First Elk hunt... it was an adventure.

[30338]

I'd keep shooting the 6.5 whatever and invest in a very good quality non down bag for hunting in those kind of conditions. I prefer 140 vld for everything 6.5, though the 156 EOL is one I'd also try.

 

[AaronMColeman]

I'd keep shooting the 6.5 whatever and invest in a very good quality non down bag for hunting in those kind of conditions. I prefer 140 vld for everything 6.5, though the 156 EOL is one I'd also try.

I hunt near home and I still keep a sleeping Bag in my pack just in case I get stuck on the mountain for the night and need to stay warm.

And, I agree, that 6.5 wasn’t the problem. The problem was either a missed shot or an animal that didn’t leave much to track. Everyone makes their own call. Bottom line is something is eating that animal or she’s fine. No such thing as wasted animal on the macro level. We just want to avoid pain.


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[Rifleman86]

The elk I killed this year did not leave a drop of blood to follow. Even though I knew I had made a great shot. Not a drop. This is the first time this has happened where I had to follow tracks. Very stressful situation. It would have been very easy to give up after 30 minutes of not seeing a drop of blood. View attachment 131804Texted my buddy on the InReach and we split up but kept looking. A few hours and 7-800 yards later we were packing an elk out in the dark. Never give up! Ever!

Yeah, knowing that was a possibility now I wish we would’ve returned.

In 20 years of deer hunting I’ve never had zero sign on a fatal wound, even with some not so great shots... Especially with fresh snow. It honestly just didn’t seem possible to me that the elk would’ve been hit and not see anything. As sure as I was with the shot, after the night before I seemed equally sure I must not have hit her. It was as I said, a complete mindf$ck.

Sitting here now, warm, rested and dry, knowing that the hit might have indeed been fatal despite not finding anything that night, absolutely I wish we would’ve gone back.

But given what I thought I knew that night, and the situation we were in with gear, terrain and weather, I can’t blame us for not either.

Regardless, it was just a really sh$tty situation all around.

 

[Fatcamp]

Sounds like you learned some lessons. To be honest this thread has taught me some things. We don't elk at this time but spend plenty of time hunting mule deer and have encountered some shitty situations.

Always be prepared for bad weather and tough to find animals. Wish I could hit the rewind button on a few situations myself.

 

[5MilesBack]

A pair or more of hunters would be wise to leave the shooter at the position of the shot staring a hole through the position the animal was shot at, while the other walked to that spot. ESPECIALLY if neither has seen that country before.

Yep, it is unreal how differently everything looks from even just a few yards off the line of sight. Even for bow hunting I started carrying two strips of orange marking tape in my pocket for immediately marking where I shot from, and then marking exactly where the elk was standing. That way it's much easier to line everything up when you can't find an arrow or any blood. And I'm only talking about maybe 40 yards of distance, and things can look totally different if and when you're trying to recreate the shot. You get out past a couple hundred yards, and you may not even be close to the right spot.

I shot a cow at about 75 yards many years ago, broadside and she didn't even flinch, just stood there staring at me for a couple seconds, and then took off over the ridge. I thought I somehow missed. About a foot of snow on the ground, no blood, no hair, just tracks. I didn't find a drop of blood for probably 100 yards, and then it was only a very small droplet. Eventually I found her slumped over a blowdown about 400 yards from where I shot her. She had one broken rib going in, and one going out. When I cut her open, she had no heart. It was just soup and chunks. They have an amazing will to live and can cover some ground in that process.

 

[87TT]

I always try to be prepared for the worst. My hunting pack usually weighs in at around 22-28 lbs. I don't always carry a bag but at least some puffy zip on pants and jacket. My little backpacking stove and titanium pot with coffee lives in my pack year round as well as extra high calorie food.
As for blood trails, I have had it bust out a thunder shower and rain hard for 15 minutes and wash out all sign right after a shot before so crap occurs.

 

[Flatgo]

I don't want to pile on about the shot, but i feel like this happens more than people think. every year i hear people who on are not from the northern rockies states coming to montana in rifle season and want to do a backpack hunt. not saying they are not plenty of people capable of doing it, but people who have not hunted in montana in late october and november have not clue how bad the weather conditions can be. big difference between rifle season and bow season in montana. pretty hard to hunt effectively when you wake up cold and with frozen boots and clothes. i think a person can be a lot more effective having a nice camp and walking in further in the dark then camping this time of year. Again not saying backpacking isn't effective, but most people have no clue how bad weather condition can truly be. but backpacking is the new hip thing i guess. i hope other people heed this warning.

