In early 2005, I was invited to hunt elk on a ranch between Montrose and Telluride, Colorado, with a group of guys I had never met. It was at a location I could not disclose to anyone because of the private nature of the landowner. I don’t hunt with people I don’t know and I am rarely enthusiastic about hunting somewhere I can’t investigate first.
But in this case, the guy encouraging me to go was someone who had hunted there twice before and had killed two bulls in the low 300’s B&C with a rifle and said the elk were beyond plentiful. This guy is also a friend who sincerely wanted to help me harvest my first elk, along with helping a few other guys get their first elk with a bow.
We met at my house that summer and discussed the ranch, its owner’s wishes for privacy, and what the game plan would be to hunt together.
The group consisted of two traditional bowhunters and four of us using compound bows. I am one of the latter, as I have not hunted with a recurve since 1976 and don’t plan on going backwards anytime soon.
But I respect anyone who does so, whether they are successful or not, for they are real hunters.
Since the fellow who organized the hunt couldn’t go, the rest of us would have to get along without a mediator. Sometimes this is more of a challenge than the hunt itself and in this case, we were a diverse group of occupations; a logger, insurance salesman, glass company owner, a guy who got rich disposing of toxic waste, a real estate developer, and an old grading contractor cowboy obsessed with his sexuality or capacity to still perform.
Guess who I gravitated towards?
Well, I’m becoming an old guy too and was curious. Ha! We were a unique crew and I was the only one that didn’t know the rest at all.
It was early September when I arrived in Montrose with my cell phone ringing as I got off the plane. It was the old guy saying that he would pick me up at the airport if I thought we could get along until we got to the ranch. I laughed initially and then wondered where he was coming from. While we drove to the ranch, I discovered my new-found friend was riding bulls until he almost turned 60 years old and was still in excellent shape even though he had also recently given up fighting in bars.
I quit riding bulls when I was 25 and quit fighting in bars about that same time.
Was this guy a slow learner or what?
Cowboy and I talked about what we had in common, like he was tall and I was short. But it wasn’t long before we recognized we were both intense predators and neither of us had much appreciation for anyone who wasn’t. We met the rest of the guys in a restaurant that night and then headed to the hunting cabin at the ranch.
The next day revealed a location on this planet that was breathtakingly beautiful as I walked out of the cabin door to be surrounded by 11,000 to 12,000-foot snowcapped mountains that melted down into large conifer forests and then aspen and oak flats that were just beginning to turn yellow and red.
As I glassed the mountains in front of the cabin, I saw 3 bulls and several cows moving up to their bedding area. This wasn’t a hunting day but one to get our act together, shoot a few arrows and get to know each other.
Logger had rifle hunted here the year before and introduced us to the ranch hands that also doubled as guides. I have found that sometimes that doesn’t work for bowhunting, but I was along for the ride. As with most western ranch hands these guys were real cowboys and they couldn’t wait to go after the elk and were enthusiastic about our chances.
We hunters divided up in pairs and were assigned our cowboy guide.
I was blessed in that my guide had some experience bowhunting and knew the ranch well. My hunting partner was the toxic waste guy who was also an old guy that just wanted to kill a bull with his bow and was willing to make whatever sacrifice necessary to get it done.
The next morning, Toxic Waste, and Guide and I headed across the ranch and ascended 3000 feet to the edge of a bedding area. I climbed into a tree stand of sorts while the other two left to try and intercept some animals heading up to us from the aspens below.
As the morning passed, I heard several bulls bugling and cows calling as the rut was obviously in full swing, but all I saw was one cow come within 100 yards of the wallow I was perched over.
I will admit that I really didn’t have much confidence where I was, but I also knew the guide couldn’t handle both of us hunters at once because none of us had hunted together before and didn’t know each other’s skills.
I left my tree around 10:00 a.m. to meet the guys at the intersection of two woods roads about 300 yards up hill. When I got to the intersection, I laid my bow against a log and walked about a hundred yards out to a small opening to set the location on my GPS unit. As I waited for it to lock on some satellites, I looked up and saw a black bear walking toward me. He was coming from the same direction of my bow and was only about 20 yards away looking down as he ambled along. I began slowly waving my arms when he looked up, stared at me in disbelief, grunted and slowly turned and walked away.
