Modern Wild Man
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| A great Wyoming bull elk! |
The great Wapiti, or elk of the west is a game animal on the bucket list of many sportsman. These majestic animals once covered this nation from coast to coast; are now found mostly in the untamed mountains, deserts and forests of the west. I have been fortunate enough to be on multiple elk hunts, and multiple successful ones. These great animals whose size is similar to that of a small quarter horse, are great escape artists, and amazingly tough.
My first successful elk hunt began on a ranch on the plains of Wyoming just on the coast of looming mountain ranges. Elk seasons generally begin earlier than a lot of other big game, and I was fortunate enough to be hunting elk in the middle of September. Elk in September generally means bugling, and bugling means exciting! When the elk courtship and breeding season begins, bulls begin staking out and protecting their territories and cows from other bulls. The dominate bulls spend their time signaling with loud echoing screams that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Try to imagine a six or seven hundred pound, hormone enraged male elk standing along the outer edge of his cow harem screaming to any encroaching challenger, a threat of a fight if they venture closer.
I was joined on this hunt by my great friend Steve, a resident of Wyoming. I arrived at his place the day before the hunt and we set about making our plan. Steve and I both had Wyoming elk tags to fill, but much of this hunt was about our mutual love of the outdoors, and the elk; not so much about taking an elk. We poured over hand drawn maps on the back of greasy napkins, and checked and rechecked our equipment and rifles. Hunting partnerships are a kind of COOP. It is understood that once a hunter downs game, the other is expected to help with the chores that follow. This type of volunteering for the common good makes hunting friends a special kind of friend. Opening morning came and we started the day in the early dark hours working on every detail we could think of before sunrise. The time immediately before a hunt is unique and almost indescribable time. So much work and preparation has come to an end, and it is time for the hunt to unfold. Much like the time for an athlete before a game or match, but on a more primitive and instinctive scale. There is a part of a man that struggles in modern society. There is a part of a man that yearns to be primal, to seek wild places and see his boot print over the print of an elk or a deer.
The first orange rays of morning light found us perched atop of a rocky ridge sprinkled with pine trees, overlooking a meadow to the west. The wind was gently blowing from the South, pushing our scent into an open prairie and away from the timber the elk call home. The valley below began to grow long shadows against the rising sun, and the little bit of morning dew left by the cool evening quickly dried into the bluebird sky. The first frost of the fall hadn't yet touched the valley, though many higher up had felt its chill. Wild flowers in fall bloom, and sprouts of green, red and yellow fall grasses rose out of the prairie valley with thick stems. Slowly, Steve and I picked the valley apart with our binoculars, looking for the horizontal line of a back, the flick of an ear, or the shine of an antler. The prairie valley rose into buttes on each side. The butte tops covered with dark stands of pine timber and granite boulders. The elk typically graze into the valley in the evening, spending the cool darkness grazing on the sweet grasses, and move back to the dark shade of the timber in the morning to spend the day. We knew the morning hours would be short, and that the elk would quickly be in the timber, and much harder to hunt.
That first morning we poked along the backside of the mornings ridge, moving to the ridge line carefully once every little bit, careful not to be sky-lighted. We glassed all the little pockets and ridges of timber we could find without encroaching into the elks domain. The wind was light that morning, and we heard a couple bugles. Every time we heard the call of a bull our smiles became wide and our steps lighter. The calls may have well came from a mile or two away, following down the valley from land that we could not hunt, but it lifted our spirits just the same. For a brief moment we spotted two bull elk crossing over a ridge between two wooded draws. The elk were moving, with a destination in mind. I don't think they had seen, smelled or heard us, but they had no intention of sticking around. They first appeared more than one thousand yards away, and moving in the opposite direction. We let out a bugle and a couple cow calls to try and persuade them to come to us, but they only slowed their stride slightly, looking across the ridge for the source of the sound as they trotted along. The first day of the season came and went, Steve and I neither one had an opportunity to harvest an elk, but what we had seen was beauty beyond compare. We built a day of hunting together that we could talk and story about for years to come, the two bulls we saw that day would grow in size with each retelling, and the possibility of a shot, or a plan to head them off would happen again and again in conversation each time we retold the day. This was the start of a hunting trip, a trip that would eventually end in a great trophy.
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| Glassing for elk in the valley. |
The second morning of our hunt started much the same as the first. We may have rested better that night with the edge of the first morning now dull, and miles under our boots. The dark morning came, we sipped strong black coffee around a kitchen table in a darkened kitchen. Planning the morning hunt, we discussed the wind, where to park, what fence to cross, and where the elk would be. We got it all right, except where the elk would be. We glassed the morning away, spotting a two year old mule buck grazing though a small finger of the main valley, his small forked horns glowing in the morning sunlight. We watched a couple mule does work across a bare spot in the timber and down to a stock tank for a drink before retreating to the security of the timber. By noon, Steve and I agreed we should work back to the pickup for lunch, come back before dark and camp in the valley. We would spend the evening glassing the ridges from the valley and wake up at the mouth of the valley the next day ready to move across the far ridge we had not yet been on.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, we bounced down a ranch two track across the prairie toward the valley. The red dust from the Wyoming dirt swirled behind the pickup, and two men whose lives are spent almost entirely apart were sewn together forever in a hunt. Stopping to open a couple gates, we dropped off our tent and a few supplies in a low hide, out of site and downwind from the valley. Steve moved the truck back to the ranch house and I set out putting together our camp. Quickly we had everything in order for the night, and scrambled onto a pond dam at the mouth of the valley to glass. Only just barely sliding out of our packs and working a zipper loose to pull out a bag of last years deer jerky, a loud bugle rang out across the valley from the timber above. Steve and I looked at each other in a moment of disbelief. Really, we had no intention of seeing an elk this evening, especially this early. Our glassing was more a formality, the afternoon had grown warm, and we hardly expected to see much more than a fly that evening.
