Well I'm Outta Here (Big Bulls Beware)!!!!!...w/pics

[tailchaser]

I'm headed to my pack in trip in NE Oregon here in a couple of hours and I'm chomping at the bit to get out of my office. The outfitter that's dropping us off will be at the trailhead tonight. It should be quite a show. Where we're headed he hasn't seen another bow hunter in the 30 years of guiding the area. We're also going to try and video most of the hunt and take a lot of pictures to show and tell.

To make a long story short my partner and I are going to get dropped off 14 miles into the wilderness and we'll be backpack hunting for the final 10 days of the season. No guide, no main tent, just going for it. If we bag a deer or elk the packer will come back in and get it for us (small fee of course) but well within a budget. We're going to be at 7,000+ elev. for most of the hunt. We've done smaller versions of this trip in the past but nothing quite this extreme and neither of us can wait. I thought it would never get here. So good luck to all the bowhunters on the site, and make sure everyone posts some pictures at the end of the season. I'm out!
:grin:
tc

[ 10-02-2003, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: tailchaser ]

[Radke]

Good Luck!!

My first year ever of elk hunting (1979) was a pack in trip to NE Oregon, the Pine Creek unit. We camped on the bank of the Imnaha. I had no clue as to what I was doing, almost froze to death when I got lost overnight, but other than that, had a great trip. I'm also heading out (tomorrow) for a week of bow hunting N. of John Day. Been looking forward to this for almost a year now.

[tailchaser]

Man, I'm a dirty bugger. :grin: I called my Brother-In-Law that's going with me and he's hopping around waiting for me to get to Portland and I told him my wife went into the hospital last night for an emergency surgery to remove her appendix. :shocked: :whazzup: He damn near cried on the phone when I said I couldn't make it for at least 4 days. I had him going for a couple of minutes until I couldn't hold back the laughter. All he had to say was paybacks were a beach.

tc

[Mello-Yello]

Have fun and be safe TC! I'm gonna stay here and hold up the fort. First fat cow gets in my way is dinner.

M-Y

[maggot]

That sounds like one hell of a time.....when you get back, and if you notice this post, What outfit is dropping you. I like the sounds of a meat packer.

[Fish Hunter]

Now that's gettin after it! Good luck. Have fun.

[nitrobass]

TC I sure hope you have some warm clothes! I was at 7000 feet and a couple nights it got in the 20's, also snow and lots of rain. Lots of noisy bulls, too.

[tailchaser]

Well there were some definite lessons learned from our trip. I'll go into some, and leave others alone so I won't get too mad.

Thurs.Night Sept 18th: We drive after I get off work to the NE tip of the state to pack in to our trip and arrive at 3 am. After a short nap in the truck until 6 we go looking for the outfitter that's dropping us off. We found him without problems as they were prepping the horses and mules and loading them for the rifle camps they planned on setting up on thier trip in there. Our agreement (that seemed to change the closer it came to hunt) was we would be dropped off near a water source and from there we'd be on our own. He wasn't going to put up his camp in one of the springs due to elk using it during the bowseason. Well when we get there, I ask what camps he's setting up and he mentions that spring? I said I thought you didn't want to buger the elk? He said it's a big area and what's the chances of them being in that exact spot. But we'll get back to that. So we pack in and it's a pucker factor of 9.9 on this canyon. There's a trail a foot wide with about a 1000' of drop if you fell off of it. To say the least I was squeezing the crap out of my horse and after 2 hours it felt like my groin was tearing off of my bone I was so sore. Most of the pack was fine up until we got to the spring. He raised his hand up and I heard a bugle. It's 1:30 in the afternoon and I trot up next to him. The bull is standing in the exact spot the tent goes demolishing a tree. He's faced away from us and the wind is in our favor. All I can see is butt, and horns, lots of horns. He was in thick brush and approximately 120 yards away. I looked at the guide and said I can kill him in 10 minutes. I can get my bow off of the horse and be down there quickly. He looked at me and laughed and said we didn't have time for that and rode his horse down in there and spooked all the elk. To say the least I was ****ed, then I saw the bull turn broadside after running up on the hill. To say the least his 6th points were on his rump and would easily score 320+. Then I was really ****ed. But I bit my lip knowing everyone would leave the next day and we would cross paths again.

