Mike7
WKR
Finally, My First Idaho Bull
There is no one single answer to explain why I do what I do, but people like my hunting buddies Steve P and Steve S certainly get it. Suffice it to say, that I would never feel like my time in the woods was a complete loss or waste, if I never harvested an elk.
My own personal journey to harvesting this over the counter general season bull includes hunting mostly on 3 day weekends up to 2-5 x's yearly and some scouting on other weekends throughout the year for the past 10 yrs (hunting more seriously and primarily in N. Idaho though for just the past 4 seasons). I have been backpacking and spending significant amounts of time in the woods since I was 10 yrs old, but I came to hunting elk later in life while in my later 30’s. This journey includes learning about elk behavior from hunting friends, books, and mostly from observation...and learning that this behavior is different with each season of the year and in different areas of the forest.
It also includes a multitude of fun and interesting experiences along the way such as: scaring a small bear away that was trying to drag off my buddies food bag while he slept, having a Cooper's hawk try to use my head as a perch, running into a grizzly bear in the lower 48 while on the trail scouting, being charged by wolves while cow calling, being awakened from a nap by a screaming bull at 15 yards and then trying to hold still while ants crawled up my pant leg and the elk moved in and stared at me from 10 yds without giving me a shot (mental note, don't fall asleep near ant hills), getting to spend time with my kids in the woods when they weren't completely “zombified” by an electronic device, having my dog get chased by a mountain lion as he ran back toward me, and having my nearby friend being stalked by a mountain lion while we hunted.
Now I have her full attention. Here my daughter takes a quick snooze later in the morning after hiking into our spot in the dark on our only hunt together earlier this season. What a trooper and good hunting buddy.
For me the journey has included only public land hunting, having to adapt to high wolf populations, and having logging shutdown on public lands, all while the government has been slow to curtail some of its wildfire suppression efforts. It also includes many close calls where I was betrayed by swirling winds, just missed seeing animals which had passed through an area right before me, shots that I passed on because the animal was moving or partially obscured by foliage, nights hiking out of the woods in the dark, mornings shivering on a ridge waiting for the sun to come up after hiking into an area in the dark, hours of gear testing and preparation, learning the capabilities of my weapons and my own limited skill level while trying to stay within those limitations while hunting, and includes using no ATV's. I would however have gladly used an ATV packing out this elk if it were possible. And after I got this elk down and was then stranded down in a canyon in the cold rain and fog, it was then that I figured that the smarter hunters may indeed have been on a heated ATV or inside of a heated vehicle somewhere else.
My ATV...I sure wish I could have used it to pack out this bull.
My friend Steve S told me once that the key to hunting success is learning an area well and sticking with it...and being in the right places enough times that eventually the animals are there when you are. He has way more hunting experience than I, and I am sure he is right. I have tried to heed his advice, but I consider myself a hunter and an explorer I guess. This means that the discipline required to learn an area well, is sometimes overcome by my need to explore new areas, and to see what is beyond the end of the trail, or just over that next ridge. My wife thinks that I am a little crazy, and all of this which I describe may indeed support her case.
I have not been able to connect with a bull while archery hunting yet, which has been my main focus over the past 3 years (although I did help call in a bull a few years ago that my hunting buddy arrowed). Here is a description of my recent rifle elk hunt, which is not unlike past hunts that have been squeezed into my schedule of work and family over the past 10 yrs... the difference is, this time all of the stars aligned, leading to the harvest of a nice bull as icing on the cake for me.
For this short hunt, I first made a decision to explore a new area (see it can rarely work Steve S). I poured over the area on Google Earth the weekend before the hunt when I was stuck at home. This is exactly how my first early rifle high country mule deer hunt started which I was lucky enough to finally go on this year, and which ended without a legal buck being seen this time, even though I hunted hard and smarter than I ever had.
Sunrise in high mountain mule deer country.
