Acorn
FNG
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2025
- Messages
- 26
I learned how to hunt from my dad growing up in Tennessee, chasing whitetail deer and turkey. It was our thing we did together. Initially, he did all the work, and I would just show up and pull the trigger. This is exactly what happened when I shot my first deer, a little spike, with our trusty .243 at 10 years old. But over time, he taught me how to put in the pre-season scouting work, execute consistently, track the game, and take care of the harvest afterward.
Fast forward to four years ago, my wife and I moved out to Colorado. Flyfishing has always been my personal favorite outdoor passion; but, with the opportunity to chase elk right out my back door, my priorities needed to change. I went on my first archery elk hunt in 2023 with my brother. We only had 4 days in a low success percentage unit. I did a lot more wrong than I did right, and still found elk and had a pretty close encounter with a nice herd bull. Never got a shot, but I was hooked!
Last year (2024) I decided to go to a different unit and prepared for the season like my life depended on it. I made plans to hunt 10 days, broken up into two trips. The season was great, but still never drew back my bow. I was within 200 yards of elk at least five times. I found elk in each of the areas I had picked out, but could never seal the deal for one reason or another.
So yet again I found myself learning, scouting, lifting, shooting, rucking, and hiking through another offseason in hopes to punch my tag in 2025. I decided to hunt the same unit as the year prior to build upon the areas I had learned and elk behavior I had witnessed. Because of work and family schedules, my best time to get out in the mountains was going to be the first week of the season. I got out in my area 4 days before opening day (Sep 2nd) to get to as many high ridges and knobs as I could, in order to locate elk. They were not in the same places as 2024 unfortunately, but thankfully I had the time and the intel to modify my gameplan before opening day.
Opening morning comes, and I found myself on a great vantage point above treeline overlooking a massive basin where I had watched a small herd the previous morning. I could see for miles and yet could not turn up a single elk. I was so bummed. After four days of scouting, I had no elk to pursue on opening day. Either they had moved out overnight or hunkered down in the timber, so I decided to go after some other elk I had briefly spotted a few days before through a narrow break in the clouds.
I hiked in, set up my camp, and got to a glassing spot around 5:30pm. At 6:15 four bulls came racing down out of the timber into a little clearing about a mile away and took turns wallowing and pairing off to fight—not gentle sparring, but aggressive fighting, like trying to kill each other. It was astounding. Twice one bull threw another one to the ground. I’ve never seen such a display of strength before in my life. I watched them in awe for 30 minutes, waiting for the wind to get right.
Once the thermals switched, I got my stuff together and raced down to the bottom of this drainage, and slowly stalked up the other side, approaching their fighting ground with stealth. Before I could see them, I heard antlers crashing and knew they were still there! I crept up to the edge of the woods, trying to get a clear lane for a range and a shot. I almost blew up the whole scenario with one wrong step, popping a stick and alerting one of the bulls. He stared me down for two minutes and then started walking off slowly. While he was watching me, I slowly brought my rangefinder up to my face and ranged him at 60. Even though I had practiced out to 100, I didn’t want to take a shot at that distance on an alert bull. Thankfully, two of them were actively engaged in a fight and were unfazed. They stopped for a moment, and one (just so happened to be the biggest bull in the group) took a few steps my way into a shooting lane to figure out why the other bull was walking away. He was ever so slightly quartering to me and stopped to look around.
I knew he was about 65 from ranging the first bull, so I drew back, steadied my 60 pin on the upper third of his body right above the lungs, and the shot broke clean. In the low light, I couldn’t see if the arrow hit home. The impact also sounded like the arrow hit the soft grassy ground behind him. All four bulls swirled around and ran for the edge of the woods, then walked into the timber and out of sight. I lost track of which one I shot at, and not a single bull acted injured. I thought I missed, so I took off up the hill in an attempt to cut them off and get another shot.