Day 1: At first light we started glassing a nearby canyon and my buddy heard something he thought was a coyote. I pulled out the bugle and let one rip. A monsterous scream came from the canyone and I told him there was his coyote! :grin: The game plan was good but we were about to be schooled by the locals. The ridges that were there went for miles, and miles and then some. The fingers off of these ridges dropped at least 1200-2000' off of the ridge so just quickly making it down a spine was 1/2 day trip in and out. We spotted the bull and it was our stud we'd spooked the day before. I was cursing myself for not bringing the video cam out of our packs we left at the top of the hill. Wind direction was also a puzzling factor. It constantly changed making setups very temporary. We got halfway down the spine they were headed to and we had another bull bugle on our left in another drainage. We both thought we were in the money. We spotted that herd feeding up the side of the canyon and wow, that bull is a monster also. Looks just like that other one. Well we start looking for the other bull and no one's home. They slipped under some rimrock further down the canyon where we couldn't see and made it in front of us into the next draw. Elk 1, Hunters 0. We watched them feed into a pocket of timber and listened to him sing the songs for an hour or so. We decided to slip out and get the wind right for the afternoon hunt. We went back that afternoon, setup on the timber and started to call. Nothing. Not even a peep. While we backed off, they moved on and it was the last time we'd see this stud all trip.

Day 2: The night was chilly and we could hear bulls bugling on the opposite ridge for most of it. However, nothing was coming from ours. We spotted a couple of nice bucks but got enthrawled with glassing the opposite hillside and found over 100 head of elk with at least 8 different herd bulls. All of which were calling to each other. I have some good video of this. But we started to get antsy wanting to get over there. We had the packs, tents, and supplies to get there, but what happened if one hit the deck?? We calculated it out and it would be a minimum of 12 hours in the heat to even get it back to the road and drive it another 45 miles to a cooler. Basically it would spoil. So we tried to ignore the ridge but found ourselves glassing it all the time. Kinda like an addiction. Only a couple of hours during the day did the bulls not squeal from over there, and it really started to get to us. Finally on the second evening we spotted a 6x6 on our side of the hill. We set up the cow decoy and my buddy went ahead of me about 100 yards. I started to cow call and he took a look at the decoy. From there I've never seen an elk run so fast at me in my life. Almost freaked me out. I saw him pass under the knoll in front of me and I jumped up and listened for that cow chirp and thwap!! Nothing happened. Still nothing. Then I felt something bad, the wind on my neck. I kept cow calling even though I couldn't see anything and as it turns out the ebraked about 60 yards from Mark. For another hour he paced back and forth looking at the decoy but smelling us. We only take shots 50 yards and in, and he never crossed that barrier. Well darkness fell and we snuck out of there to come back in the morning......

Gotta go for now to pick up the wife but I'll continue here later.

tc

[OneLastCast]

Excellent story so far

Keep it coming.

[snit]

More........more.....please.....

[Bait O' Eggs]

This story kind of started off with "Once upon a time...." I hope it ends in "And they lived (or maybe not lived) happily ever after, the end".

The wife can wait!!!! type man type :shocked: :shocked:

[nitrobass]

You didnt need to drive clear over there to see something like this, TC.

This should get any elk hunter's blood roiling!
This is in John Day Wildnerness near Ukiah.

Ready for more story.

[Bounty Hunter]

Great story so far... [img]graemlins/lurk.gif[/img]

[tailchaser]

Ok, Ok I'm back. I'll be posting pictures as soon as I get my truck back from the shop. The digital is in the truck. Anyhow....