Well, after Google Earth scouting of the new area and finding out that my hunting buddy Steve P would have to work, I arrived last Monday AM in the hunting area. I changed into my hunting clothes outside of my truck in the cool mountain air and then hiked/hunted much of the day to my designated location, often times having to fight thick wet Idaho brush while going cross country up a ridge two miles, after an initial mile or two traveling along a trail. The brush was wet from an earlier morning period of rain and snow, and as is often the case in N. Idaho, the foliage does not dry if the air remains cool and humid without wind. At my designated location, I soon found out that the ridge I was supposed to use my binoculars from in order to scour the area by glassing was too covered by trees to see anything at a distance (darned Google Earth). So, instead I turned this in to a hunt of the local area. I found a spot where I could see a good portion of the hillside directly around me and sat until 15 min before dark.
The sun peeking through the clouds for a moment on a beautiful N. Idaho late fall afternoon.
No elk yet. So, while there was just a little light left I started down the mountain a different way than I had hiked in. While hunting my way down during the last 15 min of light, I walked up to 7 yards on a whitetail doe. We stood and stared at each other for minutes, and then she started feeding just 10 yds away. She was right along the path I needed to travel. What the heck? Maybe she had never seen a human before, because although I was wearing camouflage clothing, my face was fully uncovered. I slowly worked past her with my trekking pole half ready to push her aside, as she never moved more than 15 yds from me while I went past. It took me 3 hours of traveling through wet old growth forest followed by some more thick brush to get back to the truck. By the time I got there, I was drenched, while all of the water on my pack was frozen solid because it was below freezing now. At times, on the way out, I couldn't see more that 5 yds in front of me when I stopped, even when in open spots, because the steam coming off of my body into the cold humid air engulfed me. I did take a couple of falls on small slick downed trees which were hidden by thick small fir saplings crowding the available ground space. One fall tweaked my knee a little, and one landed me right on top of my scope...oh, crap! I thought to myself, “This is just Murphy’s Law, I will no doubt see a bull in shooting range tomorrow, now that my scope is knocked out of alignment.” After slowly getting up and checking out my scope, luckily it seemed to be still fastened tight and in place, as I had mounted it with Loctite years ago…or so I had hoped.
After arriving back at the truck, I drove up around on the mountain to the other side of the road-less section that I was hunting. I drove through the woods in my underwear with the heater on full and the windows somewhat open, and with my clothes and pack spread out around the vehicle drying. I had one other set of dry clothes with me, but I didn't want to waste those right away even though I just had one more day to hunt...and indeed the extra dry clothes would come in handy before this was all over. By the time I got to my stop for the night, light freezing rain had turned into light snow at the higher elevation. I stopped the truck in a spot that I could pull off of the road and face uphill so that the truck’s partially reclining front seat would be more comfortable. Despite the cramped sleeping conditions, I slept soundly through the night in my sleeping bag after eating a quick sandwich.
I slept in the next morning, but this would be the last significant sleep that I would get for 2 days. I awakened to the sound of a Jeep passing slowly on the road just before first light. So I dressed hastily, and drove down the road to the spot that I thought would provide me with a good day long 5+ mile loop hunt. By the time I got heading down the ridge, it was an hour after 1st light and I soon ran into a band of mule deer in the fog heading to the top of the ridge to bed after feeding all night. With the wind in my favor, I slowly hunted down the ridge throughout the day, seeing nothing more than bobcat and lion scat on the game trail interestingly, and hearing nothing more than a lonely bull moose across the canyon. I stopped and called to the bull moose a few times for fun and this really fired him up, as he seemed to still be in the rut. But he was satisfied staying and guarding his side of the mountain, and I moved on. Little did I know at that time, but I was probably within 1/3 of a mile of a herd of elk to my upwind side...and they did not make a peep as I hunted on by.
As I slowly moved along, I was seeing some scattered elk sign during the rest of the day, but most importantly, I was seeing "no" fresh wolf sign...thank goodness! At about 2PM, sometime after starting my planned hunting loop back to the truck along another ridge, I caught site in my binoculars of a few cow elk feeding and bedded across the canyon. I had been just minutes before cursing the prospect of continued climbing over downed logs created by blown over dead trees, but ironically the only thing that let me see the elk, was the gaps in the forest canopy created by this significant beetle kill that occurred a few years ago on my side of the canyon.
So, I had a decision to make now. I was a 1 and 1/2 hr straight hike or 3 hour slow hike/hunt back to the truck...or should I try to head cross country and put a stalk on these elk to see if there was more than just a few cows over there. I had to work the next day...oh, a tough decision. In the end, I decided out of curiosity to try to get a better look at the elk, and then just head up to the truck bushwhacking from there, after I got a better look at the elk.
