Last week I took my first ever elk hunting trip in southwest Washington near Mt St Helens. We saw some animals, had a lot of fun, swam through the rain clouds and even punched a tag. On thursday mourning I shot my first big game animal ever on my first bow hunting trip.
A nice young 4 point bull.
This was my hunting partner and my first ever attempt at elk and we had a blast. We hiked into some amazing country and got into elk each day. After spending opening day hunting up high with all the other hunters we dicided that if we wanted to get an animal we would have to get into the dark canyons. Once we got away from the packs of people the elk started to emerge.
These animals didn't seem to be receptive to our calling, we only heard 1 elk bugle all week, so we used the rain to our advantage and started still hunting. On the second day of our hunt my partner missed a real nice 5x5. This bull heard us and actually came up out of the creek bottom to check us out. When he got in front of us he saw my friend move a little to get position for a shot and moved back about 5 feet, we got still and he decided to come back out and check out what we were. This should have been his fatal mistake but in all of our excitment the distance was misjudged and the arrow whizzed on by and he disapeared back into the woods.
The next day we leaned the leason on using the wind to your advantage. We dropped into another canyon but with the wind at our backs we just proceded to push elk over the creek and up the other side. On thurday mourning we went back the canyon we saw the 5x5. After checking the wind we decided to enter from below and follow the creek up to where we though the animals were at. About a half mile in we found saw a bull feeding along a small creek on his way back the bedding area just after first light. I got a little buck fever and dropped my arrow while nocking it but regained my composure a bit and made the shot. At 35 yards and slightly up hill my shot was a little high but burried deep into the spine and dropped him in his tracks. The gutting, quartering and packing was a lot of work but well worth it.
Can't wait till next year!!!
[ 09-17-2003, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: ColdSteel ]
Hunting Reports Week 9/13 - 9/19
And it was legal! All I have to say is screw it, I'm heading off to my trip in 4 days, the soap opera here can you know what. This is also the same guy who accused me of wounding a bull and have it die on his property last year because I have permission from a neighboring ranch to hunt. Well I was in NE oregon then too. Man bowseason is always interesting for something. But in the end, no good hunting to report. 
:depressed: 
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