Day 3: We started by tracking the 6 pt from last night about 2 miles and sparatically calling hoping to get his interest once again. But it was soon realized that he didn't have cows and was probably covering a lot of country looking for some and it was pretty useless to try and find him again. He wandered through our area and we had a darn good shot the night before and it didn't pan out. So we went to one other spot I had glassed some elk on our ridge two nights ago and it was approx. 5 1/2 miles from our supplies. We had about 1 day's supply left of food, so it was all or nothing. A bull started to get really fired up on the opposite ridge so we crept down a finger on ours as close as we could (600 yards directly across) and tried to coax him across. But he already had 8 cows and wasn't about to leave them with other bulls around just to gain one more. But he was more than willing to bugle and scream at us to get us over there. The problem existed that it might have only been 600 yards across, but the canyon kept going for another mile down on each side and 50' cliffs down to the creek. So crossing wasn't in our best interests. We eventually gave up the idea and the realization that the majority of the elk were on that side. Well we made it back up to the top of our ridge and managed to spot a couple of bedded bucks. We've got tags for them too, so we preceeded to sneak down a rocky ridgeline for the next couple of hours. We get to where the bucks were and nada. We see two beds but no animals. So we go down to where they were and start discussing how they slipped out without us seeing them. Just then I catch a movement to my right as one of the bucks was walking right behind me and was the smaller of the two. Mark and I froze as the buck walked 20 yards from us in the broad daylight. He stops and realizes something is out of line and stares for what seemed like an eternity. We tried to spook him just a little in the same direction he was going so we could turn and draw for his big buddy we assumed was right behind him. Finally he blew out in the right direction and we both nocked arrows and drew back anticipating the next one (a dandy 4x5 about 28" wide). But he never materialized. We let down and peered over the side where that buck came from and he ditched his little buddy sometime during our stalk. So sour grapes once again.

By then the weather was really starting to warm up (95 degrees) and the elk zipperlipped pretty good. Even on the opposite ridge. The week before had 6" of snow and cool temps, but when we got there we only had the first night of frost. That night I slept on my sleeping bag because of the heat and we called the packer to come get us. It's too big of country to randomly get animals. You need the ability to locate by bugling. So we hunt the morning only to find a couple of small bucks and 'yotes as we make it back to the base camp area. The packer is there and is befundled how we didn't get an elk and want out so early. I explained the situation about the ridge and he said, oh yeah there's an old trail that leads right to that area and I can get my mules over there pretty easily. I wanted to reach out and strangle him at that point. Then he said well lets get going, and oh yeah I saw a monster cougar on the way in does anyone want to shoot one of those?? HELL YES I DO! Was my reaction so I was hoping he was still around but didn't expect much, and he wasn't there when we came by on the way out but oh well.

Day 5: I contacted one of my buddies that lives in Heppner and he said he'd be hunting thru the week and asked if we'd like to join on the elk chasing and we abliged. However, I'll never hunt this area again. There are elk mainly on a couple of buttes and EVERYONE hunts it. The elk are running rampid and at least half the rigs were out of state. So the only few elk we saw were running at Mach 10 on thier way by. I did put some sneaks on some decent bucks and listened to some horrible elk calling to entertain us though. But no blood. I regret not putting a stalk on a buck that crossed in front of the truck though at daylight. Probably a 25-26" 4x4, but I had elk on the brain and wanted to get to the canyon we had plans for. We hunted this area until friday night and decided to call it quits. The people really frustrated us on every crevice thinking they were larry jones calling like crazy.