It took me an hour of climbing over blow downs and rappelling down fir saplings to get across the canyon. When I got to the top and peered over however, there were no elk...because I found out now that there was another smaller hidden ravine that I had to still navigate before I would be just across from the elk. I was committed now though, and I crossed the next smaller ravine in under 30 min.
With it getting later into the afternoon, I sneaked to the top of the ridge while staying low and next to cover. I then peered over toward where the elk should have been. Soon, I saw in my binoculars what appeared to be the same few elk higher on the hillside, with some bedding, some feeding, and one that appeared to be the lead cow, who was alert and keeping a constant vigil, looking down wind or up the canyon from the herd. But below these original elk I began to spot elk after elk, until there were nearly 20 elk that I had found in the vicinity. One elk looked to be at least 1 1/2 times the size of the others, and when I finally got a good look at it through my binoculars, it was clear that it was a big branch antlered bull tending the herd. I had no shot on him due to foliage and his location on the hill, so I dropped my pack and sneaked over further onto the side of the ridge which was facing the elk. I tried to get a good rest for my rifle in case he moved into an open area.
I sat there about 15 minutes, and started to get cold, as I was just in my base layer wool shirt, that had been soaked by wet brush and sweat from my 1 and 1/2 hr long stalk. I was unable to get a good yardage distance on the bull, due to the foliage. I did get a range of about 300 yards though in a nearby gap. No sooner had I thought about creeping up to my pack to get a coat, when the herd started moving out. The lead cow started taking the herd on a slow move or fast feed down canyon and across the hillside. The bull stayed low on the hillside and at the tail end of the herd. The herd would walk fast for 30 yds, stop to feed for a minute or less, and then move a distance again. I got a chance to see the bull better, but was unable to range him between my shaking fingers, and my rangefinder which had fogged up on the inside for a second time on my trip, ugh. Right as the bull was nearing a gap I tried to get into position for a shot but I felt too unstable with my trekking pole or elbow for support of the rifle at this distance. Within a minute I had begun to lose sight of the elk.
There is no one single answer to explain why I do what I do, but people like my hunting buddies Steve P and Steve S certainly get it. Suffice it to say, that I would never feel like my time in the woods was a complete loss or waste, if I never harvested an elk.
My own personal journey to harvesting this over the counter general season bull includes hunting mostly on 3 day weekends up to 2-5 x's yearly and some scouting on other weekends throughout the year for the past 10 yrs (hunting more seriously and primarily in N. Idaho though for just the past 4 seasons). I have been backpacking and spending significant amounts of time in the woods since I was 10 yrs old, but I came to hunting elk later in life while in my later 30’s. This journey includes learning about elk behavior from hunting friends, books, and mostly from observation...and learning that this behavior is different with each season of the year and in different areas of the forest.
It also includes a multitude of fun and interesting experiences along the way such as: scaring a small bear away that was trying to drag off my buddies food bag while he slept, having a Cooper's hawk try to use my head as a perch, running into a grizzly bear in the lower 48 while on the trail scouting, being charged by wolves while cow calling, being awakened from a nap by a screaming bull at 15 yards and then trying to hold still while ants crawled up my pant leg and the elk moved in and stared at me from 10 yds without giving me a shot (mental note, don't fall asleep near ant hills), getting to spend time with my kids in the woods when they weren't completely “zombified” by an electronic device, having my dog get chased by a mountain lion as he ran back toward me, and having my nearby friend being stalked by a mountain lion while we hunted.
Now I have her full attention. Here my daughter takes a quick snooze later in the morning after hiking into our spot in the dark on our only hunt together earlier this season. What a trooper and good hunting buddy.
For me the journey has included only public land hunting, having to adapt to high wolf populations, and having logging shutdown on public lands, all while the government has been slow to curtail some of its wildfire suppression efforts. It also includes many close calls where I was betrayed by swirling winds, just missed seeing animals which had passed through an area right before me, shots that I passed on because the animal was moving or partially obscured by foliage, nights hiking out of the woods in the dark, mornings shivering on a ridge waiting for the sun to come up after hiking into an area in the dark, hours of gear testing and preparation, learning the capabilities of my weapons and my own limited skill level while trying to stay within those limitations while hunting, and includes using no ATV's. I would however have gladly used an ATV packing out this elk if it were possible. And after I got this elk down and was then stranded down in a canyon in the cold rain and fog, it was then that I figured that the smarter hunters may indeed have been on a heated ATV or inside of a heated vehicle somewhere else.