I followed him until he passed my bow and then I picked my bow up, nocked an arrow and continued following him at a distance of twenty-five yards while he meandered through the woods.
Why I was following him I don’t know because I couldn’t shoot him without a permit, but I guess I couldn’t help myself as I wanted to see how close I could get.
It wasn’t long before he lost me and I began hearing several bulls bugling and coming up the mountain in front of me.
I was on the hunt again.
I headed to cut them off, but without knowing it, I walked past several cows above me with the wind in their favor and moving back down toward the bulls as they looked over their shoulders in my direction. I was busted, but really didn’t care because I was hunting and that was all that mattered.
I heard a truck coming and I headed that way.
Toxic Waste and Guide told me that they had an event-filled morning also as we headed for camp.
At camp, we were told that Logger had shot a five by five bull and was on his way down with the animal. We were glad to see someone slay on the first day and prove to us that it could be done. We ate lunch and went up the mountain behind camp. I hunted at the edge of a large meadow where Guide told me that several herds cross every evening to feed.
I put on my guillie suit and sat in the woods edge waiting for some action, as Guide and Toxic Waste headed to another meadow to hunt.
I appreciated Guide trusting me to hunt alone as that is not the norm. Most outfits require you to stay with the guide so that he can keep track of you, and also, help you hunt. I prefer to hunt alone if I can find my way back to the camp and in this case, it was a couple of miles below me.
As I sat sleeping beside an aspen for an hour or so, I could hear the faint sounds of bugling and it wasn’t long before I could tell that they were heading down the mountain at least a mile away. I waited another 30 minutes and then decided to try and cut them off before they got to the meadows below me.
It was that time of the day, just at dusk, when the temperature started changing and the convection currents couldn’t make up their mind for the air to go up or down and I wanted to wait until the wind was absolutely in my favor.
I had walked about 800 yards quickly and was rapidly closing the distance when I heard limbs cracking and meowing coming my way, then a shrill bugle. I froze to watch a group of cows and a young bull cross a woods road about fifty yards in front of me. I moved quickly to where they crossed and began cow calling when a bugle roared seventy yards above me in the timber.
As I searched the woods with my binoculars, I caught movement to my right in the road… it was Guide and Toxic Waste also calling the same bull and he was headed their way.
I snuck below them and started calling with them.
Guide looked over his shoulder, I waved and he gave me thumbs up. The bull was thirty yards from Toxic Waste when he missed. Guide signaled me to go after the bull as he trotted diagonally up hill.
The light was rapidly fading when I caught movement in front of me. The bull was now fifty yards away quartering downhill. I began soft meowing and he turned to walk slowly in my direction at the edge of a meadow.
I estimated the 6×6’s distance at fifty yards and shot.
I could see the arrow pass a few inches over his back.
As I nocked another arrow, I heard a smack and saw the bull running across the meadow. I walked to the meadows edge and saw Guide and Toxic Waste standing about 50 yards to my right. Toxic had hit the elk somewhere, but none of us could tell for sure. We found a little blood where the animal was standing and began looking with flash lights as darkness came on us.
We covered 300 yards in the direction the bull ran and found little evidence of blood and decided to wait for morning. Toxic was dejected, and I felt bad for him but also glad it wasn’t me.
The temperature had dropped to 45 degrees and the stars were as bright as ever when I stepped out on the cabin porch to wait for the guides to decide who would look for the wounded elk and who would hunt. I was anticipating helping Toxic Waste, as I knew how tough it was to find an animal that doesn’t bleed much.
Guide had a different idea, as he and Logger would go with Toxic Waste and I would go with Glass Man to hunt.
Glass Man was an interesting guy in that he was a somewhat beginner in bowhunting but was a warrior in other respects. He looked gentle and had a generous spirit about him but told me he loved martial arts and fighting and was suffering from a bad back he developed in the sport. He appeared fit and was 10 years my junior, so I figured I was going to get my exercise.
We were dropped off half way up the mountain and told to wait until we could hear the bulls bugling and then try to sneak on them. Glass Man and I did just that.