Finally I get home on saturday afternoon of the last weekend. I start calling buddies to get someone to go with me and then I sit there. You know, I've been calling for everyone all year, here's my chance to put the sneak on myself. So off I go sunday morning to my haunt and right at light I spot the bull that's been eluding me all year. I know where he'll feed to and get the wind right and beat him up the hill. 10 minutes after light and the cows are filing past me feeding. But the largest lead cow stops and looks like she pins me. Last day, the freezer is getting filled. She looks away and I draw just in case she flinches to bolt I'll nail her. Well she shakes her head and keeps feeding. Lucky girl. So eventually the bull steps up. Nice 5x5 stops in the open window, I'm at full draw, that's 50 yards I tell myself (since my rangefinder wouldn't work in the fog on the cows! ) and let'er fly. Whap! Donkey kick, and all hell breaks loose. I run around the corner to only see the cows run off. I saw the arrow fly true and head at the rib cage. Done deal right? After 15-20 min. I call a buddy to bring the pack boards and another friend. As I'm talking I turn around to see the bull staring right at me. Gotta go! Click. I hunkered down and he wanted to walk in my direction because that's where the cows went, but he heard my voice over there. So he crept up the hill and we played cat and mouse for a half hour until he got to the cat road. 45 yards broadside, I let'r fly and he did a 180 and dodged my arrow. :shocked: Off into the brush he went crashing and then nothing. I figure I've got one in his ribs and he's down, so I call the calvary. My dad gets there and I stand where I shot from and ranged him. Only then did I notice I was standing on a yellowjacket nest and they were mad now considering I smashed thier nest when I shot originally! :shocked: But my dad was only 38 yards downhill? Fog plays a funny game of distance with you. I now recalled seeing a small dot above the ribcage and below the spine in what I call the dead zone on an elk. No vitals, nothing. If you get lucky you pierce the upper lungs but it won't leave a blood trail and makes for a long day tracking. We gave the bull 5 hours, plenty long enough for an upper lung hit to expire the animal. Well after 2 miles and 6 hours of tracking it was apparant he lived through the experience. No blood, only tracks. The only blood that was found was a quarter size drop 15' from the initial hit. Finally we spot the bull in the evening starting to feed off in a distant clearcut with the same small cut on the upper back. Sour grapes once again, but at least he lived and I didn't waste the animal. Oh well. I've got my hunting fix out of me for a couple of weeks anyhow. The wife was giving it to me though, that I travel all over Oregon to come home and shoot at an elk and think of how much money I could've saved. Hope she doesn't think that when I head to New Mexico next year!!! I'll be posting pics as soon as the truck gets back from the hunt.

tc

[Bait O' Eggs]

I can finally breathe again. We need to add a line to the Acceptable use policy about starting a story and then leaving people hanging for a day Thanks for sharing :smile:

Sounds like you packer needed an attitude adjustment. Not giving you a chance at the bull near your camp when you got there, not telling you of the trail to the other side, Not camping you were it was originally planned, Putting you on the side of the canyon the bulk of the elk were on so he had bulls left over for his other paying customers.

I know what you mean about a lot of people and poor calling east. I think I have hunted the Ochoccos for the last time after this years adventures. To many people, to many poor hunters, roads to close together to get completely away from people. I hate spending the time, money and effort to put myself on some elk to only be messed up by somebody who cant tell the difference between the range cattle tracks and elk tracks in the dirt and just happened to be in the area I was in.

The new ground I hunted last weekend, had no man tracks beyond the 1/2 mile walk point except down a road that kind of goes the wrong direction and those man tracks only go about 1.5 miles give or take. It also had at least 5 times the elk population of anywhere I have ever hunted. If we only had more areas to hunt with less people.

[tailchaser]

I'm not totally blaming the packer, but he made some mistakes that's for sure. He's not accustomed to the bow hunting as much and it showed. You can't blow out bulls and expect a second chance a lot of times. Especially with a big boy. So I'm not pinning him on the reason why we didn't bag an animal, but better communication would have helped a bunch in our decision to go to that ridge.

As of the people, I find myself going more and more extreme every year to find some sort of solitude. Sometimes I sit back and think I'm crazy, but that's what it's coming to in Oregon. I may consider going back in there again, but defintely on that other side. I did like the fact every bugle I heard was an elk and I didn't see anyone around. It was a nice change of pace.

tc

[Mello-Yello]

Sometimes the elk win...it sounds like an incredible journey nonetheless, and I'm very envious of your adventure. I would love to do something like this before I'm too old (I may already be...) :depressed:

If there's one thing I've heard repeatedly about drop-camps; guides will drop you off in their 'secondary' locations. The good locations are for the high-dollar, full-meal-deal packages.