I quickly realized I had NO chance of catching up, so I returned back to their original location to search for my arrow. I had every intention of putting that arrow back in my quiver and never speaking of this incident again…but I couldn’t even find my arrow! What a shame! I was gonna have to tell everyone about how I totally blew it on my first shot at an elk. My pride wouldn’t let that happen, so I returned to the spot where I took the shot from, lined everything up, and went back to searching for my arrow in the dwindling light.
To my great surprise and immediate elation, there was my arrow, on top of the grass, covered in blood. “What!?!? I actually hit him!” I softly screamed. The blood on the arrow and on the trail 20 yards away that I found afterward was dark red. I knew from my days of deer hunting that it was likely a liver shot—definitely fatal, but would take some time. With light quickly fading and below-freezing overnight temperatures expected, I backed out and went back to my spike camp.
On my way back, I took a slight detour to climb ~500 feet or so of vertical up to the top of a mountain to talk to my dad and tell him about the events that had unfolded. I sent him pictures of the bloody arrow and blood on the ground to ask what I should do. He agreed with me that it was likely liver blood, confirmed that backing out was the right decision, and told me he was confident that bull was dead. I still hardly slept that night.
To my exceeding joy, I found the bull the next morning 150 yards away from the shot. The arrow had pierced one lung and the liver, just as I thought, and he was dead as a doornail. What a relief! My first elk. I would have been absolutely thrilled to take down a measly little raghorn, but I walked up on a very nice bull for the area. God truly blessed me not only with a mature bull, but an epic experience in epic country.
It was pretty special to do it all solo, but I was more than happy to have the help of my good friend packing out. It took us 2 days and 30+ miles to get all the meat out. It was the hardest workout of my life, and I loved every second of it.
But someone was missing. Though he might not have been able to provide much pack out assistance, I wish my dad could have been there to experience it all with me. I wish he could have seen firsthand, if only in a small way, how he had shaped me into the man I am today. I wish we could have watched on together as those bulls fought like dinosaurs and wallowed like puppies. I wish he could have witnessed the arrow arc over the grassy hill and strike the vitals. I wish we could have tracked the blood trail side by side. I wish he was there when I looked up and saw a leg poking out from behind a tree. I wish he could have held back the legs as I skinned and quartered that bull, just like I did for him as he cleaned all those deer back when I was a young kid.
Yet, in some way, he was present.
Fast forward to four years ago, my wife and I moved out to Colorado. Flyfishing has always been my personal favorite outdoor passion; but, with the opportunity to chase elk right out my back door, my priorities needed to change. I went on my first archery elk hunt in 2023 with my brother. We only had 4 days in a low success percentage unit. I did a lot more wrong than I did right, and still found elk and had a pretty close encounter with a nice herd bull. Never got a shot, but I was hooked!
Last year (2024) I decided to go to a different unit and prepared for the season like my life depended on it. I made plans to hunt 10 days, broken up into two trips. The season was great, but still never drew back my bow. I was within 200 yards of elk at least five times. I found elk in each of the areas I had picked out, but could never seal the deal for one reason or another.
So yet again I found myself learning, scouting, lifting, shooting, rucking, and hiking through another offseason in hopes to punch my tag in 2025. I decided to hunt the same unit as the year prior to build upon the areas I had learned and elk behavior I had witnessed. Because of work and family schedules, my best time to get out in the mountains was going to be the first week of the season. I got out in my area 4 days before opening day (Sep 2nd) to get to as many high ridges and knobs as I could, in order to locate elk. They were not in the same places as 2024 unfortunately, but thankfully I had the time and the intel to modify my gameplan before opening day.
Opening morning comes, and I found myself on a great vantage point above treeline overlooking a massive basin where I had watched a small herd the previous morning. I could see for miles and yet could not turn up a single elk. I was so bummed. After four days of scouting, I had no elk to pursue on opening day. Either they had moved out overnight or hunkered down in the timber, so I decided to go after some other elk I had briefly spotted a few days before through a narrow break in the clouds.
