Its pretty amazing how much stuff I can fit in my little pickup truck. On this occasion; a 30 by 20 foot wall tent, rain fly, floor, wood stove, 2 gear boxes, 1 dog cage, 2 bow cases, 2 coolers, and a whole assortment of sleeping gear, firewood, tools, food, odds and ends. We literally brought more stuff to elk camp than I brought to Colorado when I moved here from Florida. I was skeptical at first of the importance of the amount of stuff, being used to sleeping in my truck, I really thought we were over doing it, but in the end, I was glad we had it. Camp was extremely comfortable, and it made all the difference at the end of each long day.

Day one I hunted a ridge-line over the only creek with water in the area. I didn’t see much action. I ran into another hunter. I found some fresh sign. I think I saw a doe mule deer that day. Looking back, I probably didn’t sit still in the same spot long enough. I’ve learned a lot since then.

Day two I woke up at 5am like usual and decided I had had enough of the creek ridge line. I wanted to hunt near an open meadow instead of thicker timber. My hunting party consisted of myself, my dog Seabass, my roommate Bryon, and his dad Larry. Bryon gave me directions to a meadow that was across the logging road from the creek. I made my way up the logging road in the dark. I got to where I thought Bryon was talking about, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right clearing, so I continued onward. I was in the next drainage over, west from where I had hunted the previous day. I found a very nice set that overlooked the drainage with several nice shooting lanes down into the bottom. Unfortunately there were two hunters sitting in it. They were using a cow call despite no evidence of the rut having started. I slipped past them and continued down the fence line that ran along the top of the ridge of this drainage.

I worked my way down into the bottom of the drainage. I would quietly take a few steps and then stop, look around for a while, then take a few more. Eventually I found a game trail that lead south, into some dark timber. As the game trail wore on, it became evident that it was an old logging road, long out of commission. I like walking on game trails, because it’s a lot easier to be quiet. I guess at this point I had stopped caring about finding a meadow, and was just interested in investigating some different territory. I turned a slow corner, and was confronted with a bull elk in my path. WHAT? Yes. A huge bodied bull elk stood in the middle of the path about 80 yards ahead of me. He just stood there looking at me. He was mostly tan bodied but had a dark brown neck and face. His rack was tall, but he was facing me and all his tines were lined up in a way that I couldn’t get a point count. I’m guessing he was probably a 4x4. I was completely exposed. I knew I was out of range, So I slowly took out my phone and snapped a couple pictures. After the photo-op, I nocked an arrow and watched to see what he’d do. He turned broadside and stood there for a moment, then walked off into the timber. I followed the bull’s tracks for a while. They lead me to a bog of wallows. I snooped around the wallow for a bit, but couldn’t find the bull. I spent the rest of the morning continuing further south, but didn’t see anything else. I was pretty excited about seeing the bull. I looked at the photos I had taken and was disappointed to find out they didn’t come out very good. The elk was too far away for my iPhone lens to get a good pic. You can see it if you really look closely, at the end of the trail, on the right.

The next few days I hunted various drainages but didn’t see much. One day I was standing in the bottom of a drainage and out of the corner of my eye saw something grey off to my right. I thought it was a rabbit. I turned to look and it was running in my direction, but about 12 yards in front of me. When I looked at it directly I noticed it was a coyote. It ran right across the drainage, up to the left onto the ridge and into the timber. I could clearly make out it’s face and everything. It happened too fast to get a photo. A few days went by without seeing any ungulates at all.

Larry had seen two spikes and a cow on the first day. He drew back on a cow, but didn’t have an open lane. Bryon saw a cow on the first day. On Tuesday, Bryon and I hunted the same drainage together. He went up one side, and I stayed at the bottom. I wanted to go to a certain spot but a group of cattle were there. I sat in my spot for about an hour without seeing anything. I saw the cattle move up the ridge, so I moved to their spot. The sun sank behind the trees and the forest was dusky. I heard a very loud cow call. I heard something similar but much more quiet. I figured Bryon was calling. I wasn’t sure what the quieter sound was. The sun set and shooting hours were over. I saw Bryon in an aspen stand. He was carrying something long that I couldn’t make out. When I got closer to him I could see it was a log with an arrow in it. It turns out he took a shot on a cow from 26 yards. He was sitting and two cows came out of nowhere. He drew back and waited for them to turn broadside, which they did. He had never drew back on an elk before and said his adrenalin was pumping hard. He got scared they were going to spook when he drew back. They did not, but he rushed his shot and didn’t range them or anchor his bow string properly to his face. He let loose his broad-head but it went just under the cow and they jumped off to 60 yards. He thought I was still in my original spot, where I could have killed them if I were still there. I guess that’s life. Anyway, once the cows moved off, they started to call to each other. Those were the loud ones I heard. Bryon tried to answer them with his natural voice, and that was the quiet sound I couldn’t make out. The cows absconded and Byron found his arrow stuck in a log, which he brought with him, to dig out at camp.