It wasn’t long before the action started and we were running from one side of the mountain to the other, as no matter which direction we went the convection currents were dragging our scent down to the ascending elk and they smelled us every time we got within a hundred yards.
So, we decided to wait until the wind improved and just tried to keep up with a herd from a distance. Distance is no understatement as to what we covered, as we climbed some 2000 feet in a switchback fashion with the wind still hampering us.
I saw Guide coming down the mountain eighty yards above me. I intercepted him to see if they had any luck finding Toxic’s bull and get his idea as to what we should do. He said that the blood played out and that they were about to quit looking, but that we should try to intercept the herd we were following as there were a couple of great bulls with them.
I asked where he thought they were going and he said about a mile above us. I walked over to Glass Man and asked if he wanted to press on and he started up the mountain. We had gone a few hundred yards, almost straight up, when we heard two different groups bugling. Glass Man went after the new group and I went after the herd we had been following.
I was somewhat exhausted from the climb but encouraged by the incessant meowing and bugling above me, beside me and below me, and all with the wind in my favor. I was on the edge of the bedding area and could smell elk everywhere. I entered the dark pine forest from the clearing that I left Glass Man in. It was crisscrossed with trails and covered in elk. I hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when I saw antlers approaching from below me. It was a decent satellite bull with 6 tines on each side.
The problem was that he was coming up the same trail I was on and I quickly got on my knees beside the trail as he was only about 30 yards away looking at something past me.
I nervously fumbled getting an arrow nocked as he closed in and stood staring down at me from a yard away. I thought I would pee my pants when he just stood there curiously staring at the strange wooly booger (remember I am wearing a short guille suit) hunkered down in a ball beside the trail.
He extended his nose to smell me when I rose up drawing my bow. Now he was the one peeing his pants as he jumped several yards backward and trotted off as an arrow flew over his back. He had actually hesitated for a millisecond, but it didn’t help me any.
This is where it really gets crazy, as I recognized these elk are not very wary and are herding up to bed down.
The bull I just missed was sixty yards in front of me, walking away, looking ahead at the main herd. As I watched him, a cow with a rag head (baby bull) came up behind him. So, I decided to kind of get in line with them and keep pace hunkered over like a wooly hunchback and as stupid as it looked, it worked, as I closed in on the herd of probably fifty animals or more.
Here I was on the edge of a herd of elk oblivious that I am there, and they are all waiting for the king to arrive as he growled below me. I was so focused on keeping up that I again almost wet my shorts when he bellowed only 25 yards below me. This time I would not be denied as I slowly hunkered down beside a big pine only 10 feet from the trail he was coming up and he knew not my presence.
I saw his antlers rising before me as I drew and here we were face to face when I turned it loose aiming instinctively since I could nearly extend the bow and touch him. I saw the fletching disappear just behind his front leg as he lunged forward and trotted thirty yards up the trail.
I nocked another arrow and drew as he looked back over his shoulder too late again as the arrow entered back of the last rib headed for the opposite shoulder. He ran 20 yards and crashed down the side of the mountain hanging his antlers in a tree and nearly suspending his body from the ground.
Quivering, shaking, trembling or vibrating don’t adequately describe what my body was doing as I bowed before my Lord and prayed a prayer of ecstatic thanksgiving for making me a hunter.
THOUGHTS OF THE HUNTER KIND:
I hunted with a group of guys who had as diverse personalities as they did occupations. Some knew the Lord and some did not, but all had a passion for chasing critters and that was our common ground. Cowboy was curious about my faith as he saw little difference in my self-centered personality from any of the others. He had nothing to prove nor hide as he just didn’t care what anyone thought of him and I liked that as I kind of felt the same way. He reminded me to simply accept people for who they are and share my faith with the people who are open to it, letting them make their own decision. After the hunt, he started visiting the church I attended and brought his girlfriend with him.
PRAYER OF THE HUNTER KIND:
A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful. Proverbs 14:25
Lord, I know at times I am the world’s worst witness and I am sorry for that, as we are dealing with eternity and I should always take that serious. Give me the wisdom to see the value in every life that they should be given my best effort to help them come to know You.
Amen.
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