Let's go in together on some horses and mules...then we can hunt where we want, when we want. :grin:

note: I saw a special the other day on these people that are using regular male goats as pack animals. Can carry 40-50 lbs. each, don't require any take-along food, never stray, can go anywhere. I'm guessing they could eat my empty beer cans too....BAAAAAAA, never mind.

I'm cutting meat the next two nights. I'll bring you a couple packs of meat next time I see you.

[Norm]

I had a similar problem this year when a limb deflected my shot. I called a samll 5x bull into us in really nasty re-prod. The bull came in hot and fast. I had my 16 yr old nephew with me for his first elk hunt. The bull came out on a small skid road about 30 yards away from us. My nephew had a good shot, but was kinda freaked out :shocked: and wasn't looking like he was going to take the shot. He said all he could see was a bull with a tree on his head that looked ****ed :smile: . I couldn't see anything behind the bulls front leg from where I was standing. The bull was looking straight at us so I gave a cow call with my mouth diaphram and stepped out at full draw. I could see a small hole in the brush right behind his front leg, I took the shot and whap! I figured it was bull down. I called again and he stopped about 30 yds away in some thick brush. After waiting an hour we tracked and found a little blood and my arrow, clean blood, hair, and a little muscle on the shaft. It was a complete pass through [img]graemlins/1zhelp.gif[/img] . We trailed the elk for several hours without dwindling blood sign. All the blood(what little there was) was really low on the brush. After retracing my shot, turns out a small limb had defelcted my arrow down. I'm sure he had a sore brisket and was a little more hunter wise, but otherwise fine. I called in several bulls this year but this was the only shot I got at a decent bull. Next year I'm hoping to do a drop camp in the Eagle Cap with my son and nephew. I'd be interested in some packer feedback if anyone has used one in the Eagel Cap.

[greenbuttskunk]

We could not get any bulls to bugle to save our life. I'm a decent bugler and my partner is awesome, he's called in a shot over a dozen nice bulls over the last 15 years. We did'nt even hear bugles. I blame it on the hot weather. Did anyone else find this to be a reason for the elk zipperlip?

[ 09-30-2003, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: greenbuttskunk ]

[tailchaser]

You're cutting meat M-Y??? Where was the score at? Did you ever find the bull I told you about? Call me sometime.

tc

[LeaderBleeder]

I hunted the Ochocco's again because of the large amount of game. Every year more people. ( I realize I am a people too) It is no fun though when folks just walk right past you at the trailhead and don't say a word. Excuse me sir, are you going to hunt here? To bad. A little communication and curteousy goes a long way. Elk hunting is not a competative sport. Next we will need spectators. After I quit whining, my partner and I found some nice bulls to talk to in some of our other sweet spots. Got to draw on a real sweet 6 point. Would not give me quite the shot I needed. He does not even know how lucky he was!

[TAILOUT]

Hey TC its to bad you werent able to fill your tags (were you hunting around warnock), we hunted from lightning c to cayuse when we were there and got on bulls 5s or better everyday
and should have brought some home if it wasnt for our inexperience at bow hunting for elk. Had some elk to 40 yds but they never presented us with a shot we felt comfortable taking. It was a totally awsome experience to say the least, Im hooked for life and wont hunt with a rifle again I doubt. The country was big and we dropped 800-1000 ft a couple times just to regain it to get to the ridge we wanted to hunt we finally found where the elk were living the last two days and had some real good opportunities but werent able to close the deal oh well Ill be back next year. We only ran into a group of 3 that were well into there 60s and only road atvs on the road so pressure was light and I never heard another person call. We also killed a load of grouse as they seemed to be everywhere we went. The only thing I was dissapointed about was the lack of deer we saw, I saw about 10 does and not one buck oh well.

