Idaho, DIY, OTC, public land-2009.

Saturday A.M. finds me waking up at 6 again, with no alarm. Now I KNOW my partner doesn’t want to get up in the mornings. To this point most of our action has been in the evenings. Although a little late we decide to head down the mountain and hunt the funnel herd. As the crow flies this area is only four miles away. By vehicle however it is 10 miles, and 40 minutes away. On the trip there we can tell there has been more activity, and there are more hunting camps set-up than just a few days prior. If we can tell this, we know the elk can too, and on cue the big herd bull bugles. Although barely light enough to see, the herd is already across the road and a good ways up the mountain. We take an angle towards where we think they are headed. They are moving fast, and he only bugles twice more. Less than 15 minutes after shooting light and he is silent. Continuing on, we hope to find their bedding area, before bumping them. Here is a wallow we found.

Sunday morning finds us leaving after daylight once again. Its 26 degrees this morning, the chilliest it has been so far. We start the trek up the hill, South of camp. Once arriving at the top, we start down the drainage, wondering if today will be the day rut activity cranks up. We cover about 4 miles, not seeing an elk or hearing a bugle. There is however fresh sign, and we discovered some new pockets of cover that could pay off later. We arrive back to camp around noon, and reload the packs for the night hunt, then have some lunch. With the wind, strong out of the North, we can’t hunt Heartbreak Hill, so we decide to head West. This is the area, that I scouted the other night. By coming into the S end of the drainage, we would be able to hunt the entire length of it with the North wind. After 1100 feet of elevation, and one hour climbing we are to the top, at the South end. Its really a pretty area. Once at the top, it is only flat for about 100 yards, then it starts dropping into a bowl, which also has a hidden lake in it.

Our excitement is high as we snap a few photos, from the highest peak around. It’s time to hunt. We are about 100 yards from the waypoint I marked the previous time I was up here. I start towards that waypoint, before covering 10 yards, I hear the sound of feet on rocks, or rocks rolling I don’t really remember. I stop in midstride, and take a 1/2 step back to get my feet set. When I stopped Sam immediately stopped also, although not knowing what, he knew something happened. After about 45 seconds of picking apart the brush, I see a rack turn. 6×6, and what a bull he was. Because of the steepness of the hill, all I can see is his 4’s, 5’s, and 6’s sticking up. It looks like he is facing South. I am in the lead, with Sam a step behind. He has a pine between him and the bull. I watch him for about a minute, trying to decide what to do. With the nature of hunting bowls, the wind is real shifty. Mostly it is good, but every now and then it switches to a little in the bulls favor. Not enough to reveal us, but to close for my comfort. He knows something is up, but is holding tight, not knowing for sure what. About this time I see his rack and head lurch forward, this is when it sinks in, he is bedded. I tell Sam to step back and get ready, he is standing up, and 42 yards away. Now we also know this isn’t the animal that made the noise that I heard. We are also searching for it.

The bull stands as a cow below him starts mewing. Sam is at full draw and whispers not to move. The bull is standing facing away, at 45 yards. Whichever way he turns, left or right, will provide a shot. The bull takes a step and starts down the draw, away from us. Still no shot. Another bull trots down and away from us. This has to be the animal that we originally heard stand up or move. Sam was busted by this bull, as he tried to create a shot. This was the only animal that was totally aware of our presence. With the shifty winds and alerted bull, Sam wants to back-out and leave the herd be for another day. We start the hour long trek back to camp, wondering if being withing 45 yards of two bulls, and not sealing the deal would come back to haunt us.

Monday morning finds the temp down to 24 degrees. Sam said the sleeping bag is nice and warm, and there will be no hunting this morning. So after dressing, we decide to make the trip to town for a hot breakfast and some grocery resupply. Part way down the mountain, we catch up to a good old fashioned “cattle” drive. Only they were sheep, and hundreds of them. We got to follow them down the mountain at 2.5 mph, what a long dusty ride that was.

After a nice Ham & Cheese omellette and hashbrowns, we were off to the grocery store, and then headed up the mountain for the evening hunt. With huntable winds, we were back to Heartbreak Hill. With winds out of the West, we had to cross over to the opposite side of the drainage to keep it in our favor. Once crossed Sam gave a locator bugle. It is just before 5 pm, no response. Our plan is to get about 3/4 of a mile down this canyon, then set-up, and do some cold calling, and wait for the evening bugling to start.

