decided on a basin about 3.5 mile up a mountain than down the other side. This is the last day of scouting this new unit, it’s time to get to hunting tomorrow early. We did speak with a guy there who was hunting a group of elk that had 4-5 bulls and 20 cows. We made sure to steer clear of that particular drainage. But it was good to know that there are elk in the area!
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 8
Pack in day! Finally…. Well everything started off great. Trail was good, our off trail portion went well. Hooked up with another trail that had not been cleared, very good sign! Than we got to our camp spot that was picked out and there’s a tent there with 3 llamas and 2 wall tents oh well it’s public land. We decided to push an additional 3.5 miles up another side drainage. Ended up being a great idea, nobody up there and some encouraging sign. Took almost all day to go 8ish miles. We set camp in an awesome small meadow, had several places people have been camping in the past. No bugles we’re heard, but I managed 2 grouse with a rock, @bigfin would have been proud
Matt

 

[300_WSM]

Awesome man!! What I have I been doing my whole life carrying everything in a backpack....

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Forgot the grouse pic,
Matt

 

[blueridge]

Get 'em, Matt! Keep it coming!

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 9
We had probably the chilliest now got so far, low 20’s I would guess. Everything was super frosty, I had boiled some water the evening before, for coffee in the morning, it was almost frozen solid! Nothing beats boiling water over a campfire in the middle of nowhere, gives the water/coffee a slight smoky flavor, yummy.
We glassed and did some location bugles from camp with no response. We did this for a couple hours while drinking coffee and packing up camp. We had passed a meadow with a spring not to far down the trail that was our afternoon play. Sure enough after a couple cow calls a bull piped off way down the ridge. The next several minutes we’re spent trying to decide what we should do, all of a sudden there’s a bugle at 200 yards oh crap. A scramble ensued, he boogied up to the top of the meadow while the goats and I moved back. Not long into the calling sequence he quit bugling, I assumed he was sneaking in. So after a good 15 minutes I walked back up to where I left Mark. I could see him up the hill slightly from the meadow. Turns out the wind gods did not want him to harvest that bull. After quite a few bugles he finally piped off way down the ridge. We made the plan to move about 2 miles down the trail to another meadow which would put us below the dark timber we assumed that he was going to bed in for the day. We got down to the meadow and took Naps and let the goats feed etc., until the evening thermals started to switch and come down the mountain. There was a side drainage that did not have a trail in it, this is the drainage we decided to bushwhack into. Well it turns out there is a reason there is no trail in this drainage. This particular drainage was mainly Lodge Pole pine, anyone who has been in a large pole forest knows that there is a unrivaled amount of dead fall. We were trying to make it to another Meadow about .9 miles of the drainage. We left at 5:30 PM and headed off trail. We did not get to the meadow until 8:00 PM. So it was a lot of dead fall LOL. Another reason I love my pack Goats, they pretty much go through anything. We found a great camping spot in the meadow, and we spent the night there with no bugles heard.
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 10
Got up bright and early for some coffee, let the goats out to browse a bit before the day of hunting started. As I was sitting there sipping on my Starbucks instant coffee my goats all raise their heads and huddled around me looking to the west into the meadow. I could not see you since I was sitting down behind my tent. I slowly stood up and saw a white object bouncing through the 30 inch tall grass in the meadow. I was thinking what the heck is that, then as it came into a clearing in the meadow I realize it was a giant white wolf!!! No freaking way….. first thought that came to my head, where is my bow. Luckily it was right next to me, I knocked an arrow, grab my Leopold rangefinder out of my Bino harness. I ranged the wolf he was a 104 yards away, that was a bit too far. I slowly crawled around the tent, luckily there was some dead fall on that side of the tent that I crawled to out of sight of the wolf. I reranged the wolf, at this point he had spotted the goats. He also spotted my buddy Mark who had came out of his tent and got pinned between his tent and my tent out in the open. Luckily he froze in mid stride. So he got to see this all unfold, I had a witness ha ha. At this The wolf had gotten pretty nervous and turned around to head back into the timber, a ranged the wolf he was at 94 yards, that would be totally doable, I shoot out to 80 regularly. A slight hold over and I’ll have my first wolf possibly. Went to draw my bow and would you know it I had forgot my rangefinder in the tent this morning. And just like that the wolf was gone and my chances at a wolf with my bow just evaporated like the frost on my tent.

To be cont…..

Matt

 

[Sytes]

How's that work with our goats from there out if you and your partner head out for elk? Are you able to highline the goats and corral electric some form of hot fence setup? Or, take the goats with you and set a highline relatively close to our location to call elk? Youch. Wish we had an opportunity to see an arrow sling a wolf.
*be sure to ask the wolf if s/he has a National Park Service name before letting it fly...

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Goats roll with at all times! See all my other goat adventures…. I usually do not tie them up at all except at night for obvious reasons lol
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Well after the awesome wolf encounter this morning, we had a conversation on what to do. Knowing that when wolves are around the elk are generally not and if they are, they do not talk much. He decided that we should stay the day and 1 more night than roll out. He decided to wait for the thermals to start going up hill than move down to a meadow below camp a bit and sit on a wallow for the afternoon. I stayed at camp hanging out, filtering water, and taking the day off with the goats. At 1:26 pm I just got back from getting water from the creek across the meadow and to my surprise a Cow and calf elk came walking down to the meadow from about the same direction as the wolf came this morning, as soon as the Cow hit the wolf’s scent trail it turned and went back the same way they had come from. Got a quick video of them leaving.