My ATV...I sure wish I could have used it to pack out this bull.
My friend Steve S told me once that the key to hunting success is learning an area well and sticking with it...and being in the right places enough times that eventually the animals are there when you are. He has way more hunting experience than I, and I am sure he is right. I have tried to heed his advice, but I consider myself a hunter and an explorer I guess. This means that the discipline required to learn an area well, is sometimes overcome by my need to explore new areas, and to see what is beyond the end of the trail, or just over that next ridge. My wife thinks that I am a little crazy, and all of this which I describe may indeed support her case.
I have not been able to connect with a bull while archery hunting yet, which has been my main focus over the past 3 years (although I did help call in a bull a few years ago that my hunting buddy arrowed). Here is a description of my recent rifle elk hunt, which is not unlike past hunts that have been squeezed into my schedule of work and family over the past 10 yrs... the difference is, this time all of the stars aligned, leading to the harvest of a nice bull as icing on the cake for me.
For this short hunt, I first made a decision to explore a new area (see it can rarely work Steve S). I poured over the area on Google Earth the weekend before the hunt when I was stuck at home. This is exactly how my first early rifle high country mule deer hunt started which I was lucky enough to finally go on this year, and which ended without a legal buck being seen this time, even though I hunted hard and smarter than I ever had.
Sunrise in high mountain mule deer country.
Well, after Google Earth scouting of the new area and finding out that my hunting buddy Steve P would have to work, I arrived last Monday AM in the hunting area. I changed into my hunting clothes outside of my truck in the cool mountain air and then hiked/hunted much of the day to my designated location, often times having to fight thick wet Idaho brush while going cross country up a ridge two miles, after an initial mile or two traveling along a trail. The brush was wet from an earlier morning period of rain and snow, and as is often the case in N. Idaho, the foliage does not dry if the air remains cool and humid without wind. At my designated location, I soon found out that the ridge I was supposed to use my binoculars from in order to scour the area by glassing was too covered by trees to see anything at a distance (darned Google Earth). So, instead I turned this in to a hunt of the local area. I found a spot where I could see a good portion of the hillside directly around me and sat until 15 min before dark.
The sun peeking through the clouds for a moment on a beautiful N. Idaho late fall afternoon.
No elk yet. So, while there was just a little light left I started down the mountain a different way than I had hiked in. While hunting my way down during the last 15 min of light, I walked up to 7 yards on a whitetail doe. We stood and stared at each other for minutes, and then she started feeding just 10 yds away. She was right along the path I needed to travel. What the heck? Maybe she had never seen a human before, because although I was wearing camouflage clothing, my face was fully uncovered. I slowly worked past her with my trekking pole half ready to push her aside, as she never moved more than 15 yds from me while I went past. It took me 3 hours of traveling through wet old growth forest followed by some more thick brush to get back to the truck. By the time I got there, I was drenched, while all of the water on my pack was frozen solid because it was below freezing now. At times, on the way out, I couldn't see more that 5 yds in front of me when I stopped, even when in open spots, because the steam coming off of my body into the cold humid air engulfed me. I did take a couple of falls on small slick downed trees which were hidden by thick small fir saplings crowding the available ground space. One fall tweaked my knee a little, and one landed me right on top of my scope...oh, crap! I thought to myself, “This is just Murphy’s Law, I will no doubt see a bull in shooting range tomorrow, now that my scope is knocked out of alignment.” After slowly getting up and checking out my scope, luckily it seemed to be still fastened tight and in place, as I had mounted it with Loctite years ago…or so I had hoped.
