Opening Day
I woke up smooth and easy without having to fight my eyelids. The night before had been restless as anticipation built in my mind and kept my body from relaxing. Opening morning of archery season was dawning. It was one of those treasured September mornings all archery hunters know, crisp and cool that portend bugling bulls. But as I sat up and looked through the window of my camper shell I had slept in, I saw the blue light that haloed around the earth as the sun readied itself. My emotions of earnestness immediately focused into a simple panic.
A Late Start
Hunting public land means finding where hunters are not as much as where there are elk. To do that means early arrivals at trailheads and deeper hikes into the backcountry. It’s not a guarantee of success, but it is an edge that can keep the balance sheet slightly in your favor. I would not be earning that advantage this morning. Instead, my struggle would be simply not to miss the morning traffic in the woods when elk transition from their beds to feeding.
I quickly fired up my propane stove to boil water while layering clothes and lacing boots. A minute later, I poured rumbling water into a bowl of oatmeal, splashing my right hand in the process. The heat warmed my hand against the cold air and stung into a slight burn. I tried not to care as I expedited my departure. In that haste, my stove would become a donation to whoever found it; when I returned later to retrieve it, it was gone.
A Little Luck
Miraculously, I found the space empty when I arrived an hour later at the jackleg fence that closed an old logging road. I glanced at the time on the dashboard clock, 9 AM, and confirmed it by the strong beams of light pushing through the dark timber around me. Defeat began to settle in before it was rebuffed with determination. I was here, and I was going to hunt—I couldn’t control any other factors now. I eased my truck door closed, mentally noting that my greatest grievance against other hunters in my party is not having “soft doors.” I stepped off the road, past the shallow barrow pit, and into the young green forest that ringed the older, dark timber beyond it. Raising my bugle, I attempted to elicit the ire of a bull elk anywhere on this mountain.
A Quick Response
Before my call’s symphonic note resonated its last echo in the valley below me, another musician added his sound from above. Knowing the mountain after several seasons, I discounted this response. I couldn’t recall ever finding elk or even sign on that peak, and such a quick response certainly meant some other Nimrod was nearby.
It felt like par for the morning, but my rule of chasing every bugle had paid enough dividends that it was never ignored. I judged it to be just over the ridge uphill from me several hundred yards. Where this bull was headed or how many cows he might be courting couldn’t be known yet. My hand produced a wind checker from my bino harness without conscious thought, and my eyes watched as a little white cloud was immediately brought back to my face. The morning thermals were still heavy and pulling the air downhill, away from this bull.
Thick Forest
Hearing the challenge to my call was something of a feat itself. The mountainside was steep and sound tends to ride above the treetops instead of filtering through them. Doghair lodgepole left little ground uncovered. They had grown this way after a fire four decades earlier cleared their path and opened their cones. Nature’s way of pruning them would be another fire that hasn’t yet burned. They did their dual job of preventing anything else from growing and muffling any bugles. One does not move quickly through timber this dark. Steps are chosen carefully and planned several paces forward. Like a maze, the trees can wall you in, forcing a retreat and recovery.
I attempted to maneuver through the forest with some agility and speed, mirroring a fish swimming through weeds. Eroded roads from when the mountain was last logged a century ago were my only reprieve. They ringed the mountain evenly and at least gave me a sure footing to pause. My first stop was after the second rung and when my breath began to trail behind me as I dashed upwards. I guessed it to be around 200 feet of elevation total, but a real number would be impossible with the dead ends and backtracks. I summoned two deep breaths to clear my lungs and refresh my mind. My charge had been directly towards the last known location of my opponent, and the next moment would reveal my fortitude, folly, or fear. I tongued the diaphragm to the upper palate and sang the two-note melody of the fall woods.
Second Response
I hadn’t intended to be so forceful, so full of fury in my solicitation of another bugle, but there was no doubting anyone who heard it, animal or man alike; I was proclaiming myself king of this mountain. The bull did not let this challenge go unanswered and just as swiftly staked his claim on this ground. My mind shifted from uncertainty to confidence and back again. Two bugles answered, clearing any doubt this was an elk, and my initial course of action was true. This bull was making his way downhill, but at a slower pace than I expected, likely due to his chore of herding the harem. I still had ground to cover but also some valuable time to get there. I would head straight up while he angled towards me. If it went to plan, we would face each other just as I crested the last rung.
