Morning Hunt
The wind was howling as we got out of bed for our last day of bowhunting in Colorado. It had been a frustrating week, but it wasn’t like we’d gone without seeing game or not been in tight on several bulls. Frank had been patient and passed on two or three reall opportunities at small bulls. We had a quick judgment call on the sixth morning and Frank expected that nice 6x6 to keep easing down the tree line. If he’d taken two or three more steps, we’d have nice trophy photos. But that is truly the difference between bow and rifle; inches and seconds.
However, we were still sitting with twelve hours of hunting time left. There is not throwing the towel in when we hunt. You give it one hundred percent until last light on the last day. Period! It was warming up and we were battling high winds so there was no chance of catching anything in the open. We couldn’t hear ourselves think, much less a bugle through the gusting winds.
Frank, Chris and I set our along a ridge, hoping to catch elk either bedded up on the leeside of the mountain or at least headed that way. I periodically cow called to see if something was close enough to get activated. It just wasn’t a day made for calling. So, we eased around through the rocks, deadfall and the jack pines. I stopped dead in my tracks and my head snapped right as two bulls met me with there own glances.
If I would have just seen them a half second earlier, we would have been in perfect position. They jumped and bounded down the hill. I instantly hit the frantic calf call and they stopped. One even started to work his way slowly back up the hill, through the dark timber. “Nock an arrow,” I gestured to Frank. Then we got glass on them and were able to see clearly it was only raghorns once again.
Onward we hiked, continuing on our slow pace hoping for another close encounter, but with more bone next time. There was a flat I’d found elk bedding before and that was our destination. I had maybe three or four more paces to go to reach the rock perch when I got busted again. I saw his head spinning and I was still putting my foot down. This bull was only a spike and I successfully stopped both elk again. If we could just do this with a herd bull, we’d be in the money. Unfortunately, that was the last elk of the morning and we were really going to have to work on a good plan of attack for the last evening hunt.
Afternoon Hunt
Of course everyone knows that Sunday is football day in America. The weather had come full swing since the blizzard on Monday and it was now in the mid 70s. Frank and Chris were kicked back watching the Vikings game with the door open, enjoying a beautiful day in the mountains.
I’d somehow obtained a nice flat tire. So, instead of watching a good game, I headed into town to rectify our transportation issue. On the way back, I decided to drive around see if I could find any Muleys in the low open country. They’d been extremely elusive this week as well, but Chris was letting his dad focus mostly on elk and we hadn’t gone out once solely hunting deer.
I was checking under shady trees and looking below rock outcroppings. Basically any good hiding place was getting a big once over with my Swarovskis. I’d taken those binos all over the world and they had often allowed me to find a glistening tine or flick of an ear. On that afternoon, you didn’t need binos to see the great big muley feeding right in the open. In the heat of the day, this old boy was absolutely content to graze in a less than safe meadow.
I quickly drove up to the lodge and grabbed Chris. It was the same buck we’d seen at dark the night before. Chris couldn’t believe we were actually going to get a crack at him now. We had great wind and we had the element of surprise. We knew we had a good chance of making it happen.
There was a large outcropping about sixty yards from the field edge. We used the boulders to move around into position. We lost sight of the buck for several minutes, but when he reappeared, he was only seventy yards out. We moved at a snail’s pace and Chris took up position with great open shooting, right at the base of the rocks. He was nocked and ready, just waiting for the right time to draw.
Somehow it seems these old bucks and bulls always know something is up. Our big muley started looking around and checked our direction thoroughly, before heading nearly right at us. That buck was coming in fast and Chris really only had one obstacle now and that was the barb wire on the pasture fence. He not only had to pick a little spot on the chest, but he also had to make sure his arrow would get cleanly past the wires.
That arrow got there so fast it was ridiculous. The deer wheeled and stumbled as he stammered down the hill. That deer was dead before the arrow left the shelf. It was a good shot, with a quick clean kill and Chris had tagged out on the last day!
We took trophy photos, got a little video and made haste of pulling out his insides. There was a couple hours left in the season and Frank still had an elk license to fill. Where to go, oh where to go. It wasn’t as windy but still seemed like the dark timber was our best bet.
We tried a couple areas where we could see and hear in multiple directions. We tried hedging our bet and playing the odds. Cover more ground and you’ll have a better chance of running into more elk … right? Well it seemed like the thing to do, but our last night we only able to find several spikes. We tried to figure out what had kept us from getting an elk that week and finally dawned on us. Frank was bitten by the “Bowsite Curse.” Could it be? There’s no such thing! Or is there? Looks like we’ll have to go at it again next year just to prove there’s no Easter Bunny and there is no such thing as Bowsite Curse!!
Our thanks to Chris and Frank Hood for allowing us to broadcast their elk hunt and to their guide, Drew Butterwick for doing a great job of producing this live hunt! - Bowsite.com
