First Elk with a Bow

Nov 06, 2011

The Story
by: Ryan

After about a 3 mile hike we found ourselves deep in the thick of the bush. It being so thick we knew where we were, but it made it extremely difficult to judge how high on the side of the mountain we were in relation to where we had spotted the elk.

My partner and I stood there for about 5 minutes having a quick drink of water from the hydration bladder and discussing what we should do. My partner felt we were too high and kept struggling on whether or not we should move down a little bit. I told him that we should definitely go with his gut feeling and move down the mountain.

Boy was I glad we made that decision! After about 5 min of leading down the mountain, looking down through all the lush green foliage and the white from the many quakies in the area, I saw that beautiful tan color of an elk about 130 yards away.

At this point, it being so thick, I did know if it was a bull or a cow. We quickly and stealthily got into a position. The elk never heard us or saw us and after about 2 minutes we were saying the same about the elk. The Indians used to call elk ?The ghosts of the forest. This was a situation where I would agree with them wholeheartedly!

After about 8 to 10 min the elk had made its way up to us in complete silence and appeared out of what seemed like nowhere at a distance 35 yards! It was a bull. Not anything huge, but not a spike either. I quickly decided that I was going to take him. As drew my bow back, this bull had heard the slight noise that my arrow made as it slid back on my rest. He immediately stopped and froze. This was good and bad all at the same time.

It was bad because due to all the foliage all I could see of him was his right rear quarter. I had absolutely no shot! It was good because during our intense hike to this location, my peep sight had twisted out of line a little bit. Looking through it I had no clear line of sight to my sights.

During this 15 min standoff of silence I slowly decompressed my bow to fix my peep (by the way holy moly was that difficult not to make any noise)! Alerted and a little spooked the bull turned himself around right into the only shooting window I had. As he turned around I drew my bow back a second time and my partner threw out a quick cow call. The timing was perfect.

The bull stopped, looked our way quartering away, and I took the shot! I saw all this in slow motion and watched my arrow make a perfect hit! Just like that I had made a perfect shot on a bull elk. After the shot is when I think that my buck fever had set in. Backpack still on, bow in hand I just had to lay down with that big smile on my face and take a deep breath!

After about a 20 min wait I decided to go and look at the location where I shot him. I didn?t see my arrow, but saw lots of sign of a great shot. Looking down the path that he took after the shot, I saw him. He only went about 50 yards before he was down!

First Elk with a Bow

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First Elk with a Bow