I was barely halfway through a radio interview when I nearly hung up. I was the one being interviewed. My new book, Elk Hunting the West: The Experience, was to be the topic of discussion.
One of the two hosts wouldn’t shut up about the handful of bulls he’d shot during his young hunting career. The other host hadn’t hunted elk much. This is my 50th year of hunting elk. While I still have a lot to learn, I’m not getting any younger. So I figured now was the time to pen a book on the topic.
“So, Haugen, tell us what this book is about,” one host finally gave in. “It’s about killing elk,” I said.
“Yeah, we love talking about harvesting elk and we…” one host came back. “Stop,” I interrupted. I’d about had it with their neophyte remarks. “You’ll never hear me say the word harvest and never will you see me write the word harvest in any magazine article or book where I’m talking about hunting and killing animals. I’ll use the word harvest when I start farming. We hunt to kill. Period. Editors, podcasters, radio and TV hosts who hide behind the word ‘harvest’ to appease the masses who already despise hunters should re-evaluate where they stand. As I said, and as the title of this book implies, this is a book about hunting for and killing elk. Every chapter is based on experiences I’ve had while hunting and scouting for elk, and that’s wherein the education lies.”
“Yeah, but what about the gear you use, surely there are chapters on guns and clothes and boots and…?” a host came back, unfazed by my mini rant. “There’s no mention of gear, rifles, places to go hunting for big bulls, record books or how to field judge elk,” I interrupted. “That can all be found on the internet. Hunters today are too fixated on gear. Wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, you can still kill elk and you won’t die hunting all day in the rain without a $1,500 set of rain gear.” Things got quiet.
My writing career began 29 years ago. For over a decade nearly all of the magazine articles and books I wrote were about the adventure. Today, more than half are how-to articles with mandated gear highlights. I hate it. I love this monthly assignment for Outdoorlife.com, which has always been about the experience of the hunt. What I’d give to have every story I wrote, once again be about just hunting. That’s how we learn, and it takes years of in-the-field experience to accrue the knowledge to be able to share it in words.
The Silent Approach
Through high school and college I rifle hunted for elk. When I took up bowhunting my passion for and understanding of elk hunting hit a new level. I specifically remember one hot mid-September day from early on in my elk hunting journey. The ground was dry and noisy. Spot and stalk was out of the question. It was calling or nothing.
Setting up on a timbered ridge overlooking a massive draw with a creek in the bottom, it seemed a good place. Less than 15 minutes into my cow calling, I heard footsteps. Leaves crunched. Twigs snapped. The steps fell in a slow, steady rhythm. Beneath weeping fir boughs, black feet of an elk finally materialized. There was no sense of urgency and the elk was not vocal.
When it moved through a narrow opening between trees, a small rack took shape. It stopped 30 yards away. I called. The bull kept coming. At 15 yards it stopped in thick, green ferns. My arrow quickly passed through it.
Immediately I made loud cow calls. The bull came right back in, bleeding out both sides. It died 12 yards away, closer than when I’d shot it. Testosterone is a crazy power. Had that bull kept running down the steep mountain it would have likely ended up in the bottom and added several hours to my packing job. The frantic calling after the shot saved time and plenty of hard work.
Read Next: How to Call Elk: Tactics for the Modern Era of Elk Hunting
Wreck in the Rockies
On a September archery opener in 2004 Tom Buller, Bob Wells, and I were back in our coveted camping spot, 18 miles into the Wyoming wilderness. We’d had success here the year prior, arrowing three big bulls on opening day.
We set up camp the day before season but bugling bulls didn’t serenade us at night like they did the previous year. In fact, we didn’t hear a single bugle, not even in the prime hours of opening morning. We saddled up the horses and headed across a big ridge, toward the edge of an old burn.
That’s when the train wreck happened. Tom’s horse went berserk. It kicked, sprinted in various directions, then bucked down an elk trail, slamming Tom to the ground. Had Tom not broken his fall into a boulder patch, the outcome would have been much worse than a scraped jaw, bruised arms, and sore body. I watched his head stop less than an inch from a sharp rock. That could have killed him. We were all shaken.