Another camp encounter, how can today get any better….
A 6x6 could walk through the meadow at 74 yards when no one in camp has a tag “that would be me”
This is how the story goes, I was sitting in my camp chair debating on whether making some afternoon coffee and I thought I heard a coyote over the ridge behind me, thinking it was either a coyote or a young wolf I gave out a howl back. I thought nothing of it, I was getting my jet boil out and ready to make coffee and I just happen to look up and across the meadow there’s a bull stepping out of the timber. I was thinking no way I’m dreaming, then I came back to reality and decided I should grab my phone and make a video so that way when Marc gets back he can see all the action he missed by leaving camp to go hunting this morning. The bowl came out ate some grass and then eventually walked across the meadow from left to right and into the timber and up the hill, to never be seen again.

He got back and he started to tell me about his day which was a total wasted day lol, nothing seen, he did hear that bugle-ish/coyote at 3:30…. Than I interrupted his story time with some videos from camp lol he wasn’t overly impressed with my giggling that wrapped up our day.
Matt

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 11
We did our same routine, get up about 6:30am, morning coffee, bugle from camp to locate with no response, we packed up camp and headed to “greener” pastures hopefully.
We took an alternate route out of the hell hole of blow downs, which turned out to be not as bad as going in! I marked the easier location on my OnX as well for future reference! We hit several small meadows on our way up the ridge and down the other side with no luck on the elk….. we hooked back up with a side trail and made a plan that would involve no water sources for a couple of days. We loaded every container we had with filtered water in preparation for no water sources. A great use for goats as well, they carry your water and don’t drink much! After an hour or so we made it up to the peak/Ridgeline we were taking back to the main trail. As luck would have it we had phone reception up in this particular spot. So I got to give a shout out to my wife while she was at school teaching, since it had been 7 days or so since I last talk to her. Then came the bad news unfortunately. The other guy that drove out with Mark was done hunting. He was not very impressed with the Frank church wilderness area, they rode horses for 80+ miles and saw five cow elk and that is it. So while on the phone with him he gave us an ultimatum of be at the truck Friday morning at 9 AM or he is leaving back to Wisconsin without Marc. That didn’t particularly go over too well with me to say the least. The remaining conversation was heavily bleeped !!!! At this point we were 8 miles from the truck. In some very rough terrain, off trail, also we had to go through the blow downs that are in the portion of the mountains we were in. Back to hunting, we were fairly hustling down the trail toward the truck and we came across a rag horn ball out in the open, middle of the day, We slowly made it over a slight ridge line to hide ours set up and the goats. The bullhead moved a couple hundred yards away as we got set up. I started calling and he immediately turned around and made a beeline for us. He got about 400 yards out lifted his head and acted nervous and then he started trotting the opposite direction. I got fairly excited, I thought Mark had been too far up on the ridge line and he saw him and spooked. Turns out it was two guys with Argali, Zach Brooks and camera man Josh. The camp with the three llamas down below was their camp. We had a nice 45 minute chat with them and they apologized for being in the wrong spot at the wrong time. I guess that’s the way it goes when you’re 8 miles from the trail head lol . We continued hustling down The trail to where we figured he moved into the dark timber and hopefully better down for the rest of the afternoon. We also took a siesta until the thermals switch to go back down the hill away from the bull. That way we could use the same Ridgeline we were on for cover. That ended up not going as planned. We set up and cold called This bull for 30 minutes with no luck. After our calling session we decided to move as far as we could down the ridge line toward the main trail that way we could get up early in the morning and make it back to the truck before 9 AM. As luck would have it we found the mega load of elk. There was around 25 cows, for Raghorn bulls, and one big ass bull!!! I estimated he would go in the 340 range. Easily the third biggest bull I’ve ever seen on public land. I will try and share some photos that do not giveaway the drainage this bull was in. We were right on top of them half of the herd was 150 yards below us and the other half was across a small drainage about 350 yards away. Wind was terrible, luckily we were on the ridge line and the prevailing breeze was blowing perpendicular to where we were at. But as soon as you dropped off the ridge line the breeze was going straight towards the elk. Since we cannot camp up wind of them and make it back to the truck in time, we reluctantly made the decision to try and get around the other side of the Elk without them smelling us. I knew that was going to be a tall order. But we tried it anyway, and of course we blew all the elk out of that drainage. Very disheartening and to a very exciting day.
Matt
Climbing up to the top!


Elk sign


Great spot for a rest and phone call!


Timber patch we thought the Raghorn was in.


Our camping spot for the night, and right where the elk herd was. The big bowl came right to the edge of this tree line from camp in the middle of the night.

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Day 12
Not really even a hunting day persay, got up before light and we were on the trail before it got light out, no coffee mornings suck lol
Another group of hunters moved in not to far from where we camped. So kinda a good deal we were not hunting that herd this morning, I’m not a fan of hunting the same area as others….. got back to the trailhead at 8:32 am or so. Mark’s ride was not there that was concerning. After a bit we did receive a inReach message he was running late and that was that, another archery season in the books, did not turn out how I expected it too that’s a fact. I have 1 less hunting friend, but many more good years of hunting with Mark! Thank you @Hilljackoutlaw for some pointers on the area.
Matt

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

And the mighty Frank claims another victim. Sorry you lost a hunting buddy out of it, but I find it pretty funny what the Frank does to some people. Haha