After waking about 10 yards, I think I heard something above us. Footsteps? Rock tumbling, something, just not sure what. Sam never heard it, but we listened and watched for about a minute. Imagination? Sam hits the bugle, again no reply. We continue on. This time within seconds I hear something again. This time Sam hears it. Not seeing anything, I point my trekking pole up the hill to where I knew the noise was, and tell Sam get ready, it must be a Mountain Lion stalking us. Sam gets a little fidgety in the woods, so I was playing with him a little. He laughs and starts to move again. I know better than to go, as there is something up there. After about 5 seconds I spot it, moving through the brush towards us at 65 yards. I say “BULL, don’t move, he’s coming right at us.” This animal has been hearing us bugle and walk, and pretty well has us pinpointed, but hasn’t spotted us, yet. We are in a little cover. So as he goes behind some brush, Sam knocks an arrow. I’ve got the range finder out. The bull is quartering towards us, and going to come at an angle in front of us, the wind is perfect. There is a big opening about 15 yards ahead of the bull. There is a dead tree in the center of the opening, but farther away than it looks like the bull will be, I range it at 53 yards. I whisper that to Sam and he comes to full draw, then mews with his voice? I’m like what is going on? With in a second of the mew, he shoots. I can hear the sound of arrow hitting bull. Now I’m totally pumped.

With Sam stopping the bull immediately as it entered the opening, and him being a 1/2 step in front of me, I was unable to see the bull. He put the 50 yard pin right on the crease and let it fly. Sam is muttering some things, I can’t repeat here. Asking him what happened, he said the arrow bounced off the back of the bull, taking only a tuft of hair. After the bull run off, we walked up, and got his arrow. It was an uphill shot of 45 yards, there was a little hair where the bull stood. We were able to follow running tracks for about 400 yards, even though we knew he wasn’t hurt, we had to follow. No blood anywhere along this stretch. After we lost the tracks, it was a long walk back to camp. The plus side of this, it is good to know, the bull wasn’t really injured, and will live to play again, albeit smarter. As we are cooking supper in the dark, wolves begin to howl, about 1/2 mile from camp. This is the first wolf sign we have heard.

Tuesday finds us up early and driving around to where we have been hunting the bigger herd. We walk in by headlamp for 45 minutes, hoping we will be ahead of the elk today. However nothing is talking, and the freshest sign seems to be a couple days old. Between the hunter activity, and the sheep moving through, these elk have had enough, and moved. We drive to another area, and do some scouting for a future hunt. We arrive back to camp around 11, and cook a lunch, and decide to kick back and relax for a bit, before the afternoon hunt. About an hour into the “break”, I am “bothered” by a bull chuckling down the canyon, about 3/4 mile away. With the wind, and his location, we decide to leave him be, and try him in the morning, rather than bump him. This should be an ideal set-up for a moring hunt. We decide to head South, below Heartbreak Hill, and over one draw, then work our way back North through them. As we hit the 2 mile mark, South of camp, I see a cow get up. She is out in the burn about 400 yards away. As she heads SE away from us, I see the bull, a massive 5×5. This is a big framed, big bodied, mature bull. He splits left from the cow, unaware of what has her bothered, but also knowing something isn’t right, he keeps going up over the top. Meanwhile the cow has stopped and 7 more cows and calves have joined her. We wait patiently, as they meander up over the top. After giving them 15 minutes, we head up and over, but they are gone. Unfortuntately this is our only encounter of the evening. As we are working back towards camp, we find a water hole, it seems this is where the wolves from the night before, have passed through. After arriving back to camp, and eating supper, its time for the sleeping bag. With tent open wide, its a beautiful sight, with the thousands of stars dotting the sky. It’s easy to fall asleep listening to the chuckler and one other bull at the end of the ridge singing the rut song.

