hoosierhunter11
FNG
Hi folks,
I joined this site and essentially began my western hunting career back in early 2024. Thanks to my dad, I have been purchasing preference points in CO for the past 3 years in preparation for my first hunt. I scoured GoHunt, OnX, and the CPW website to learn as much as I could ahead of the application season. I ended up applying for an archery tag in a limited unit that my dad had experience in and drew the tag with 3 points. To make things even better my dad and a good buddy were able to pick up returned muzzy cow tags in the same unit. We were finally going to hit the mountains together! My dad and I hunt whitetails back home in Indiana pretty extensively, but we've talked about hunting in the mountains together for as long as I can remember. In addition, some of my dad's old hunting pals also drew tags in the same unit and neighboring units. We were going to have quite the crew in camp!
I spent all year getting in shape (Thanks MTNTOUGH!) and devouring as much elk hunting content as I could. Several of you on this site were generous enough to share tips and knowledge with me as well and I can't thank you enough. Fast forward to the hunt...
We arrived to our GMU on September 11 and were able to glass a small group of elk including a legal raghorn at about 6pm. I made a play and ended up getting right between the bull and cows/calves. I stalked closer to the bull while cow calling and ended up having a cow and calf just 10 feet from me. After a 20 hour drive and just arriving in the unit I couldn't believe I was this close to elk! It was surreal. To make a long story short, the bull moved off to some private and we decided to not spend a bunch of time near the property lines. Afterall, we came all this way why worry about property lines like we need to do back home.
We spent the next several days hiking into new areas and seeing some elk but experienced minimal bugling. I stalked to near archery distance to cows several times but kept holding out for a bull to appear or rip a bugle but it just never happened.
Day 7 - my dad and I hiked into a dark timbered north-facing basin consisting of several benches ranging from 10,900 - 11,100 feet. We were able to use a mountain bike trail for much of the access which really preserved some energy. After crossing a creek and leaving the bike trail behind, we still hunted and called for a couple hours with no success. Finally at 10:30am, I catch movement up ahead on a bench and it's a bull just 50 yards away! He jumps up out of his bed and slowly starts walking up the mountain from us. I quickly grab the buble tube and rip off a challenge bugle. This stops him in his tracks and wheels him around to about 45 yards as he works back down the bench in an attempt to get down wind. I slowly work closer to him in an attempt to cut him off (remember this is thick dark timber) but he stopped and with no visual on another bull he works back up the mountain and disappears. I never did have a clear shot and he was at least a 4x4 maybe a 4x5. We spend the rest of the day still hunting and end up coming across a TON of sign in the general area the bull was bedded - 6 tree rubs, trails, beds, etc. In the late afternoon the same day we ended up having an encounter with 3 cows, 2 calves, and 1 non-legal bull in the same exact area. The cows were at 40 yards but dad could not get a clear shot off from his vantage point. My dad and I unfortunately did not have our camp gear packed so on the way back down the mountain that night we looked at each other and said "we're coming back up here tomorrow!".
Day 8 - we get to the creek at legal shooting light and decide to filter some water and have coffee while we listened. We are only a couple hundred yards from the hot spot we found the previous day and felt no rush. We slowly start working up the mountain to get on the bench elevation lines and hear a bugle rip off CLOSE. I am thinking he is maybe 100 yards away from us, essentially right down on the same elevation line we are currently on. Dad looks up and says, "Oh yeah!" and asks if I want the bugle tube. During the couple of seconds while I am processing the situation I hear my dad whisper, "Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew... he is right there!". The next sequence of events is something that I hope to never forget... I glance in the direction of the bugle and see large antlers bobbing and weaving through the dense spruce forest a mere 35 yards away coming right at us. At this point I don't even have an arrow nocked so I instinctively nock an arrow while moving up next to a small 6 foot tall spruce for a little cover while dad drops back a few feet. Fortunately, a large dead fall makes him change course and begin working up the mountain at 20 yards which presents me with a quartering toward shot (not super severe angle). I reach my anchor point and take a deep breath while he moves into an opening at 16 yards - next thing I know I am giving him the 'ol whitetial "mehhhh!". He stops and I release the arrow and watch it bury right behind the shoulder at middle mass of the body. He wheels towards us and up the mountain in what seemed like a split second. I look down at my dad and we are both in disbelief. We couldn't believe what had happened! As I write this I still feel as if I were playing a character in a film. We give him an hour before even going to the shot site and find no blood or evidence of shot. Luckily we were able to mark a triplet of large trees he ran right between around 40 yards from the shot and that is where we found first blood. He was dumping out of both sides which indicated we did indeed have a full pass thru. We move along the blood trail quickly but our good moods drop suddenly when the blood trail disappears. We end up spending 4 hours making incrementally larger circles (10-20-30-40-50) around last blood in an attempt to pick the trail back up but were not successful. At this point I draw a 400x400 yard square around last blood on my OnX and begin utilizing my tracker to fill it in. As I do this for a few hours another buddy joins us on the mountain and he and my dad continue to look for the trail.