The riderless horse barreled down a steep mountain at breakneck speed, hurdling and busting through blowdowns. The power and speed of the beast were overwhelming. After a quarter-mile sprint we heard the horse crash. It had buckled beneath a jumble of blown down trees, landing tight against a stack of upended root wads. The saddle and panniers had rolled under the horse’s belly. A front foot was thrust through a stirrup. We figured we’d have to put down the horse, for surely it had to have suffered a broken leg, at the very least. We found the horse was spent but calm. We worked off the saddle and got the animal free. Tom’s bow was in pieces. There was nothing to salvage. All the arrows shattered, fortunately none jabbed the horse.
Leading your own packstring into the rugged backcountry can be the most
dangerous part of a do-it-yourself elk hunt. Sore and without a bow, Tom headed back
to camp to tend his wounds. Bob and I continued hunting.
Working down the south facing slope of a big, burned ridge, we heard the first bugle. Bob responded with a cow call and the bull fired right back. At 90 yards the six-point emerged from a brushy thicket and stood in a small opening of green grass, bugling amid the lifeless, burned trees surrounding it. It wasn’t a big bull.
Continuing across the burn, into the bottom of the canyon and up the other side,
we arrived in the lush timber we hoped held bulls. The first setup didn’t elicit a single bugle. Moving 200 yards to the west, into the next creek bottom, fresh droppings, rubs and a well-used wallow left no doubt bulls were near.
Bob delivered a cow call and I followed with calf sounds. Immediately a bull fired back. Within seconds its wide rack could be seen swaying through the trees. For the first 75 yards the bull was in no hurry. At 60 yards it paused behind a tree. Bob and I teamed up, throwing out several, multi-directional cow and calf sounds. The goal was to sound like a herd on the move. It worked.
At 40 yards the bull walked through an opening and Bob stopped it with a quick call. Bob’s arrow flew over the bull’s back. It sprinted away. But in the world of hunting rut-crazed bulls, you never give up. Immediately, Bob cut loose with loud, aggressive cow calls. The bull stopped behind some thick brush. Another series of cow calls and the bull circled back in. Bob’s 32 yard shot found the mark.
We quartered the bull and using a horse, hoisted the meat, along with the head, high into the trees. We’d return the following day with horses to pack out the meat. We didn’t want to load the horses down while I was still hunting, for grizzly bears were thick in the area.
Over the next two hours we talked to more than a dozen bulls. More than half
were coming to our calls, only to bust us due to unrelenting, swirling winds. Hoping to escape the whipping winds, we dropped into a deep, wooded canyon.
Losing elevation wasn’t an easy decision as we were walking the horses, not riding them. We weren’t quite to where we wanted to be when a bull bugled above us. We hadn’t made a sound. The bull kept bugling with growing intensity. The wind was still swirling as we made a move to close the gap. We hoped it would level out by the time we got closer to the bull, to where we could at least try calling to bring it within range.
We’d tied off the horses and climbed 500 feet up the mountain. Bob cow called. The bull immediately responded, as did two other bulls. The wind swirled harder with each passing moment. We knew what the outcome would be. Rather than force it, we waited. We didn’t move for two hours, willing the wind to let up — but it didn’t.
We pressed our luck, moving closer to commence calling. That’s when a bull busted us. Miles into the backcountry, surrounded by big bulls, the wind gave us fits and all we were doing was educating elk. Frustrated, we started making our way back to camp, hoping tomorrow would bring less wind.
We’d not gone a quarter-mile when another bull let out a bugle that sliced through the 25 mile-per-hour gusts. We were on the edge of the timber.
The forest was noisy but the thermals were now steadily falling in the cooling air. With the first consistent air flow we’d had all afternoon, we wasted no time. With the wind masking our sound and movement, we quickly closed to within 75 yards of where we thought the bull was. I moved ahead of Bob, got on my knees, nocked an arrow and nodded to Bob. He delivered the first call, a single cow mew. Before the call was lost in the wind, the bull hammered back with a double bugle and a long, raspy chuckle.
Over the next few minutes the bull answered our calls two more times, then went silent. Confident the bull was slowly approaching with caution in the wind, my greatest concern was that it’d circle behind, trying to smell us, then leave without us ever seeing it.