The next evening we were in the same drainage. I was in the same general area, and Bryon was up higher, far away from me. Larry was hunting closer to camp. I had been sitting in the same place for 3 hours. I had’t seen anything. Around 7:20 I heard twigs snapping and something big moving through the timber. I sat and watched with bated breath. Around 40 yards away emerged a massive bull moose with two great paddles. He marched past me, down the slope. More noise came behind him. A second smaller bull emerged behind him, following the first. Moments later, a third bull, even bigger than the first appeared, yet in single file with the other two. They lumbered across the drainage. The parade did not end, as again, another bull moose broke through the timber. When the fifth bull moose made his entrance, I thought someone was playing a joke on me. A sixth moose was behind the fifth. “What in the world is going on?” I thought. Eight bull moose marched through the woods together in a single file line. It was quite the spectacle. I had at this point only seen one moose in person. It was a cow in my friend’s yard. I was startled by it and retreated immediately to the house. Fast forward a few weeks and I am sitting in the woods by myself at dusk with an entire platoon of massive menacing moose on parade, just yards beside me. I couldn’t help think of the stomping they could give me had they wished to. They looked like dinosaurs they were so big. They were deep black and their paddles wide. The marched down my ridge, across the drainage, up to the slope to the game trail that led to where I needed to be in about 10 minutes. They looked like a column of Darth Vaders, on their way to casually destroy a planet. I couldn’t help but think of the theme music from Star Wars that you hear every time you see the Imperial Forces.

I decided to get up and loudly crash through the timber, parallel to the game trail they were using, in hopes to make myself known to them. They were headed toward a cattle trough, and I wanted to beat them to it, so I wouldn’t have to confront them on my way to the main road. If I made enough noise far enough away, maybe they would hesitate to continue on down the trail. This tactic worked and soon, I was at the trough and in the company of cattle. The cattle paid me little attention. It felt good to be away from the moose.

Back at camp the guys had a hard time believing my story about the moose. Apparently, you never see that many moose together, let alone bulls. Maybe they had just finished having a State of The Mountain meeting. Maybe the mule deer were eating too many willows so they had to get together and talk about it. I don’t know, I’m not a moose. They guys at camp told me a story about the time they saw a grizzly bear and two cubs in Central Colorado. I didn’t believe their story, so it’s okay if they don’t believe mine. But I clearly saw eight moose walk in a single file line that night.

The next night I hunted in the drainage where I saw the bull elk on the second day. I made a set and stood there for two hours. I didn’t see anything but a pine martin and another coyote.

Martin, pictured in center

At 7:15 I decided to start stop-n-go hunting instead of still. I was moving extremely slow. I went down to the bottom of the drainage so I could walk on the game trail and make less noise. I was taking one step at a time and looking all around before taking another, etc. I made my way down the trail one step at a time, at a rate of about one yard per minute. The wind was coming down the drainage from the east. As I crossed a couple small conifers, I heard something. I froze. I looked up to my right. I watched. I saw something. Something brown. A head emerged. A cow elk! She had jumped a fence that separated some new growth from the old pole pine where I was. She was on the ridge above me, and I was at the bottom. The wind was in my favor. She moved along the ridge a few steps south. I could see her bend down to browse on some forbs along her path. She moved forward just enough to obscure me behind the conifers. I took this opportunity to rotate my body so it would be facing her. I moved as slow as humanly possible. I was unable to tell if she was aware of me. I rotated on my left foot, and swung my right behind me. My right foot made the slightest crunch as it rested. I was afraid she was alerted, watching, but we couldn’t see each other. The wind was still in my favor. I luckily already had an arrow nocked. I stood in silence, waiting to see what would happen. She turned around and came out from behind the conifers, broadside. She had no idea I was there. She was at the top of the ridge, and I at the bottom. I had a pretty good shooting lane. I slowly attached my mechanical release to my bow string. She was feeding, oblivious. I didn’t have a range finder, as I have already spent a massive amount of money on gear. I figured boots, pack and bow trumped the finder, to which I now semi regret, but it is what it is. I estimated her at 40 yards. Before this, I had been practicing guessing ranges and then checking them with my buddy’s range finder. In those instances, my estimations were always short. So I compensated and told myself that if I think she’s at 40, then she’s really at 50. I went through a mental check list in my head to make sure I didn’t flub my draw. I released the arrow from the spring loaded rest. I had been pressing it down with a finger to keep it from falling off the rest while I stalked around. It rose an inch, stayed balanced, no noise. Check. I drew back straight, making sure to keep my fingers off the release trigger. Check. I only have 20, 30 and 40 yard pins on my current sight. I aimed the 40 at the cows withers, just above her wheelhouse. My adrenaline was pumping as hard as it’s ever pumped. I was afraid the cow would hear my breath, as it was heavy. I actually had to calm myself down in a seconds time. I waited for the bottom pause in my respiration and I touched the trigger. The arrowed sailed toward the cow.

