I had never been so wide-eyed and bushy-tailed at the tail end of a long road trip; my buddy Keith and I had left our home state of Michigan about 26 hours ago, and were making a turn onto a gravel road that looked as if it was going up the side of the mountain on a 90 degree angle. As we made the turn, the sign on the side of the road read “Uncompahgre National Forest.” Uncompahgre is a national forest on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies that stretches over 100,000 acres, created by none other than the father of American wilderness and conservation, President Theodore Roosevelt in the summer of 1905. The national forest is home to a vast majority of wildlife including the black bear, mule deer, bighorn sheep, mountain lion, and moose. The big game animal that sticks out the most when you think of the Colorado Rockies though is the wapiti, most commonly known as “elk,” and that’s what we there to chase.
For hunters across the country, the elk is undoubtedly the most sought after big game animal the western part of North America has to offer. Hunting elk is more of a dream than a reality for outdoorsman that live east of the Mississippi river. Outside of some small regulated areas in Northeast Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania, the vast majority of North America’s elk population roams from the Rocky Mountains to the pacific coast. The first time I had ever seen an elk hunt on television was when I was 8 years old, and from that moment forward I had dreamed about hunting them and hearing the one sound that makes an outdoorsman's hair stand up on the back of his neck; the sound of an elk bugle screeching through the dark timber of the Rocky Mountains. This dream was about to become a reality as our tire tracks slowly moved across 30 miles of gravel road to the spot we had picked to park our truck for the week.
Just as the sun was setting behind the mountains and the treetops were turning from a precious gold to a dusky purple, we parked the truck on the side of gravel road approximately five miles from where we had marked where we were going to setup base camp for the week. Since it was late evening and we didn’t feel comfortable hiking into base camp in the dark, we decided to sleep in the truck that night. Now I’ll say there’s two types of cold at night; there’s the cold that keeps you tossing and turning in your sleep, and there’s the type of cold that instantly wakes you up like you’ve just experienced a terrible nightmare. This type of cold was the latter; when we went to bed at 10:30 pm it was a comfortable 57 degrees, and now only three hours later it was 26 degrees and dropping. Keith and I hadn’t taken into consideration that we were about 8500 feet above sea level, so we scrambled through the backend of our truck to find our sleeping bags we had packed for the week. The rest of the night was a bit more comfortable, but I won’t say we got anymore sleep; WE WERE GOING ELK HUNTING TODAY.
I’m guessing we did what most midwestern hunters do on their first big western mountain hunt, we grossly underestimated the time it would take for us to hike the five miles into the locations we picked to setup base camp. Simply put, five miles in the mountains is not five miles, not even close. We strapped our 60 pound packs on and started our trek at sunrise around 6:45 am, and we figured we’d be at our base camp by noon. Long story short we were sadly mistaken; after a total of 12 miles of hiking we arrived at our base camp dehydrated and exhausted at about 4:30 pm, and we spent the final hours of daylight setting up our camp and enjoying the view from our spot 9000 feet up. If it wasn’t for the OnX hunt app, it might’ve been an even longer day due to the fact that it is very easy to get turned around in pure wilderness with mountains on all sides of you. The last hour of the day was spent filtering water from a nearby creek so hydration wouldn’t be an issue if we got caught chasing an bugle all day the next day; the dream hunt was on.
Our view from camp was nothing short of spectacular. Every ounce of land you see in this picture is public land for all of us to enjoy. There isn’t a camera in the world that can take a picture to give this place justice.
What we experienced when we woke up the following morning is hard to put into words. I would say it was like a dream, but what we were experiencing as the sun peaked above the mountains was far better than anything I had ever dreamed about. My goal for this trip wasn’t to shoot an elk, nor was it to see an elk; my goal was to hear what every outdoorsman yearns to hear at some point in his life; an elk bugle. If I heard just one elk bugle on this trip, it would’ve made the $700 tag and 26 hour drive well worth it. After the first five minutes of daylight on the first day, I realized that I had to re-establish my goals very quickly because we weren’t just hearing one bugle, there were bugles echoing through the mountains from every direction. It was something from a movie; for the first hour of daylight there wasn’t a five minute timeframe of silence. Bulls were bugling above us, below us, and seemingly within a couple hundred yards of our camp.
