WHATEVER IT TAKES

 

*Previously published in Bowhunters of Wyoming-Winter 2023/24

Part of what separates a successful bowhunter from an empty tag holder is a willingness to do whatever it takes. This attitude had me shivering in a sleeping bag at nine thousand feet, three miles from my truck, laying on a Tyvek mat and looking up at the stars.

I knew there were several bulls that traversed the ridge I was on, and I knew the only way to beat the wind for a morning hunt was to be there before the sun rose. My pack weighed heavy earlier that afternoon as I labored up the steep ridge, but the bugles I heard there that morning had me putting one foot in front of the other until I reached the top. A quick calling session when I reached the ridgeline brought a calf elk running in, but other than some distant bugles, that was it.

The clamor of my cell phone alarm jolted me from a sleep that had taken all night to fall into. Crawling out of my sleeping bag, I slipped my feet into frost-covered boots and grabbed my bow from the limb it had been hanging on.  Stiff and sore from rolling around on a too-thin inflatable mattress all night, I trudged up the shelf that I had camped on, aiming to put myself in a good calling position before shooting light.

I picked my shooting lanes and groggily settled in on top of the ridge, still shaking off the sleep that had been so hard to come by. As soon as the gray dawn replaced the dark of full night, I started calling. Almost immediately a bugle answered, sounding far to the south. But not too far.

Instantly awake now, I answered. And so did he. But closer this time. Hardly believing that this whole hare-brained idea of hiking up here might be working, I called again. Silence. Just as I prepared to call one more time, a bugle erupted out of the lodgepole pines to my south, this time not one hundred yards away. He was coming in and coming in fast.

Crashing branches heralded his approach as I quickly clipped my release onto the d-loop. Out of the pines came the bull, charging along the ridgeline. A quick appraisal of his rack as he emerged from the trees immediately qualified him as a shooter, and I drew back as he passed behind a tree. Hunting solo, he had pinpointed my position and was making a beeline straight towards me.

Concerned that I was about to be run over, the bull finally stopped at eight yards and allowed me to take a shot, the arrow burying to the nock. The bull immediately spun, took several stops, and stopped, peering back at me. A red stream poured from his chest as he whirled and crashed off down the ridge into the trees.

Silence enveloped the sound of his departure and, despite the image of my arrow and the blood that accompanied it, I began to second guess the shot. Did I hit too low? Did the arrow skirt the side of the thoracic cavity? As these thoughts chased themselves around my head, a loud crash came from the trees where he had disappeared. He was down.

The whole chain of events from the first call to the final crash had taken no longer than forty-five minutes. A beautiful, symmetrical six-point bull lay at the end of a short, easy blood trail.

My father joined me for a pack out process that started at 7:00 am finally ended at 5:30 that evening, where a cold beer waiting in the cooler greeted us at the tailgate after we slipped the final loads off our backs.

                    Success had been hard earned on that ridgeline that morning, but it was, and always will be, undoubtedly worth it.

-Alex

Gear List

- Bow: PSE EVO NXT 33

- Broadhead: NAP Killzone (100 Grain)

- Arrows: Easton Axis

- Shelter: REI 3 Season Bivy

- Sleeping Bag: Kelty Cosmic Down-0 Degree

- Pack: Mystery Ranch Beartooth 80

- Boots: Zamberlan Leopard 1013 GTX Mid