The next series of events are not as clear in my memory as I would like them to be. The arrow released, I heard the sound of the bow string, and the cow jumped over the fence. Maybe I closed my eyes at the last second. I don’t remember the arrow’s path. I stood there dumbfounded momentarily. I wasn’t sure if I hit it or not. I knew not to follow the cow immediately, as it might run several miles instead of 100 yards. So I stood there another second, and then I set a waypoint on my GPS. I marched up the hill and set a waypoint where I thought the cow was standing when I took my shot. I looked for blood. It was getting dark. I got out my head lamp. The vegetation around where she was eating was all rose hips and other leaves that naturally have a lot of red hues in them. My lamp was dim and dying. I inspected the fence to see if I could see blood. I couldn’t. I went back and tried to see blood where she had been standing. Not sure. I jumped the fence and looked for my arrow. Too dark. I knew Larry was close by and I was suppose to meet him in 7 minutes. I was about 10 minutes away. Larry has killed 4 elk in his day, so he’d know what to do.

My lamp was practically worthless. It was now completely dark. I decided to stay on the side of the fence I was currently on, so I wouldn’t have to cross it again further down the trail, but the game trail was on the opposite side. I crashed through the timber, avoiding fallen logs. I tried to be reasonably quiet, but was also excited and hurried by the darkness. I saw a clearing in some new growth. I thought I could take a short cut and get to the road on the other side. I made it about 100 yards before it got too dense to continue. I turned back and followed the fence.

Eventually I found Larry and told him what happened. We waited for Bryon to come with the vehicle. Larry said either we all go up there and look with lamps and spook everything in that area or we wait until the morning, and go look with sunlight, and if we find nothing we can still hunt that area. It would be in the 20s that night and if I had indeed killed that cow it would probably still be unspoiled in the morning. It was hard to sleep that night. I just wanted closure. I would have done anything for a video to rewind and analyze over and over. I tried to replay the events in my mind but it didn’t do any good. I replaced the batteries in my head lamp and went to sleep.

The next morning Larry and I went back to the drainage. It turns out he was only 30 yards from me when I had taken my shot. I went back down to the bottom of the ravine and he stayed at the top. We figured an approximate angle the arrow would have traveled. We didn’t find any blood. We walked back into the new growth and searched for the arrow. We looked for roughly 30 minutes, but we never found it. Finally we recreated the scenario and Larry ranged me from where the cow would have been. It was 40 yards on the nose. I should have trusted my instincts. I must have aimed too high. I was also shooting up at an angle, so if anything, I should’ve aimed low.

This is my view from where I took the shot. The cow was in the center at the top at the horizon.

This is the fence the cow jumped over, taken from the place she was standing at the top.

I was very bummed to not have killed the cow. The guys told me that I should be happy I got that close to one, and that I even got to take a shot on my first real hunt. I am, it’s just I wish I could have a second chance. The number of variables that have to come together to kill an elk with a bow don’t align easily or frequently. I had two more days left but I couldn’t help feeling I had blown my chance. I know that next time I will have that experience to draw from, and that like fishing, getting skunked makes the days you succeed that much sweeter.

The next two days came and went without seeing any elk. I can’t help but wonder “What if I chose a different spot?” What if, what if, what if. All together we saw about 15 elk, and countless moose and mulies. Bryon had two close encounters with black bears. We packed up camp and went back to Golden. Now I’m off to Florida to do some saltwater fishing with my cousins for a week. When I get back, I will have 5 days left of archery season, and the rut should be in full swing. We will see what happens.

Sitting in one of my sets

Fresh blood, source unknown.

These are my custom camo pants. I call this pattern “Real Colorado Chink and Caulk 3D Max” I find this pattern works really well in GMU 171, and also around houses being renovated in Breckenridge.

“Cowboys like smokey old pool rooms and clear mountain mornings”

Typical day in the aspens

Skull in a drainage. The rest of the skeleton was nearby.