It all started earlier this year when Mike found out that he draw an Elk tag for hunt area 30 just south of town here in Rock Springs, WY. I came to find out that it is a very difficult unit to draw since there is only 50 tags and that it is a very highly priced trophy Elk spot. Little did I know that it was going to be a very long hunt season from scouting to the shooting part itself.
Starting the beginning of August, Mike had placed out multiple trail cameras around the Aspen Mountain hunt area 30. Every few days, he would go out and download the pictures/videos captured from the trail cameras to bring them home to study every inch of a bull Elk that he could see on the computer screen. Some cameras did not produce much so he ended up moving a couple but others were on fire with some massive bulls. I did not think that there was any that size around this part of the state because of the harsh habitat but there were ones that would score over 380 on the Boone and Crockett. The Boone and Crockett Club is one of the oldest wildlife conservation organization dating back to 1887 and was founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell. The club created the first large game scoring and data collection system used to measure antlers to study their overall health and habitat quality for wildlife management and polices (1).
Mike was receiving a lot of stress leading up to and during this hunting season over this tag that I know that it was not healthy for him. He had his coworkers, other agencies, and friends telling him how great of a tag that he draw and that he better get a big one that I thought I was going to lose him mentally. Haha I made sure that he was feed and that I was out there as much as possible supporting him throughout the entire duration. I am just glad that he did not screwup his body as much from this one like last year from doing high mountain hikes.
Anyways I will get off my soap box there and move on. So this brought us to the beginning of September with his father coming up to help us hunt for our Antelope and Elk tags. After we made it back home from Mike filling his Antelope tag by Elk Mountain and me missing, that next morning his father and him were out looking for his bull Elk. For the state of Wyoming archery starts the beginning of September and runs through the whole month and until the end of riffle. So we both had a month to harvest an Elk before the craziness of riffle started where there would be people all over the place.
Mike was out every single day ether in the morning, afternoon, or both trying to get close enough to pull back on his bow. I can only shoot up to 40 yards with my bow and do not feel comfortable going further. Every time that he went out he always saw herds of Elk ranging from 4 up to over 100 head. One of the times that I went out with him in the evening, we came upon an extremely large herd that had over 20 different sized bulls and I don't even know how many cow/calfs. All of the bulls were making their calls and fighting with each other while all the cow/calfs were talking to each other. You could tell which one was the alpha male because he kept chasing off the smaller bulls and rounding up his females that he had claimed so far.
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It was getting darker and the alpha male was starting to herd everyone out of the canyon to bed up on the flats. Mike figured out exactly which way they were going to come up so he got himself positioned and me placed behind a juniper tree up hill about 20 yards away from him. I had a perfect sized window to look though the base of the tree down to where Mike was. He ranged himself about 40 yards away from the trail that the Elk were going to take. After sprinting into position, we were both ready. I had my phone out recording everything that was going on and Mike was just waiting for the alpha male to walk on by. It was the craziest thing that I have ever experienced having that many Elk walk on by where the wind was just perfect and the weather was calm as the hunting hours (now minutes) began to disappear. All of the different calls that each one was making was beautiful and interesting. Mike had a break in the herd so he moved down closer to the trail making his shooting distance shorter. Then the moment came when the alpha bull started to walk by and then he paused....Mike pulled back on his bow and released....There was no impact sound indicated that he had missed. He had just missed and it took all my energy not to say anything because he could have another chance to put another arrow in. Well he started too, the bull Elk started walking again, Mike made a cow call, and then he was gone and there was no more opportunities for the evening.
It was a disappointing steep hike back up to the truck since it was so perfect and he realized why he had missed. Mike had forgot to re-range his distance and shot at 40 yards instead of his 30 yards marker. But the excitement does not end here with this one Elk because we still had two weeks of archery before riffle opened the beginning of October.
The hardest thing, among others, that I learned about hunting for Elk is their sense of smell. If the wind is blowing towards them, they will smell you and disappear. I don't know how many times that it happened to us will we were out hiking around. There is also their hearing making it difficult to sneak up on. You have to make sure to roll your feet instead of flat foot it around that we are all use to doing. Then lastly there is your ability to listen to everything around you and keeping your breath under control. All of this becomes escalated during archery season because of how close you need to get to them in order to pull back on your bow. Being out there brings you to realize the little things we miss in our day to day lives. After you sit and wait in an area for 30 minutes and longer, everything starts to come back to live and more about their lives normally. My favorite part is when chipmunks and squirrels come out of their hiding spots because sometimes they get so close to you you could almost reach out and touch them.
It was not September 30th and we both have not been able to fill our tags with our bows so out comes the rifle. Mike spent the night out there in the roaring wind and rain storm that moved through that night to be ready to hike in the morning of October 1st. He had seen multiple bulls on the other side of the canyon leading him to drive around on horrible dirt roads to come up short. Mike was not able to fill his tag opening day as he had hoped and I did not want him to pull the trigger unless it was a bull Elk that he was going to be happy with for the rest of his life.
On the second of October, Mike's father came back up from New Mexico to help him hunt. It was weird being out there now because there was so many more people along with their camper trailers and side by sides. Side by sides piss me off when it comes to hunting because those animals can hear those and won't come out so the movement of the Elk had change....pretty much over night. Where we had been seeing them all of September, they were no longer there. From what I found out was that they all moved from the East side of HWY 191 to the West side of HWY 191. So now we were hunting in new territory that Mike had not even looked at all season.
The time finally came around 4:30 pm October 8th. I had just got onto the interstate to head to Green River for a Trout Unlimited meeting when Mike called me. That morning I had a feeling that it was going to happen today so I already had my pack, knife, headlamp, hunting clothes, and hiking boots in my vehicle. So I made me way down HWY 191 a little ways to park where I check hunters two years ago and hiked down the West side with his father to find him with his harvest about .35 miles as the crow flies. It was incredible just the shear size of his body and antlers. I could have not been more happier for him. Once Mike's friend and son arrived to help us quarter him and pack him out, the temperature started to drop. We hurried to take a lot of pictures and then got to work. We were going to have to make two trips due to his size and the son is still pretty small to pack out anything. The first trip started right before it got dark, I had a front quarter, Pat with a hind quarter, father with the other hind quarter, and Mike with the other front quarter.
We made it to the truck by 8 pm with the first load but not all of us made it out alright. Mike's father ended up blowing out his back and Pat was still suffering from a knee injury make him limb a lot. So Pat hiked back down a little ways to Mike's father to pack out a quarter while Mike and I went back to the kill site.
Mike and I almost could not find his bull because of how dark it was and I forgot to mark its' location. I loaded all of the back straps, tenderloin, and other muscle into my pack making it weight over 80 lbs. Then the challenge came to load the Elk's head with the hide still on that was cut from behind his shoulders up. You don't really know how large these animals are until you have a head on your back with the antlers, it makes your body like 3 times wider!! Not easy to move between junipers with that. This pack out was the hardest and I am glad that I was in somewhat of shape to do it because once I made it back to the truck by 10 pm, I felt like a champ.
The day before Mike had found a dollar bill right by his truck and had lost it when he heard an Elk bugle. It was hillarious to find out that when he got out of his truck in that same spot again that afternoon, it was right there again. Right when he picked it up, he heard an Elk bulge. It ended up being the Elk that he shot making it out to be the "$1 bill Elk". Mike and his friend scored him over a 350 bull on the Boone and Crockett score. I just could not believe that it was finally over and now was time for me to get my cow Elk.
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