 

[AaronMColeman]

I don't want to pile on about the shot, but i feel like this happens more than people think. every year i hear people who on are not from the northern rockies states coming to montana in rifle season and want to do a backpack hunt. not saying they are not plenty of people capable of doing it, but people who have not hunted in montana in late october and november have not clue how bad the weather conditions can be. big difference between rifle season and bow season in montana. pretty hard to hunt effectively when you wake up cold and with frozen boots and clothes. i think a person can be a lot more effective having a nice camp and walking in further in the dark then camping this time of year. Again not saying backpacking isn't effective, but most people have no clue how bad weather condition can truly be. but backpacking is the new hip thing i guess. i hope other people heed this warning.

I hunted archery in a short sleeve t-shirt half the days. 2-3 weeks later during rifle season I was bundled up and frozen. A week later it was betweein -6 and -16 one night helping a friend pack out his elk. It can change on a dime.

I keep warm pants and jacket, and usually a sleeping bag in my pack, along with enough water and some snacks to get through a night in the woods if necessary. Not that this was the OP's case, but being prepared for weather is a must.

My only bit of advice is to use OnX. I always mark where I shot from, and to the best of my knowledge where I shot the animal, and where I think I last saw the animal if it's moving (look on the map for meadows or terrain features to know where the animal was). I also carry some orange marking tape to mark where I shot from, and any blood I may find. Not fool proof, but it sure helps. It's also a great way to mark where you are on a pack out if a friend is on the way.

 

[Rifleman86]

I don't want to pile on about the shot, but i feel like this happens more than people think. every year i hear people who on are not from the northern rockies states coming to montana in rifle season and want to do a backpack hunt. not saying they are not plenty of people capable of doing it, but people who have not hunted in montana in late october and november have not clue how bad the weather conditions can be. big difference between rifle season and bow season in montana. pretty hard to hunt effectively when you wake up cold and with frozen boots and clothes. i think a person can be a lot more effective having a nice camp and walking in further in the dark then camping this time of year. Again not saying backpacking isn't effective, but most people have no clue how bad weather condition can truly be. but backpacking is the new hip thing i guess. i hope other people heed this warning.

Yup. We were plenty prepared for the weather we were expecting... lows in the 20s highs in the 40s. Based off historical RAWS data we really didn’t expect anything lower than mid teens. Had that been the case, we probably would’ve without question returned the next day. But that storm hit us off guard. We just weren’t prepared for sudden sustained single digit temps and nights below zero. The whole thing was just really bad timing honestly. Most years we would’ve been just fine, downright comfortable probably. But between a bunch of frozen sweaty warming layers, water bottles freezing up, etc it just wasn’t smart to stay out there any longer. Yeah, part of me says we should’ve gone back... the other part of me says no animal is worth dying over. We were in a pretty bad situation the night before, and still literally weren’t out of the woods that morning... we had a lot of things weighing on our minds when we decided another night out there wasn’t going to be good.

Like others have said this probably happens a lot more than any of us would like to admit. We always hear about the perfect shots, or at least the miraculous recoveries. We don’t hear about these stories, because most people understandably don’t want to get ridiculed for it, but I think these stories still need heard. I’ll take the criticism with a grain of salt, the critics weren’t there, and had they been, they probably would’ve done the same things we did and just never talked about it. However had I heard it, we probably would’ve made a few small decisions differently that could’ve changed the outcome of our hunt. Hell, it might save someone’s life.

Both myself and my partner are no spring chickens with the outdoors, have had formal SERE-C training, and spent plenty of time backpacking and hunting. But Elk hunting in this kind of terrain and weather is a completely different animal than backpacking. Even given our training and experience we still managed to get ourselves in a really bad situation by a few seemingly harmless mistakes combined with a rapid weather event. Mistakes that are easy to do in the moment with quarry in front of you like not layering down, or not topping off on water put us in a really bad spot. I can’t emphasize how quickly things went from slight discomfort to potentially deadly. Had one of us been alone and broke an ankle in that scree field we would’ve been a statistic for sure.

Finally I would never attempt a backpack hunt again with sustained temps below freezing and low temps below the teens in the forecast, and I’ll never elk hunt without being prepared to spend the night somewhere. Shit gets exponentially harder and more dangerous the colder it gets. Water gets frozen solid and you can’t thaw it, boots freeze to where you can’t get them on, clothes get wet and don’t dry out. Canister stoves don’t work. Even with out titanium stove and tipi tent we were in a really bad way.