After arriving back at the truck, I drove up around on the mountain to the other side of the road-less section that I was hunting. I drove through the woods in my underwear with the heater on full and the windows somewhat open, and with my clothes and pack spread out around the vehicle drying. I had one other set of dry clothes with me, but I didn't want to waste those right away even though I just had one more day to hunt...and indeed the extra dry clothes would come in handy before this was all over. By the time I got to my stop for the night, light freezing rain had turned into light snow at the higher elevation. I stopped the truck in a spot that I could pull off of the road and face uphill so that the truck’s partially reclining front seat would be more comfortable. Despite the cramped sleeping conditions, I slept soundly through the night in my sleeping bag after eating a quick sandwich.
I slept in the next morning, but this would be the last significant sleep that I would get for 2 days. I awakened to the sound of a Jeep passing slowly on the road just before first light. So I dressed hastily, and drove down the road to the spot that I thought would provide me with a good day long 5+ mile loop hunt. By the time I got heading down the ridge, it was an hour after 1st light and I soon ran into a band of mule deer in the fog heading to the top of the ridge to bed after feeding all night. With the wind in my favor, I slowly hunted down the ridge throughout the day, seeing nothing more than bobcat and lion scat on the game trail interestingly, and hearing nothing more than a lonely bull moose across the canyon. I stopped and called to the bull moose a few times for fun and this really fired him up, as he seemed to still be in the rut. But he was satisfied staying and guarding his side of the mountain, and I moved on. Little did I know at that time, but I was probably within 1/3 of a mile of a herd of elk to my upwind side...and they did not make a peep as I hunted on by.
As I slowly moved along, I was seeing some scattered elk sign during the rest of the day, but most importantly, I was seeing "no" fresh wolf sign...thank goodness! At about 2PM, sometime after starting my planned hunting loop back to the truck along another ridge, I caught site in my binoculars of a few cow elk feeding and bedded across the canyon. I had been just minutes before cursing the prospect of continued climbing over downed logs created by blown over dead trees, but ironically the only thing that let me see the elk, was the gaps in the forest canopy created by this significant beetle kill that occurred a few years ago on my side of the canyon.
So, I had a decision to make now. I was a 1 and 1/2 hr straight hike or 3 hour slow hike/hunt back to the truck...or should I try to head cross country and put a stalk on these elk to see if there was more than just a few cows over there. I had to work the next day...oh, a tough decision. In the end, I decided out of curiosity to try to get a better look at the elk, and then just head up to the truck bushwhacking from there, after I got a better look at the elk.
It took me an hour of climbing over blow downs and rappelling down fir saplings to get across the canyon. When I got to the top and peered over however, there were no elk...because I found out now that there was another smaller hidden ravine that I had to still navigate before I would be just across from the elk. I was committed now though, and I crossed the next smaller ravine in under 30 min.
With it getting later into the afternoon, I sneaked to the top of the ridge while staying low and next to cover. I then peered over toward where the elk should have been. Soon, I saw in my binoculars what appeared to be the same few elk higher on the hillside, with some bedding, some feeding, and one that appeared to be the lead cow, who was alert and keeping a constant vigil, looking down wind or up the canyon from the herd. But below these original elk I began to spot elk after elk, until there were nearly 20 elk that I had found in the vicinity. One elk looked to be at least 1 1/2 times the size of the others, and when I finally got a good look at it through my binoculars, it was clear that it was a big branch antlered bull tending the herd. I had no shot on him due to foliage and his location on the hill, so I dropped my pack and sneaked over further onto the side of the ridge which was facing the elk. I tried to get a good rest for my rifle in case he moved into an open area.
I sat there about 15 minutes, and started to get cold, as I was just in my base layer wool shirt, that had been soaked by wet brush and sweat from my 1 and 1/2 hr long stalk. I was unable to get a good yardage distance on the bull, due to the foliage. I did get a range of about 300 yards though in a nearby gap. No sooner had I thought about creeping up to my pack to get a coat, when the herd started moving out. The lead cow started taking the herd on a slow move or fast feed down canyon and across the hillside. The bull stayed low on the hillside and at the tail end of the herd. The herd would walk fast for 30 yds, stop to feed for a minute or less, and then move a distance again. I got a chance to see the bull better, but was unable to range him between my shaking fingers, and my rangefinder which had fogged up on the inside for a second time on my trip, ugh. Right as the bull was nearing a gap I tried to get into position for a shot but I felt too unstable with my trekking pole or elbow for support of the rifle at this distance. Within a minute I had begun to lose sight of the elk.
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