I hiked in, set up my camp, and got to a glassing spot around 5:30pm. At 6:15 four bulls came racing down out of the timber into a little clearing about a mile away and took turns wallowing and pairing off to fight—not gentle sparring, but aggressive fighting, like trying to kill each other. It was astounding. Twice one bull threw another one to the ground. I’ve never seen such a display of strength before in my life. I watched them in awe for 30 minutes, waiting for the wind to get right.
Once the thermals switched, I got my stuff together and raced down to the bottom of this drainage, and slowly stalked up the other side, approaching their fighting ground with stealth. Before I could see them, I heard antlers crashing and knew they were still there! I crept up to the edge of the woods, trying to get a clear lane for a range and a shot. I almost blew up the whole scenario with one wrong step, popping a stick and alerting one of the bulls. He stared me down for two minutes and then started walking off slowly. While he was watching me, I slowly brought my rangefinder up to my face and ranged him at 60. Even though I had practiced out to 100, I didn’t want to take a shot at that distance on an alert bull. Thankfully, two of them were actively engaged in a fight and were unfazed. They stopped for a moment, and one (just so happened to be the biggest bull in the group) took a few steps my way into a shooting lane to figure out why the other bull was walking away. He was ever so slightly quartering to me and stopped to look around.
I knew he was about 65 from ranging the first bull, so I drew back, steadied my 60 pin on the upper third of his body right above the lungs, and the shot broke clean. In the low light, I couldn’t see if the arrow hit home. The impact also sounded like the arrow hit the soft grassy ground behind him. All four bulls swirled around and ran for the edge of the woods, then walked into the timber and out of sight. I lost track of which one I shot at, and not a single bull acted injured. I thought I missed, so I took off up the hill in an attempt to cut them off and get another shot.
I quickly realized I had NO chance of catching up, so I returned back to their original location to search for my arrow. I had every intention of putting that arrow back in my quiver and never speaking of this incident again…but I couldn’t even find my arrow! What a shame! I was gonna have to tell everyone about how I totally blew it on my first shot at an elk. My pride wouldn’t let that happen, so I returned to the spot where I took the shot from, lined everything up, and went back to searching for my arrow in the dwindling light.
To my great surprise and immediate elation, there was my arrow, on top of the grass, covered in blood. “What!?!? I actually hit him!” I softly screamed. The blood on the arrow and on the trail 20 yards away that I found afterward was dark red. I knew from my days of deer hunting that it was likely a liver shot—definitely fatal, but would take some time. With light quickly fading and below-freezing overnight temperatures expected, I backed out and went back to my spike camp.
On my way back, I took a slight detour to climb ~500 feet or so of vertical up to the top of a mountain to talk to my dad and tell him about the events that had unfolded. I sent him pictures of the bloody arrow and blood on the ground to ask what I should do. He agreed with me that it was likely liver blood, confirmed that backing out was the right decision, and told me he was confident that bull was dead. I still hardly slept that night.
To my exceeding joy, I found the bull the next morning 150 yards away from the shot. The arrow had pierced one lung and the liver, just as I thought, and he was dead as a doornail. What a relief! My first elk. I would have been absolutely thrilled to take down a measly little raghorn, but I walked up on a very nice bull for the area. God truly blessed me not only with a mature bull, but an epic experience in epic country.
It was pretty special to do it all solo, but I was more than happy to have the help of my good friend packing out. It took us 2 days and 30+ miles to get all the meat out. It was the hardest workout of my life, and I loved every second of it.
But someone was missing. Though he might not have been able to provide much pack out assistance, I wish my dad could have been there to experience it all with me. I wish he could have seen firsthand, if only in a small way, how he had shaped me into the man I am today. I wish we could have watched on together as those bulls fought like dinosaurs and wallowed like puppies. I wish he could have witnessed the arrow arc over the grassy hill and strike the vitals. I wish we could have tracked the blood trail side by side. I wish he was there when I looked up and saw a leg poking out from behind a tree. I wish he could have held back the legs as I skinned and quartered that bull, just like I did for him as he cleaned all those deer back when I was a young kid.
Yet, in some way, he was present.