- 3:30pm - my dad works up to me as asks what I want him to do. I make a quick analaysis of my tracker and realize there was about a 15 acre chunk of the mountain side that was heavily covered in deadfall that I did not check. I point to that direction which was just 50 yards away for me and continue my own grid search.
- 3:47pm - I hear my dad say, "Hey Drew, why don't you come over here". "What do you see?" I say. "Just come on over here, I want to show you something" my dad deceivingly says. At this point I know something is up and quickly jog towards his location just 40 yards away. I clear a deadfall and the next thing I see is my dad tearfully looking at me with large antlers rising over a fallen log to his side. I drop to a knee and breakdown immediately. Throughout the day I was questioning myself, my motives, and every decision regarding this trip while we looked for this elk. I went from the highest high to the lowest low which I know every hunter faces if you do this long enough. I was so proud that we stuck with it and found this bull 8 hours after the shot. Little did we know he was likely dead for 6 hours just 100 yards from where we lost last blood. Long story short, he made some sort of double back and ended up in the last place we could have guessed. Luckily we were able to process him quickly and the meat was still good. (update on the shot: entry ended up being right behind the shoulder but a few inches high of where I would have liked. Exit was back near liver. His chest cavity had to fill up which explains to sudden loss of blood trail.)
It does not fall short on me how fortunate I am to successfully take a bull like this with a bow on my first western hunt. To me it was a true team effort as we kept spirits high and made a decision every day to keep our heads in the game. It also doesn't fall short on me how awesome it was to have my dad and good buddy by my side throughout the day. I also need to give a shoutout to some of the other guys in camp who climbed up to help out with the pack out job. Thanks, boys!
My advice: keep your head in the game and do not quit. Hunt until your scheduled to point that truck home.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to shoot me any questions.
I joined this site and essentially began my western hunting career back in early 2024. Thanks to my dad, I have been purchasing preference points in CO for the past 3 years in preparation for my first hunt. I scoured GoHunt, OnX, and the CPW website to learn as much as I could ahead of the application season. I ended up applying for an archery tag in a limited unit that my dad had experience in and drew the tag with 3 points. To make things even better my dad and a good buddy were able to pick up returned muzzy cow tags in the same unit. We were finally going to hit the mountains together! My dad and I hunt whitetails back home in Indiana pretty extensively, but we've talked about hunting in the mountains together for as long as I can remember. In addition, some of my dad's old hunting pals also drew tags in the same unit and neighboring units. We were going to have quite the crew in camp!
I spent all year getting in shape (Thanks MTNTOUGH!) and devouring as much elk hunting content as I could. Several of you on this site were generous enough to share tips and knowledge with me as well and I can't thank you enough. Fast forward to the hunt...
We arrived to our GMU on September 11 and were able to glass a small group of elk including a legal raghorn at about 6pm. I made a play and ended up getting right between the bull and cows/calves. I stalked closer to the bull while cow calling and ended up having a cow and calf just 10 feet from me. After a 20 hour drive and just arriving in the unit I couldn't believe I was this close to elk! It was surreal. To make a long story short, the bull moved off to some private and we decided to not spend a bunch of time near the property lines. Afterall, we came all this way why worry about property lines like we need to do back home.
We spent the next several days hiking into new areas and seeing some elk but experienced minimal bugling. I stalked to near archery distance to cows several times but kept holding out for a bull to appear or rip a bugle but it just never happened.
