BackCountryMulies
Member
My schedule for work had been flipped and I didn't have as much time to chase elk with my bow as I would have liked, in fact I only had a 3 day window. My tag was only valid in wilderness so its a 4-6 hour horse ride into where I like to hunt. We left the trail head early the morning of the 26th and were into one of the main drainage's by noon. After taking care of the horses and setting up camp we set off on foot to go locate elk (never to hard in this area). Within 20 minutes we had found several pockets full of elk. We decided with the wind we should continue up towards the rims and hunt down on top of them. After Getting up top and started glassing we found even more elk, bulls were bugling every where and lots of good herd bulls. After glassing for close to an hour we found a giant bull pushing a few head of cows across a rocky face, in an almost impossible location to close the distance. We had went back to glassing when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. It was a solid bull straight below us maybe 400 yards but 600' straight off. I looked at my fiance and buddy and said heck lets just go kill that bull. after looking him over we decided it was worth a try. We slipped down an avalanche shoot and hit the creek bed he was last seen in. We slowly worked our way down towards where he was, as I rounded the corner I thought I needed to be I quickly saw a cow and 2 rag horns feeding right above me but couldn't see over the little drainage I was in. After a few minutes I was able to slip up to the edge of the creek bank under a small tree and there he was pushing a cow up towards me. There was 20 plus cows with him so my only hope was to let him come get this cow above me and sure enough just as soon as I thought that he came flying up through the rocks to grab her when I came to full draw my buddy "not being able to see cow called and he whirled around and faced me. No shot and no time to range him I stayed at full draw when he turned back towards the cow I split my 40 and 50 pin and watched my arrow disappear into him. the shot was a little back but with the angle I felt good at least one lung. To my surprise the bull took off with his cows and stopped about 100 yards out we were able to get a few pictures on the skyline and I could see the blood puddling under him. after watching him live another 20 minutes we decided to just back out and give him the night to bed down and expire. It was a very long night to say the least, I have never shot an animal and had it live more than seconds after shooting them with a bow. I was beating myself up pretty bad and my buddy and fiance kept telling me we will find him in the morning. Morning came and I was antsy to get going but my buddy said no sit tight we will make breakfast and drink coffee until it gets good and light then we will go find your bull after all we may have to take it back from a griz. I agreed and so we left camp and headed up the drainage and got to the saddle we last seen him I saw a magpie fly out of some timber below us and said half jokingly hope he is eating fresh eyeball and continued looking for blood about 20 seconds later my buddy yells up to me "hey he dead right there". Talk about music to my ears!!! After some photos, quartering and some unconvinced mules we headed back to camp to pack up and head out.
