Addressing Ethics: I have now had the benefit of time that all you have enjoyed. I try to learn from everything in every way possible. My hunting buddy and I talked about this in detail right on the spot. The coulda, woulda, shoulda's all of us hunters do after every encounter.
The original shot: It wasn't a perfect situation but if ya'll are always shooting unaware elk exposed from hoof to back nose to tail every shot at under 20 yards then good on ya. As for me I will shoot an elk in that position at that range again. Otherwise, I might as well give up archery hunting because even that good of opportunity in general season is rare. I took the shot and do have a burned in freeze frame in my mind of the arrow in flight. Many have told me how bad the shot must have been but I can say I am going to try to make that shot fatal with heavier and better arrows because it potentially could be. All I have is that I know for a fact it wasn't far back and apparently wasn't perfect because he didn't die within any near distance.
Tracking: We waited for plenty of time and did a great to excellent tracking job. Never rushed it when I didn't find blood and always made sure that blood and direction were established before moving forward. There were some difficult patches even early but we made it through them all and picked up a good trail after. Post "gushing" over rocks got tough. That's when I got real concerned we wouldn't recover him. We had just had encouraging blood but he was closing up fast. I also wasn't encouraged about his decision to go uphill at every split. He invariably decided to go up instead of down when given a choice. Into the sagebrush clearing is when it got really tough. At this point, I think he may have lost a certain percentage of hunters. This required a lot of discipline to not get too far out in front and to stick with always having blood before moving on. Then the uphill turn. Here, I think you would have lost most remaining trackers. He had no reason and there were fresh elk tracks on the trail he should have stayed on. Blood was already minimal and I think most would have continued on the trail and assumed he just stopped bleeding. Instead, I stuck with the having blood before moving rule and eventually found a smear on the bottom of a branch on one piece of sagebrush above where he was last on the trail. Faint and off color but clearly taste like elk. At this point it gets ridiculous and we still somehow keep on him but daylight is burning fast and we are getting 10 yards at a time at less than a yard a minute. Eventually, it fully looks like he switched back on us. He is now on a trail and should have again stayed on it. Instead, under a tree that makes tracking tough, he decides to flip back on his route to head the direction he was originally going. Again, no trail there. No reason to turn up and back through sage. But he does it. This turn took a ton of time to overcome. Then it gets even tougher and I am forced to jump ahead more than I like because at this rate even if he was dead less than a mile away he would be fully rotten by the time he is found. I get lucky and find his path onto better tracking. Still tedious but much quicker. Then he enters a tougher spot than any I have overcome yet just before dark. I choose to glass for him the next morning by hiking to a good vantage point. Hoping he comes out into one of the clearings. He doesn't. I then post up my buddy to watch clearings from across the canyon so I can try to get back on his trail and he can see if the bull gets bumped. I grid the area for blood for about an hour when chapter 3 of ethics starts. I think there are at least 3 situations where 90 percent of the general hunting population loses the trail to break out and grid an area that would have been completely hopeless. Ultimately determining they lost the elk but gave it their best. Then the hunter would choose to keep hunting or not. At this point they could have said "lost the trail bad shot" and yall maybe woulda went "shucks that happens" better luck next time and congrats on getting a bull the next day. However, I did do the tracking and tracking skill or effort alone doesn't disqualify me from rightful criticism I am receiving.
Second Shot: I wasn't stalking this bull. I wasn't calling this bull in. I didn't glass this bull up and decide to move in on him. I was walking around looking for blood when I heard the bull. I did maneuver into position hoping it was the same bull. Somehow as we likely all have had happen the bull went from here to there quick and caught be by surprise. I expected him under me to only catch him angled uphill from me. My time physically seeing him was very brief and a very rapidly closing window. I made a decent shot quick. The decision time to take the shot was in seconds. Time I had to decide not take the shot would be measured in the same. The bull wasn't sticking around to be measured and analyzed.
In hindsight. Yeah, probably not the same elk. What are the actual odds? Not great! At the moment with heart-pounding head going a million miles an hour I was damn near certain it was the same bull. It came out very near where I lost the trail and here it was. Lucky me! I saw what I wanted to see. I didn't have time to really reflect on the odds and I saw what I wanted to see in an emotionally charged moment. I can tell you that in my mind if that bull turned and ran before I shot I fully expected to see my arrow in it and to lose it forever. Illogical as that may sound. I get excited when I hunt and I can't say we all think clearly with adrenaline. We do the best we can but shit happens fast a lot of the time and we are just reacting to it. In clear hindsight I would risk it being the same bull and not take the second shot. My statement likely would be the exact opposite were I telling that story though. I would be saying how I should have taken it and likely finding comments echoing that here.
Realities are this. That first bull was likely never going to be found. I think we all know that. I really wanted it and had a terminator like mentality. If it keeps bleeding even the most minuscule amount I will find this bull and kill it. That's what I was feeling. My next steps were already laid out with my hunting partner. I was going to look until around 10:30 am to 11:00 am for blood. If I didn't find any I would head on his last known bearing and grid out likely bedding spots with my partner on overwatch. We were a couple miles from the shot at this point and this bull had barely even stopped the whole time. He was only getting better and not worse. In all likelihood, he was too far for me to realistically get to and grid before we had to get the mules back. But there was maybe a chance. A damn tiny one but maybe just maybe. There is always a chance every time we end a search. Where that line is drawn is the devil in the details. Was the chance of bull number 2 being the same bull equal or greater than the chance of me finding bull number 1 another way? Maybe but both in hindsight were tiny. However, now we have two dead bulls by one hunter and not just one. That is a worthwhile ethical debate for sure.
Ultimately, we had two hunters with tags in the field and two bull elk were killed. No, I am not condoning party hunting. Just stating a fact. So in the future what will I do differently? In no order of importance here it goes.
1. Switch arrow systems. I get the perfect shot argument and it is an important area to focus on. I get on paper my arrows can kill elk. Hell, they did. However, more penetration really would have helped in this case and performance on bull number 2 was unacceptable for what I am after. I am not okay with the deflection off that rib.
2. Take a good look at when I will consider a tag filled vs keep hunting. I was already planning on leaving the bow in camp the next day if I didn't find the bull but having a preset rule can always help when making emotional decisions.
3. Would it have been better for me to be the one spotting and my partner who hadn't shot be the one looking for the blood trail? That way if this situation were to happen its win win. However, he has less experience with blood trails (though he was a great help in tracking) and he wasn't there when I last lost blood so maybe not a good option here but in the future it's worth considering.
4. Is shooting a bull a good idea this late into your planned hunt? We had to scramble pretty hard to get bull number 2 out and the way the tracking was looking for number one it would have taken a full day or more to get him were it ever to happen.
5. What can I do to continue to give back to elk, deer, and wildlife. I took two lives this season. I have an extra debt. What can I do beyond my current involvement in conservation to make sure I am doing my part seems how I took more than my share?
As critical as you all are on me I am just as much so on myself. I've mulled this over a thousand times. This was my first archery bull elk. Should have been a better experience but no I am not hanging up the bow and I will never be the guy who does everything perfect. I have killed dozens of deer and elk but still get pretty damn excited. Now onto my dad's bison hunt and my muzzleloader buck hunt.