Day 7 - my dad and I hiked into a dark timbered north-facing basin consisting of several benches ranging from 10,900 - 11,100 feet. We were able to use a mountain bike trail for much of the access which really preserved some energy. After crossing a creek and leaving the bike trail behind, we still hunted and called for a couple hours with no success. Finally at 10:30am, I catch movement up ahead on a bench and it's a bull just 50 yards away! He jumps up out of his bed and slowly starts walking up the mountain from us. I quickly grab the buble tube and rip off a challenge bugle. This stops him in his tracks and wheels him around to about 45 yards as he works back down the bench in an attempt to get down wind. I slowly work closer to him in an attempt to cut him off (remember this is thick dark timber) but he stopped and with no visual on another bull he works back up the mountain and disappears. I never did have a clear shot and he was at least a 4x4 maybe a 4x5. We spend the rest of the day still hunting and end up coming across a TON of sign in the general area the bull was bedded - 6 tree rubs, trails, beds, etc. In the late afternoon the same day we ended up having an encounter with 3 cows, 2 calves, and 1 non-legal bull in the same exact area. The cows were at 40 yards but dad could not get a clear shot off from his vantage point. My dad and I unfortunately did not have our camp gear packed so on the way back down the mountain that night we looked at each other and said "we're coming back up here tomorrow!".
Day 8 - we get to the creek at legal shooting light and decide to filter some water and have coffee while we listened. We are only a couple hundred yards from the hot spot we found the previous day and felt no rush. We slowly start working up the mountain to get on the bench elevation lines and hear a bugle rip off CLOSE. I am thinking he is maybe 100 yards away from us, essentially right down on the same elevation line we are currently on. Dad looks up and says, "Oh yeah!" and asks if I want the bugle tube. During the couple of seconds while I am processing the situation I hear my dad whisper, "Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew... he is right there!". The next sequence of events is something that I hope to never forget... I glance in the direction of the bugle and see large antlers bobbing and weaving through the dense spruce forest a mere 35 yards away coming right at us. At this point I don't even have an arrow nocked so I instinctively nock an arrow while moving up next to a small 6 foot tall spruce for a little cover while dad drops back a few feet. Fortunately, a large dead fall makes him change course and begin working up the mountain at 20 yards which presents me with a quartering toward shot (not super severe angle). I reach my anchor point and take a deep breath while he moves into an opening at 16 yards - next thing I know I am giving him the 'ol whitetial "mehhhh!". He stops and I release the arrow and watch it bury right behind the shoulder at middle mass of the body. He wheels towards us and up the mountain in what seemed like a split second. I look down at my dad and we are both in disbelief. We couldn't believe what had happened! As I write this I still feel as if I were playing a character in a film. We give him an hour before even going to the shot site and find no blood or evidence of shot. Luckily we were able to mark a triplet of large trees he ran right between around 40 yards from the shot and that is where we found first blood. He was dumping out of both sides which indicated we did indeed have a full pass thru. We move along the blood trail quickly but our good moods drop suddenly when the blood trail disappears. We end up spending 4 hours making incrementally larger circles (10-20-30-40-50) around last blood in an attempt to pick the trail back up but were not successful. At this point I draw a 400x400 yard square around last blood on my OnX and begin utilizing my tracker to fill it in. As I do this for a few hours another buddy joins us on the mountain and he and my dad continue to look for the trail.
- 3:30pm - my dad works up to me as asks what I want him to do. I make a quick analaysis of my tracker and realize there was about a 15 acre chunk of the mountain side that was heavily covered in deadfall that I did not check. I point to that direction which was just 50 yards away for me and continue my own grid search.
- 3:47pm - I hear my dad say, "Hey Drew, why don't you come over here". "What do you see?" I say. "Just come on over here, I want to show you something" my dad deceivingly says. At this point I know something is up and quickly jog towards his location just 40 yards away. I clear a deadfall and the next thing I see is my dad tearfully looking at me with large antlers rising over a fallen log to his side. I drop to a knee and breakdown immediately. Throughout the day I was questioning myself, my motives, and every decision regarding this trip while we looked for this elk. I went from the highest high to the lowest low which I know every hunter faces if you do this long enough. I was so proud that we stuck with it and found this bull 8 hours after the shot. Little did we know he was likely dead for 6 hours just 100 yards from where we lost last blood. Long story short, he made some sort of double back and ended up in the last place we could have guessed. Luckily we were able to process him quickly and the meat was still good. (update on the shot: entry ended up being right behind the shoulder but a few inches high of where I would have liked. Exit was back near liver. His chest cavity had to fill up which explains to sudden loss of blood trail.)
It does not fall short on me how fortunate I am to successfully take a bull like this with a bow on my first western hunt. To me it was a true team effort as we kept spirits high and made a decision every day to keep our heads in the game. It also doesn't fall short on me how awesome it was to have my dad and good buddy by my side throughout the day. I also need to give a shoutout to some of the other guys in camp who climbed up to help out with the pack out job. Thanks, boys!
My advice: keep your head in the game and do not quit. Hunt until your scheduled to point that truck home.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to shoot me any questions.
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