There was elk sign within 50 yards of our base camp, so we decided to not go far to setup for our first calling sequence of the morning. We were about 120 yards from camp when Keith hit the bugle tube, and it wasn’t long before we got a response. After waiting in silence for about five minutes, we heard something go crashing down the hillside only about 80 yards to our right. I’ve heard many whitetails go crashing through the timber in my day, but this was unlike anything I’ve ever heard; this sounded like a freight train tumbling down a hill. Elk. Our fear had been realized moments later when we walked in the direction we heard the crash coming from, and saw elk tracks heading down the hill away from us. At first, we though it had caught our wind, but our thermals and wind were in our favor, and after being briefly confused we came to realize that the elk had seen our camp! We looked ahead from the last track before the elk took off down the hill and noticed our tent was a mere 60 yards away sitting in the open. Unlucky, but it was still an awesome encounter and gave us confidence that we could call an elk toward us.
We would work the ridgetops the rest of the day, continuously cow calling and throwing in a bugle every now and then to see if we could locate a bull. We would hear a couple more bugles that morning, but were never able to get our eyes on another elk the rest of the day. The day didn’t end without anymore excitement though; as we were walking back to our base camp during the last hour of daylight we stumbled up on a black bear and her cubs feeding in the scrub oak. They didn’t realize we were there until we were within 50 yards of them, and after the sow stood up on her hind legs to get a look at what we were, all three of them took off in the other direction. This was Keith’s first encounter with a bear in the wild, so that just added icing on the cake for a day well spent in the wilderness. The close encounter we had early that morning had us jacked and eager to see what the next day had to offer.
The following morning didn’t shower us with bugles like the morning before had, but it wasn’t completely silent as we heard a couple bugles echo from above us. We decided to take a long hike that morning up to a large plateau about 1000 feet above our camp; the opposite side of that plateau was nothing but dark timber that we figured would hold some elk on a day that reached 79 degrees. Through a lot of pre-trip planning and research we knew that elk liked to bed in dark timber on hot days to keep themselves shaded and comfortable while the sun was at its highest point. The first half of the day we worked one half of the plateau without any luck. Our approach was to just walk about three quarters of the way up the ridge to keep the thermals in our favor, and hit the cow call every so often to see if we could get a bull to respond or possibly get him up out of his bed to check us out. We also found a great vantage point to glass for a couple hours in an area that was littered with elk sign, but we had no luck putting our eyes on anything besides beautiful country. I should mention that we both had either sex tags in our pocket, and any elk would’ve tickled our fancy, horns or not. If a cow was going to give us an opportunity to fill our freezer with elk venison, we weren’t passing on that opportunity.
Although we weren’t able to glass up any elk, just being able to enjoy and appreciate true wilderness through the lenses was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
After a short nap in the sun and a couple spoonful’s of peanut butter for lunch, we trekked across the plateau through two miles off scrub oak to the very opposite end of the plateau. Looking at our OnX maps, the part of the plateau we were heading toward seemed to be the most promising due to it holding a ton of dark timber, and it seemed to be a place where not many hunters venture. It was about 10 miles from the closest trail head, and only had one access point due to the severity of the cliff drop on the opposite end of the timber.
As soon as we entered the dark timber at the top of the ridge we knew there were elk close. All of the sign was extremely fresh, and we could SMELL them. I had always heard that you smell them when you’re close, but never really believed that notion until I stepped down into the timber at the top of the ridgeline we were hunting. If there was any kind of sizable herd in the area we were close because there was no way only a couple elk were making the kind of sign we were seeing.
We crept along the ridge top, walking in the muddy trails the elk had created and throwing out a cow call every 20 yards to see if we could get a response. My heart exploded when we heard a crash out in front of us, but as quickly as my heart rate increased, it came back to normal when I noticed a couple mule deer bouncing away from us.
