So went into the Church backpack hunting (no horses) again this year only second year hunting elk and second year in the church. Last year we were completely underprepared physically and got skunked and packed it out and road hunted other parts of the unit and skunked out there as well. This year we saw a herd of 28 on day 0 driving in from North Fork across the Salmon. We made it back into the Frank and spent 6 days and 5 nights there starting a few days before the season. We were into the elk four of six days and possibly would have stayed a day or two more but bad weather was coming in and we were TIRED lol.
On opening day we saw a rag horn and group of cows just as they were cresting ridge (think they saw us getting to the top of our ridge and decided to move) and spent the better part of the day trying to find him again. At the end of the day we had a literal Disney moment 60min before no shooting time we look up, behind us, and into the setting sun and there is a GIANT standing on top of the tallest plateau/ridge we can see from our glassing spot just grazing about 800 yards away. He was a big symmetrical 6x6 with deep brown antlers and ivory tips. After being awestruck for a little while I'm up and moving to try and close the distance I get around the knob we are on and gain elevation and get to within one saddle of him, unfortunately he's 2 ridges up from that saddle and since its the Frank they are STEEP and the saddle has no cover to get across so the closest I can get is just shy of 500 yards. At this point I'm trying to inch as close as I can but there is a small very observant calf looking right at me grazing ~450 yards (perfect spot if it would have been the bull). There is about 8 other elk in the group including at least 1 spike, 1 4x4, and the blackest elk (a cow) I have ever seen). I sit and watch for about 30 min but the big boy is no longer on the plateau but grazing the back and side face of the ridge so all I can ever really see is the upper 2/3 of his chest shoulders and head(when he's not down eating).
Then and now I'm confident in being able to shoot the distance but at the time he wasn't giving me enough of a shot to be comfortable and with extremely slim likelihood that he'd give me the opportunity for a follow up or run the right way to get a better second shot if those would have been needed I decided to pass (but it was like 10+ times of deciding I had to pass because he'd never quite give me enough and would be grazing around
. ). With the big boy there I didn't even think of shooting the 4x4 but probably could have fairly simply as he was just sitting at the very top the entire time, never even crossed my mind though).
Then all of a sudden the herd saw something down the valley they didn't like looked hard and then took off over the ridge away from us and were gone.
The next day we were back at it and saw a spike and 9 other cows/calfs early, I was still hoping the big guy would show up but steeled myself that if the spike came into range I'd take him. They started about 900yards out but steadily closed the distance towards us and just as I was going to move into position to close the deal I saw movement on the ridge top two ridges over, ALOT of movement by the time I got my binos up more than half the herd had come over and gone down into the next valley but I counted at least 15 elk in that second half run over the top towards us and now just one valley over. I quickly abandoned the spike and took up a location I thought the elk would be cresting into our valley shortly hoping the big boy or one like him would be coming in shortly. Well that didn't happen, I still have no real good idea how that many elk slipped us as we thought they really only had three options, go down the valley they were in but that lead right back to the other valley the just ran up and over a ridge to get away from, go out the top but we thought we could see that pretty well or come over to us. Well nothing was happening and I got impatient so I started walking over there I get to the were I'm going to side hill from our basin to their valley over the ridge and about half way I SMELL them! I was so excited to over the ridge and see all those elk down in that valley and then wham I get over there and its completely empty and right at that moment the wolves start howling. Now while we saw elk almost every day we heard the wolves every day and or night.
And just like that I didn't see any more antlered elk the rest of the days in there and we came home empty handed. I think this year was the year it was going to happen in the Frank backpacking if it was, there was minimal pressure where we were compared to last year and alot of the guides had called it and weren't even staying to do the elk hunt. But with the wolves pushing the elk all around there wasn't a great way to pattern where they were going to be and they were always just too far with too little cover between us and it took too long to climb close enough in the Frank on foot.
Not taking a shot at the big guy still stings and sitting here arm chairing it I keep going back and forth on if it really would have been a good shot but eventually the sting will wear off and I'll be content to have erred on the side of caution but not there yet lol. So next year I'm pretty sure we are going to try a new OTC state and hopefully get our first elk but this trip definitely gave us some really cool memories.
ps. The Salmon zone seemed down right overrun with camper trailers/and atvs with more pouring in while we headed out. It must have been at least double from what we saw last year it was crazy. Its like the hot new vacation spot for mid october.