Close Encounter
As I gained elevation, the trees began to thin. This meant I no longer had to weave through them, but now I was exposed. I had traded strategy for celerity and learned of this imbalance when I popped my head over the last rung and met the gaze of a cow elk. Confused and afraid, I froze. I thought I had won the race; I hadn’t heard any hooves on rocks or bodies against branches. Elk are as unquiet as kids at Christmas. It was only Providence who kept her head down to the ground as she grazed twenty yards away. I watched the grass disappear past her lips and the wetness of her eye when she blinked. I waited for the alarm to sound and all of this to be over. But it didn’t come.
More Elk
Other cows began to materialize around us. They all fed in the same direction, downhill and to my right. A calf jumped between its mother and another cow, carelessly frolicking. But, I saw no bull. Without moving, I scanned for antlers above their heads but found none. The gentle caress of wind on my face revived my hope. Strangely, several black cattle began to mingle with the elk and I feared this surreal moment would soon end. As it nearly always does to those in moments like this, time lost relativity and feel. Numbness turning to ache in my feet was its only measure and it was growing.
This scene came with a fragility, and my presence only made it more untenable. Two by two, the elk fed towards me, close to me, and past me. I could see one last straggler some distance behind the others, and then no more. The cows were gone, the elk were gone, and the bull was gone. I had gone undetected but also unrewarded. I could finally breathe now and shift my feet, the littlest of consolation for having done everything, or almost everything right. I almost muttered some obscenity to myself when one last roar summoned my full attention.
The Bull Appears
As all monarchs do, the bull had appeared in his own time and by the same path as his cows. He had announced his presence first with a bugle and then several seconds of snapping branches as he made his way through. I readied myself by ranging where the cows were and easing an arrow from my nock to the string. I clipped my release without looking and drew in a breath. I had been to this moment before and mentally began to work through my checklist. A, aim. Was my pin set, did I know my yardage? B, Breathe. Is my breath steady and the bubble on my sight level? C, Clear. Was my shot free of obstruction, was my mind free of the same? This recitation only lasted a second and was as much muscle memory as my fingers on the grip and the string to my nose.
The Shot
I saw his crown before his head. It proceeded as he dropped it forward and stepped into the clearing. His gait was sure but slow. Still, he didn’t give me long to admire his strutting. He would need to clear two large trees before I would have a clear shot. I drew as he stepped behind the first one, and then he stopped. I steeled my body as I anticipated a great stare-down, but his halt was brief. Three steps later he cleared the green-needled branches, and I let out a soft chirp on my diaphragm. This bull, broadside and unobstructed at thirty yards was all the invitation I needed to squeeze my release. I saw the vanes blur in my vision as the arrow left my bow. The cracking of bone was audible and immediately followed by red on his side. He was there and then he was gone.
I listened for a crash, and then anything else, but nothing came. I walked over to his last stand and saw his tracks and blood. The drops were clear and bright crimson, but they were too few. The arrow had blood, but not froth, and I replaced it in my quiver. I would have plenty of time to replay it all in my mind as I sat down and waited. There are few minutes longer than those waiting to track an animal, uncertain if it’s down.
Tracking
When the time came, I rose and began my tracking at first blood. Small drops were easy to see at first but became scarce after fifty yards. At eighty yards, they ceased. I retraced the trail several times, expanding concentric circles around the last blood, but no bull appeared. A message on my satellite messenger called in help, but it would be four hours before it arrived. Time became warped as it only can in the mountains and lengthened as I waited.
When my friend arrived, we quickly covered my previous trails before beginning to grid and search. Hours later we had found one long-dead bull someone else had lost and bumped several other elk who were looking to bed down. Time and heat were against us as we made the decision to head to our trucks. Looking at the lines we had trekked on our GPS, there was one small space left. We would cruise through to leave no stone unturned. Before long, I heard through the trees my buddy’s voice, “Hey man, you want your bull?”
Success!
Abandoning my line, I vaulted over downed trees as I hazarded the terrain. I came upon them both, breathless. Lying on a browned bed of needles was my bull. Checking my GPS again, I had been just twenty yards from him earlier, but a slight precipice had hidden him. I knelt down and grasped his antler in my left hand and placed my other near his heart. I looked at his chest and saw the wound I made. Tissue had clogged both sides, preventing a better blood trail, but the shot had been true. It didn’t matter now; sometimes it’s like that.
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