 

[mtnbiker208]

what would have changed if you had a sleeping bag or tarp with you?

 

[jmez]

Elk hunting is hard, both physically and mentally. Most learn the hard way.

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[Rifleman86]

what would have changed if you had a sleeping bag or tarp with you?

We would’ve just stayed there where we took the shot from the night. Got a big fire going, hopefully dried out a bit, maybe thawed out/melted some water and safely racked out, then done a much more thorough search before leaving in the morning, with plenty of daylight to get back to camp, pack out, and get to the truck.

Instead we navigated two miles of really rough country at night through blow down griz territory, just so we didn’t freeze to death. We woke up having to make the unfortunate call of either...

A) Hiking two miles further back into the roadless area with wet gear in single digit temps to go search an area we couldn’t find anything the night prior in, that had a fresh layer of snow, and even if we did find the elk, potentially lead to another dangerous night out in even colder weather.

B) Just leave, make it out safely, and maybe hit the area from a different road if we can later.

We chose B, and unfortunately couldn’t get to the area later via the other road due to the storm.

Like I said, shitty situation...

 

[jsb]

You did all right IMO. You gotta trust your gut when it comes to hypothermia because it sneaks up on you. Last thing you want is to become a "frozen fella." That's what the Yosemite SAR call a dead hypothermia victim they retrieve from the backcountry or pluck off El Cap. Every single frozen fella made an error in judgment and went out when they shouldn't have or didn't turn back soon enough. Too bad about the elk but next time you will be better prepared to weigh the consequences of taking a shot in bad conditions and a bad spot. It's a done deal, learn and move on.

 

[AaronMColeman]

Was this on a Tuesday October 29th? I’m in Wyoming but the same storm came through here. It was COLD, like minus 10ish cold. I helped a buddy pack out that night.

We live here so we were dry when we left and got to sleep in our own beds that night. If I was wet and out of liquid water I’d have made the same call.

In fact I probably wouldn’t have hunted that day. I was tagged out and my buddy was leaving the next day so it was his last chance. I’m glad we did it. But if we didn’t have a warm home to come back to I’m not sure we would have shot. If I was wet and thirsty I definitely would have made it back to shelter for the night.


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[Rifleman86]

Was this on a Tuesday October 29th? I’m in Wyoming but the same storm came through here. It was COLD, like minus 10ish cold. I helped a buddy pack out that night.

We live here so we were dry when we left and got to sleep in our own beds that night. If I was wet and out of liquid water I’d have made the same call.

In fact I probably wouldn’t have hunted that day. I was tagged out and my buddy was leaving the next day so it was his last chance. I’m glad we did it. But if we didn’t have a warm home to come back to I’m not sure we would have shot. If I was wet and thirsty I definitely would have made it back to shelter for the night.


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A few days prior but it was the beginning of that same nasty “polar vortex” we got caught in. It certainly didn’t get any better from that point forward. It wasn’t one of those “oh, the weather is going to break tomorrow and we’ll go look” situations.

Thank God for being able to get the weather on my InReach.

 

[5MilesBack]

Yup. We were plenty prepared for the weather we were expecting... lows in the 20s highs in the 40s.

We get lows in the 20's just about every archery season. From the middle of October on, all I expect is single digit or below zero lows. I see it every year on these sites, "the last several years we hunted in t-shirts"........and that's all they know because they've never experienced a "normal" year.

 

[jmez]

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. The weather in the mountains is very unpredictable.

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[cgasner1]

We went to Colorado this year kept the trailer at the bottom of the mountain and made my dad bring all his coyote calling gear Incase the weather hit been down that road before never again


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[gritsnfishin1]

I can't wait to get enough points to hunt a good area.

 

[406unltd]

agreed. My 300wsm is 5 clicks, or 1/2 mil, or .5 mils. Sounds like you might have shot high to me. Better luck next time.

1.1 MILs for 285 yards sounds like a bullet on the slower end of the spectrum. 3 weeks ago I had 4 280AI 160 gr accubonds at 3030 FPS MV not exit a bull at 310ish yards, and not a drop of blood, but he died in our sight. I unsuccessfully tried to back track him, no blood.

Recovered a whitetail this last Saturday that had been gut shot, bedded after 50 yards and died. Not a drop of blood.