After spending 4 days of hunting elk in Eastern Montana
(I’ll write a post on that later) I had to go back home to work. On my second
day back at work, I happened to get done early so I thought I would head over
to one of my local elk spots to check for fresh elk sign and see what had been
moving through the area. With blistered feet from the past several days of
hunting I took my time strolling along looking for sign and eventually came to
a good spot to sit and glass while the wind blew in a decent direction. After a
couple of hours glassing I saw a few cow elk emerge below me, I didn’t have
time to see if there was a bull in the herd because my wind had changed and I
wanted to get out of there before they could bust me and I blew them out of the
area for good.
The next night knowing the herd of elk I saw was in there my
buddy BJ and I decided to come in from the other side and glass back to where I
had sat the night before. It was early evening and we had a couple of hours to
spare before anything would be moving. About an hour before sunset I decided to
relive myself with the hopes of avoiding an uncomfortable moment down the road
as the elk begin moving. As I took a stroll around the corner I realized I had
left my bow behind and thought to myself this is going to turn into one of
those hunting stores were a hunter is literally caught with her paints down. Fortunately,
I made it back to our lookout without missing any action, but no sooner had I
sat down when BJ whispered “Joey there’s a bull right below us draw your bow.”
I could see his rack and luckily I was positioned behind a sagebrush
so he couldn’t see me. I bent over to the side, drew my bow, and sat up. The
bull was standing broadside allowing me the perfect shot with ample time; I
settled my pin on him and let the arrow take flight. He took off running downhill,
the arrow placement looked good but since it all happened so fast the second
guessing begin. BJ and I sat there, thinking
“holy cow can you believe that just happened?” Gathering our thoughts we
decided to him give it thirty minutes and then slide down the hill to glass and
see what we could find. After only 15 minutes we couldn’t take it any longer,
trusting my shot we slowly and quietly worked our way down to the place he was
standing when I shot him. I had my binos out glassing the area when BJ said “he’s
right there!” it took me a while to see him because I was looking too far out and
he had only made it about 20 yards before he went down!
We had some friends hunting close by so we gave them a call
to let them know I had got my bull and we could use some help. Fortunately with
five of us working together the photos, quartering and the pack out went fairly
fast and I found myself buying rounds at the local watering hole in no time.