We continued along the ridge with the sign only getting heavier; the trails were only getting thicker, there was elk shit everywhere, and every fifteen yards there was a tree shredded from a bull. Elk rubs are like whitetail rubs, but instead of bending down to look at the rub, you look up at the top of rub that usually stretches from ground level to about 8 feet up the tree; that is if the tree is still alive and standing after being absolutely mauled.
I turned to Keith, “Something is going to happen, there’s no way we don’t run into an elk before it gets dark.”
After about a mile of hiking just beneath the ridgetop, and the sign continuing to stay very fresh we started to become confused and a little frustrated. How is there this much fresh sign and we haven’t seen or heard a peep? Are we pushing the elk ahead of us? The thermals and wind were in our favor, so if we were pushing them how were they detecting us? Was our cow calling and bugling THAT bad that it was kicking the elk out of the area? Should we stop making so much noise as we walked along the ridge? We had heard from many experienced elk hunters than while walking along the ridge you should throw rocks, step on lots of sticks to emulate elk moving along the ridge. So many questions were spinning in my head as I hit the Hoochie Mama (cow call) again. I then spotted a stick a few steps ahead, and aggressively stepped on it for it to make a loud snap that echoed down the ridge. That’s when it happened.
An absolute explosion about 30 yards in front of us on the ridgetop; a moment that lasted all of seven seconds, but that seven seconds will live crystal clear in my mind for rest of my life.
Four words. “ELK! BULL! RIGHT HERE! ” Keith softly exclaimed from five yards behind me as he flipped open the camera he was holding. I quickly took two steps backwards at the same time clipping my release to my bowstring, and looked in the direction Keith was looking. The fact the bull got up from his bed so close to us, and Keith saying “RIGHT HERE,” I figured the bull had to be in bow range. I had no idea how big the bull was going to be, or if was moving fast or slow; I just knew I needed to prepare myself for a shot and do it fast.
As I stepped out from a pine tree and into Keith’s point of view, it was like stepping into a dream. Standing there behind some scrub oaks was not a rag horn bull my mind was expecting to see, but standing broadside inside 40 yards was THE herd bull. A majestic 6x6; the kind of bull that you only thought existed on private ranches across the west, not the kind of bull that is suppose to survive on public land in the most pressured elk state in the country. Growing up in Michigan, the only reason I knew a bull of this size existed was through pictures on social media and watching the outdoor channel. Pictures and television don’t do these things justice though, the beauty and size of the bull was overwhelming, and this bull that had somehow eluded public land hunters for probably the last five-plus years, stood in bow range looking back in my direction with no idea what was transpiring.
Somehow in this unfamiliar situation, through the grace of God, as soon as Keith said “ELK,” I was very locked in; I think the fact that this encounter happened so suddenly, it didn’t give me the chance to overthink the shot, become nervous, or get bull-fever. As I stepped out into a shooting lane, I drew back my bow and noticed my HHA single sight pin was set at 30 yards, and as I looked through my pin at the bull, he looked to be right at 30 yards, give or take a yard or two. I didn’t have time to pull out my rangefinder, but I’ve been judging distances whitetail hunting my whole life and feel very confident in judging anything inside 40 yards. Here’s the thing though, I grew up judging distances from a treestand hunting whitetails. This animal was twice the size of a whitetail, and the terrain was anything but flat. The bull was actually probably a good 10 feet above me, and I didn’t take either of those things into account. I put the pin right on his vitals, and even though there were scrub oaks in front of the bull, he towered above them and his whole vital area was clearly showing with not even a branch in the way. With my pin settled on his vitals, I was steady as I am shooting at the range, and supremely confident that I was about to put a lethal shot on this bull of a lifetime.