[tailchaser]

Glad you had a good trip tailout. We glassed over in that direction every day and saw some bulls hanging around some of the ridgetops. We were basically at the highest ridge in the area so we glassed a lot of country. I'd do it again also but I want to be where we saw all of the elk and I'm not sure how possbile that is just yet. I need to do more research for that one, but I have a lot of time before next year. I'm posting the pictures tonight when I get my truck back from the shop. Turns out the guy at the gas station put regular unleaded in my diesel truck. Not happy about that one but they're footing the bill.

tc

[Gun Rod Bow]

Hey TC,

I enjoyed the story. I have spent a bit of time in the big wilderness country over east. It seems to me, that during rifle season, you can stake out a ridge, and expect new elk to get moved around by pressure, but with bow hunting, you need to be mobile. IMHO, if you're gonna hunt the Minam (Eagle Caps) or similar, it is key to be mobile during bow season (mobile=mounted with pack animals). I'm probably restating the obvious.

Norm,

Charlie Short used to pack out of Moss Springs, he's the only guy I still know. He retired but I've seen his son Art (?) in the woods. There has been a new guy packing out of Moss Springs, but a client guy got killed by a rank horse last year and he may be gone. "Woody" used to run a pack station out of Wallowa Lake, he had 2 sons, they were a square group. I'd avoid Otis out of the Minam Lodge.

GBS,

From what I saw of the last week, if it was an hour from dark either early or late, and you weren't hearing them, they weren't there.

Thanks for the reports guys.

NitroBass is my new hero

[nitrobass]

No 4-wheelers in my pics either! :grin:


I'm thinking the topic of this thread should be renamed to "Big Cows of the Late season beware!!"

[tailchaser]

Ok, here are the pics of the hunting trip. The first is the picture of our pack string.



Next is me on my trusted steed.



Then here I am facing the area we hunted the most on our ridge. I'm standing in the spot we called in the 6 pt that we never got a shot at but gives you an idea of what we hunted in.



The next one is of mark glassing the hillside that we would see most of the bugling bulls. This pic doesn't do justice by how far away this really was in reality. Looking at the canyons on the other pics shows it better on how far away you were in packing one out on your back merely to get mules to it.



Then finally, this is the ridge we were on from the opposite ridge as we were packing out. It was amazing elk even lived in this stuff, but there are some real brutes that do and that's why we were there, but in all a good trip besides the mishaps. However, no one was hurt and I did see some studly animals.



Most of the animals I have on video and no pics of. I need a digital video though to get the pics off it to share. Maybe another time.

tc

[ 10-02-2003, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: tailchaser ]

[tailchaser]

Very very funny Nitro, for once you find one of the bulls you shot and now you're getting lippy. :grin: Just kidding, those cows will be treading lightly this winter.

tc

[Bait O' Eggs]

That 4th picture looks an awful lot like where I will be hunting the Middle Fork of the Salmon in a month. Except the plane drops us off along side of the river, and if you want to see any country you have to pick a ridge and climb climb climb climb......

climbing for an hour or so in subfreezing weather with headlamps so you are somewhere you can see at daylight is not one of my favorite things to do.

Thanks for sharing the pics and story. The ridge you were on, looks like a lot of rock. [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]

[MarlinMark]

BOE,

So you are going back to try for those rutting bucks again. I remeber your story from last year. I hope you get a big one. I'm going to be hunting the rut in the Missouri River breaks. Should be interesting.

Mark

[Crayfin]

BOE

I TOO WILL BE IN THE MIDDLE FORK IN ABOUT A MONTH! DO YOU FLY OUT OF MCALL OR STANLEY?

CRAYFIN

[Bait O' Eggs]

I will be flying out of McCall on Nov 8th. Assuming it isnt like last year,

Flight #1, was about a 5 mile circle first thing in the morning and back to McCall due to bad weather.

Flight #2, Was a 1/2 hour doing circles in the afternoon, trying to get over the ridge but fog didnt allow it. Landed at Arnold Aviation for a few hours waiting for fog to lift.

Flight #3, Was a short hop back to McCall just before dark when they gave up on us getting out.

Flight #4 was the next day at lunch time when the weather broke.

Gotta wait for weather to allow you to get into the canyon.

[ 10-02-2003, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Bait O' Eggs ]

[nitrobass]

Win some lose some, so goes bowhunting.


You know who's got the hookup for late season

[Lepper]

Those pics remind me of hunting while growing up!!!
d