simpsonhntr
FNG
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2019
- Messages
- 21
This past fall my buddy and I decided to go out for an archery Roosevelt elk hunt in Western Washington. I had recently moved to Washington and they have OTC tags for lots of units. Both of us have been very successful hunting elk in Colorado and were looking forward to hunting for roosies.
We committed to hunting for 10 days. I had a couple areas that I had chosen to hunt based on my scouting. The first five days, we spent in southwest Washington and we got into elk most days but there were also a lot of hunters. It also rained a ton for the entire hunt. I think we only had one dry day. One thing I did not account for, was the amount of driving access due to all of the timber cutting in the area. This led to a lot of road hunters who just drove around bugling. Another down side of hunting the timber cutting areas is the huge amount of trash and litter all over the place. We filled multiple trash bags just hiking around. We did manage to find a group of elk and hunted them for a couple days but other groups of hunters dropped into our valley and pushed them out of the area.
We decided to move further north where there was limited road access. This turned out to be a good decision because we only saw one other hunter. We found some elk in a clear cut and put a 3-4 hours stalk on them. There were two legal bulls in the group and roughly 15 cows. Once we got close the two bulls were chasing one hot cow and would not come to our calls. We snuck into the middle of the group and waited for one of the bulls to wander into shooting range. About 20 min before last light the smaller bull walked in to 61 yards and was quartering away just slightly. My first shot was perfect and the elk ran about ten yards but did not know where the shot came from. I pulled out another arrow and shot the bull again and he fell over. He is a small 5x4 but a trophy in his own regard.
My buddy and I hunted another couple of days but never got another good chance at a bull. This was a great hunt and I certainly learned a lot. Mentally it was a tough hunt due to the amount of rain we experienced. Most of our success on any hunt is due to hard work, long miles, and trying to commit as much time as possible to hunting.
Cheers
We committed to hunting for 10 days. I had a couple areas that I had chosen to hunt based on my scouting. The first five days, we spent in southwest Washington and we got into elk most days but there were also a lot of hunters. It also rained a ton for the entire hunt. I think we only had one dry day. One thing I did not account for, was the amount of driving access due to all of the timber cutting in the area. This led to a lot of road hunters who just drove around bugling. Another down side of hunting the timber cutting areas is the huge amount of trash and litter all over the place. We filled multiple trash bags just hiking around. We did manage to find a group of elk and hunted them for a couple days but other groups of hunters dropped into our valley and pushed them out of the area.
We decided to move further north where there was limited road access. This turned out to be a good decision because we only saw one other hunter. We found some elk in a clear cut and put a 3-4 hours stalk on them. There were two legal bulls in the group and roughly 15 cows. Once we got close the two bulls were chasing one hot cow and would not come to our calls. We snuck into the middle of the group and waited for one of the bulls to wander into shooting range. About 20 min before last light the smaller bull walked in to 61 yards and was quartering away just slightly. My first shot was perfect and the elk ran about ten yards but did not know where the shot came from. I pulled out another arrow and shot the bull again and he fell over. He is a small 5x4 but a trophy in his own regard.
My buddy and I hunted another couple of days but never got another good chance at a bull. This was a great hunt and I certainly learned a lot. Mentally it was a tough hunt due to the amount of rain we experienced. Most of our success on any hunt is due to hard work, long miles, and trying to commit as much time as possible to hunting.
Cheers