I took a breath as I slowly pulled the trigger on my release just as I do when I shoot at the range. The flight of the arrow was like slow motion, and will always be deeply engrained in my memory. The first 25 yards of the arrows flight looked as true as it possibly could, with the arrow flying straight for where I put my pin behind the shoulder. The flight path the last few yards are what will haunt me for the rest of my life; my heart sank as fast as an anchor in water while the arrow dropped off drastically the last moments it was in flight until it was below the vitals, and then “SMACK.”
“YOU MISSED, YOU MISSED UNDERNEATH. KNOCK ANOTHER ARROW,” said Keith from behind the camera. The bull wheeled around and went trudging back up the hillside. I scrambled to knock another arrow, all while looking up at the massive animal stop at the top of the mountain about 85 yards away and look back at us. When he looked back I saw how giant the bull really was, and my heart sank as he jogged over the mountain top and out of sight. Then it hit me, “if I missed, how come I heard such a loud SMACK?” I raced up the mountain to where the bull had been standing to see if I could find my arrow. That loud smack couldn't have been from hitting a limb or tree behind the bull? Did I hit the bull low, and Keith just assumed I missed low?
Ten seconds later I had my answer. After scrambling to find my arrow in the scrub oak, I finally found it laying on the ground short of where the bull had been standing. No blood on the arrow, just blood on my Montec broadhead that had been broken in half; which means I probably got a half inch of penetration. Shoulder. That “SMACK,” we had heard wasn’t a tree limb or rock, it was the shoulder - probably the one place you absolutely cannot hit an elk with an arrow and kill it. Penetrating a mature elk’s shoulder is like trying to penetrate a rock, it’s just not going to happen. Part of me was thankful knowing the elk wasn’t going to be very wounded at all, and would go about his daily business in good health. The other part of me was sick; God had just blessed me with an opportunity to kill an animal of a lifetime on public land, and I had blown it. Thirty eight yards. Thirty eight yards was usually no big deal for me, and if I had known the correct distance before the shot I was confident that I would’ve executed the shot. Misjudging the distance had cost me a freezer full of elk, and hundreds of stories shared when folks would inevitably ask me about the elk on my wall at home.
My broadhead after the shot. I had always heard an elk shoulder is as hard as a rock, and this evidence of my one-piece broadhead being snapped in half just adds truth to that notion.
What the misjudged distance didn’t cost me though was an unbelievable trip with a great friend. In the months leading up to the trip, Keith and I agreed that if we even had an encounter and an opportunity to kill an elk, we would count it as a successful trip. With the amazing shot opportunity I had, along with hearing countless bugles, and making countless memories, this trip was definitely a huge success. Keith and I ended up hunting a couple more days, but our trip ended up getting cut short for a couple reasons. One, or solar chargers started to fail on us, and we needed our phones charged to follow the maps back to the truck. We decided to charge our phones up as much as we could on the evening of the 4th day, and pack out in time to get back to the truck before nightfall. Two, our water filter had broken on us, so the last couple days of the trip we were boiling dirty water and drinking it warm. With that being said, if you’re reading this and planning an elk hunt in the future, make sure you bring TWO water filters in case one of them stops working. Drinking boiled water with particles floating around in it isn’t the greatest way of staying hydrated.
On the last couple days of the trip after the missed opportunity, we didn’t see anymore elk, but we made many more memories hiking the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. Looking back at the trip, if the elk encounters had never happened, it still would’ve been worth the trip considering the amazing mountain top views we had all week while camping 9500 feet above sea level. Missing that bull just makes me more eager and excited to get back out west and continue my chase of a rocky mountain dream. Growing up, the “rocky mountain dream” was killing an elk, but after being out there and experiencing the hunt, chasing the rocky mountain dream means so much more. It’s not just hunting elk, it’s experiencing the most beautiful landscapes this world has to offer, living wild and connecting to the natural world because you have no other choice when you’re miles and miles away from any civilization, and understanding why so many people have fought so hard to keep our wild places wild. When you chase your rocky mountain dream, I hope you kill an elk, but in your pursuit, don’t go blind to the beauty of the wilderness that surrounds you. Living wild in a place like that is a dream in itself.