Wide eyed, we watched in the direction of the bugle. Scanning the dark timber from top to bottom, we strained our eyes picking apart the branches to find an elk. Then, just like that, an elk appeared. A brute of an elk, packing a heavy load of bone pushing high above his ears. The elks antlers spread out wide and built mass out far to the longest point. The wind was right, and in an instant we could smell him. The breeze waived a smell similar to a wet barn with damp hay and manure to us, we both could smell it, and there was no doubt this was an elk we needed to try and take. This elk was big, big on the hoof. He was a gray old bull who had battled many autumns. There was no doubt this was a trophy to be sought.
Steve, being a great friend and host quickly offered to me that this was my elk, and I had better get busy. Without time for thanking, handshakes, or small talk; the afternoon that was so slowly moving along to dusk quickly became a race before dark. We watched as the bull worked his way into the valley some one thousand or more yards away. The elk was headed for the stock tank the mule deer had drank from earlier in the day. The warm afternoon drew him out of the dark timber early to drink. A plan was rapidly put together, I would move up into the timber for cover and Steve would stay behind where he could watch the elk from our glassing location. I could look back to Steve anytime I lost sight of the elk to decide if I could move closer without being caught by the elk. Years of dreaming for a chance at an elk, months of practice with my rifle, and weeks of planning all came together for this next thirty minutes. As soon as the elk was facing away I made a break for the timberline. Using each small group of trees as cover I scrambled toward the elk, hoping to close the distance. The timber was on a side hill, steep and covered with loose gravel. I picked my footing and hoped I could keep my legs under me.
Trembling, and struggling to find my breath I worked my way closer and closer to the elk. I watched the large bull approach the stock tank, and pick at green sprigs of grass nourished by the dampness around the tank. I reached for my range finder, my hands slick with sweat. My pockets seemed deep and in a moment of panic, I thought my range finder must have fallen out. Struggling to find it, my finger touched the black plastic deep in my pants cargo pocket. Pulling the range finder to my eye, I had to remember how to run it. Everything seemed awkward and clumsy, I was about to range a giant bull on a Wyoming elk hunt, and I needed to get it together. I sat myself down, took a deep breath, and found myself. I took in my surrounding, the astringent smell of the pines, the beauty of the valley, the feel of the dirt under me, and the time I had here at this moment. I brought my thoughts together in one place and calmed my nerves.
The bull ranged farther than I was comfortable shooting. Slowly I worked my way closer, watching the elk carefully drink from the tank, with trembling hands, and a racing heart I crept through along small pines. With considerable elevation on the elk, I was able to clearly see him in the valley below. I told myself not to look at his antlers, to focus on the his vitals, to strain to find the smallest spot possible on the close side behind the elks shoulder. I ranged again, I had closed the distance and the beautiful trophy of a bull elk was in range. I regained my composure, and my trembling hands became still. Quickly I worked into a solid rifle hold, moving my knees around from a sitting position, and locking the rifle sling past my elbow. Everything came tight and solid. There was a magnificent bull elk in my scope and I was about to take a shot. I forced myself to slow my breath, each breath in lifted the scope's cross-hairs above the elk's shoulder, and each exhale brought it down to his low belly. I took a deep breath, carefully let half of it out through my nose, settling the scope on target. My fingertip pulled evenly through the trigger, and the rifle fired. The muzzle of the high power rifle barked loudly, and in a second I heard the bullet whop when it impacted the elk shoulder.
Standing in a remote valley along the Wyoming plain with a great friend, looking over a magnificent trophy is not something to soon be forgotten. Steve and I shook hands, the kind of handshake that grabs a hold of you, firm hands gripped together in much more than a greeting or congratulations. A primal bond between men, a hunt that will always be shared. Both Steve and I were able to fill our tags that week. We worked together packing the animals out, and processing the meat. This hunt was a great one, we finished out elk season smiling like kings. My boyhood dream had come true.
The end of a great hunt is oddly like the beginning of a great journey. A large game animal on the ground is the start of a lot of work. The days, weeks and even months ahead include feeding our families the spoils of our hunts, the telling of the stories, and reliving the details again and again in our minds. Elk hunting is a love of mine, something special that I have been fortunate to be apart of. These great animals are warriors of the rugged lands they live in, and I have the highest admiration for their strength and courage. The antlers from this hunt hang in my basement, and remind me every time I pass them of a boyhood dream of mine come true. I have been elk hunting since, I have killed elk since, but those are other stories.
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| Rob and Steve, both with elk taken on the hunt. Steve took his elk the next morning. |