On opening day we saw a rag horn and group of cows just as they were cresting ridge (think they saw us getting to the top of our ridge and decided to move) and spent the better part of the day trying to find him again. At the end of the day we had a literal Disney moment 60min before no shooting time we look up, behind us, and into the setting sun and there is a GIANT standing on top of the tallest plateau/ridge we can see from our glassing spot just grazing about 800 yards away. He was a big symmetrical 6x6 with deep brown antlers and ivory tips. After being awestruck for a little while I'm up and moving to try and close the distance I get around the knob we are on and gain elevation and get to within one saddle of him, unfortunately he's 2 ridges up from that saddle and since its the Frank they are STEEP and the saddle has no cover to get across so the closest I can get is just shy of 500 yards. At this point I'm trying to inch as close as I can but there is a small very observant calf looking right at me grazing ~450 yards (perfect spot if it would have been the bull). There is about 8 other elk in the group including at least 1 spike, 1 4x4, and the blackest elk (a cow) I have ever seen). I sit and watch for about 30 min but the big boy is no longer on the plateau but grazing the back and side face of the ridge so all I can ever really see is the upper 2/3 of his chest shoulders and head(when he's not down eating).
Then and now I'm confident in being able to shoot the distance but at the time he wasn't giving me enough of a shot to be comfortable and with extremely slim likelihood that he'd give me the opportunity for a follow up or run the right way to get a better second shot if those would have been needed I decided to pass (but it was like 10+ times of deciding I had to pass because he'd never quite give me enough and would be grazing around
. ). With the big boy there I didn't even think of shooting the 4x4 but probably could have fairly simply as he was just sitting at the very top the entire time, never even crossed my mind though).Then all of a sudden the herd saw something down the valley they didn't like looked hard and then took off over the ridge away from us and were gone.
The next day we were back at it and saw a spike and 9 other cows/calfs early, I was still hoping the big guy would show up but steeled myself that if the spike came into range I'd take him. They started about 900yards out but steadily closed the distance towards us and just as I was going to move into position to close the deal I saw movement on the ridge top two ridges over, ALOT of movement by the time I got my binos up more than half the herd had come over and gone down into the next valley but I counted at least 15 elk in that second half run over the top towards us and now just one valley over. I quickly abandoned the spike and took up a location I thought the elk would be cresting into our valley shortly hoping the big boy or one like him would be coming in shortly. Well that didn't happen, I still have no real good idea how that many elk slipped us as we thought they really only had three options, go down the valley they were in but that lead right back to the other valley the just ran up and over a ridge to get away from, go out the top but we thought we could see that pretty well or come over to us. Well nothing was happening and I got impatient so I started walking over there I get to the were I'm going to side hill from our basin to their valley over the ridge and about half way I SMELL them! I was so excited to over the ridge and see all those elk down in that valley and then wham I get over there and its completely empty and right at that moment the wolves start howling. Now while we saw elk almost every day we heard the wolves every day and or night.
And just like that I didn't see any more antlered elk the rest of the days in there and we came home empty handed. I think this year was the year it was going to happen in the Frank backpacking if it was, there was minimal pressure where we were compared to last year and alot of the guides had called it and weren't even staying to do the elk hunt. But with the wolves pushing the elk all around there wasn't a great way to pattern where they were going to be and they were always just too far with too little cover between us and it took too long to climb close enough in the Frank on foot.
Not taking a shot at the big guy still stings and sitting here arm chairing it I keep going back and forth on if it really would have been a good shot but eventually the sting will wear off and I'll be content to have erred on the side of caution but not there yet lol. So next year I'm pretty sure we are going to try a new OTC state and hopefully get our first elk but this trip definitely gave us some really cool memories.
ps. The Salmon zone seemed down right overrun with camper trailers/and atvs with more pouring in while we headed out. It must have been at least double from what we saw last year it was crazy. Its like the hot new vacation spot for mid october.