Wednsday’s alarm wakes me, and there is no sign of movement in Sam’s tent. I reawake at 6:30 hearing the bull chucking at the end of the ridge, as they return from the valley below. There are two bulls chuckling, with one throwing in an ocassional light bugle. I listen to these bulls in frustration for 3 hours, but this is my partners tag, and he has to fill it. I can’t stand sitting in camp, so I suggest a scouting/fishing trip. It would be into an area, I would like to know more about. We pack our stuff and head out. About 3/3 of a mile into our trip, we encounter our first band of sheep, so I figure there isn’t going to be much elk sign. After taking the scenic route, we get to our destination. As I am stringing the fly rod, and Sam is rigging his spinning rod, we see Cutthroats rising to the surface. After an hours worth of casting, bringing no strikes for either of us, we decide to head back. Less than 1/4 mile back, we hear another group of sheep moving along. There is no elk sign, along this hike anywhere, from this year. Back at camp we have a late lunch and then Sam decides to go North and see what he can figure out with the chuckling bulls. I decide to head South to Heartbreak Hill, and listen for any activity in the area. I only have a few red squirrels and some chipmunks to occupy my time through the evening.

I think the local elk in this area, have had enough intrusion. At this point I feel it will take a roaming satellite bull, or someone to push some different elk into this area, to make it happen here. aftger arriving back to camp, I hear Sam’s story. At 6:20 the first bugle echoed down the canyon, answered a few minutes later, by another bull from a short distance away. With the thermal coming from the elk, down to Sam, the set-up was good. After sporadic chuckling the bulls became silent about 45 minutes before dark, and nothing was heard after that. With the thermometer showing 85 degrees, it was a hot night, and this was proving to be a difficult rut for Sam.

Thursday morning finds me going South again, just in case something has moved in. Sam goes North to try the chuckler again. I sit at the top of Heartbreak Hill until around 8:30 when the thermals switch. Once the thermals switched I just moved slow along to the South until 10:00. With an hour plus trip back, I start towards camp, hoping Sam has seen and heard more. Approacing camp, I see Sam is already back. I am hoping this is a good sign. He says just after light, he heard one bugle. He cut the distance then worked a series of cow calls, all to no avail. The bull never bugled again. We’re running out of time. We have one really good option left, the 1100′ climb, where we were in close on the two bulls previously. To me it’s a no brainer. I know we should go there, so does Sam, but he says he doesn’t want to make that climb again. We’ve worked hard and are tired, and I’ve probably pushed him to hunt more than he wanted to. At this point, I tell him, if he wants to call the hunt anytime, he won’t get any flack from me. We all have our own motivations and agendas, and sometimes its best to find a middle ground. He decides late in the day, that he will hunt that night, then we will break camp, and head out in the morning. This means as he readies for the hunt, I head to the meat locker for our meat. After getting gas, the meat, and dropping off some garbage I return to camp about an hour before dark. As I get to camp, I am hoping Sam will be there, ready to go track.

No such luck. I start packing most of my gear, and getting things orgaznized in the truck. Then it is time to take the tarp shelter down. It’s about 10 minutes before hunting hours are up, when I hear footsteps coming into camp. It is Sam, and I ask without having to. There is no sign of defeat or unhappiness, but I also know the look of sucess is not there either. He decided to go back to Heartbreak Hill for one last go at it, the area had been to good to us, not to try once again. He sat the first hour, while giving a few location bugles. The last two hours he decided he would go all out aggressive, and see if he could make anything happen. Nothing at all. After he filled me in on the details, we proceeded to finish breaking camp, except for our tents and sleeping bags. After that we had one last meal of Mountain House. We finished our cleanup and then chatted for a few minutes. At 9:00 Sam decided it was time to call it a night. We decided to leave at 3, in the morning. As he climbed into his tent, I shut my headlamp off, and walked about 15 yards away, and just watched the sky. It is truely unbelieveable what kind of view you can get from atop the mountain. I miss my wife, kids, and family. The feeling I had as I started to break camp, and especially now as I prepare to shut the light off on the last night of my 2009 elk camp, is indescribeable. It’s just a sick, hollow, empty feeling. I really think everyone should be able to experience the wonderful wilderness at some point in their lives. With tears nearly in my eyes, I know in a few hours I will go through a huge teeter totter effect. On the lighter side, I will be home bound to see my family and will be very happy. On the flip side, I know it will be a long 50 weeks, until I can return to a mountainside somewhere in the highcountry, and experience life as it should be. Pure, plain, and simple. Now its time to enjoy the view one last night. To steal a line from Mr. Primos-God willing I’ll see you right here next year in the high country. Thank You all, I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Les

Thank you Les for taking us with you on your elk hunt. Great photos and story!

Great story Les! Thanks for posting. What an experience that must have been.

Eric