Ten more minutes passed with no response. Then, movement from where the bull had been bugling, caught my eye. At first it was hard to decipher amid the blowing limbs. Then the bull stepped forward and twisted its big head and rack to maneuver through the dark timber. Heavy antlers moved our way; that was all we could see. The rangefinder gave a firm reading of 40 yards to the first opening on the trail where the bull should emerge.
The relentless sound of howling winds and crashing branches suddenly fell
silent. I could see tree limbs and brush lashing about, but failed to hear them as I effortlessly drew the bow. I felt my heart beat. I was focused, in the zone but calm. I love these moments when it’s just you and a big bull. Nothing in the world contaminates the mind. Your senses are on high alert. All that matters is nailing the shooting window.
When the bull hit the mark, my 40-yard pin was centered behind the left shoulder. The 100-grain broadhead cut through both lungs, dropping the bull on its third lunge, just nine yards from where he was hit.
It was the fastest I’d ever seen a bull expire. When we rolled it over to begin
quartering, the broadhead was protruding from the back right hip of the bull.
The labor-intensive breakdown and arduous, three-mile hike back to camp were taxing on our bodies. I wanted to have a shoulder mount, so I caped the bull, which didn’t make things any easier. We hauled out what meat we could, knowing we’d return the next day for the rest.
That night, seven inches of snow fell. We began to realize that Tom’s injuries were worse than we’d thought. His shoulder was not working, he needed medical attention. The next morning Bob and I returned with the horses to get the rest of the meat while Tom broke down camp as best he could. Then we retreated off the mountain.
Though brief, it was a physically demanding and mentally draining hunt; one filled with many emotional highs and lows. Tom’s injuries were a bad deal, but things could have been so much worse.
Two years later Bob returned with his wife to hunt the magical place. He didn’t see a single elk, not even a track. Wolves had decimated the herds and scattered them to who knows where. We were fortunate to experience the hunts when we did.
Chasing Bugles
It was mid-October, opening day of rifle elk season. In the dark, cows and calves
called to one another. Their chatter intensified as daylight approached. The cows were trying to corral the calves for it was time to retreat to timber for the day.
A couple bulls bugled in the distance, in separate draws. I let out a bugle of my own. Multiple bulls replied. I told myself I wouldn’t leave this spot, for if I did, I’d be committed for the day. The country was massive and rugged, too big to simply hop out of and go to another place.
Over the next hour I pulled two bulls out of the timber from below. They were
interested in my calls, but small, not shooters. Farther down the ridge more bulls bugled. Meticulously searching with the spotting scope, I failed to locate them. I had a choice. Change locations and try to find easier elk to access, or go for it. I dove into the canyon.
I gravely misjudged the size and ruggedness of the land. That’s why it’s named Hell’s Canyon. It was late morning by the time I reached the point of a ridge surrounded by multiple ravines. Thermals were steadily upwelling from the canyons. It was unseasonably hot.
In a desperation I bugled. A bull answered back. It wasn’t far. I figured I’d have a bull on the ground and start packing meat in no time. Before I could even get the pack off my back, the bull was on top of me. Less than 15 yards, staring me in the face. It was a small four point. It barked, ran back into the timber and kept barking. I didn’t make another sound until 5:00 p.m., when the shadows began to grow on the opposite hillsides.
The later it got the more bulls responded to my bugles. My intent wasn’t to call
one in, simply entice them to give up their whereabouts. It worked. I glassed two bulls that had bugled their way out of the trees on opposite ridges. One was a shooter. I bugled one more time and a different bull answered. It was closer. When that bull sauntered out of a pine thicket in which it had spent the day, my target instantly changed.
Quickly, I hiked 200 yards down the ridge. Rock solid in the tripod shooting sticks, one last reading on the rangefinder reconfirmed the bull was just beyond 500 yards. It wasn’t going to get any closer. There was no wind. The bull had no clue I was there. One shot and the hunt was over.
Meat was packed through the night, then a quick nap, followed by more packing early the next morning. It was one of the most grueling elk hunts of my life. Hobbling to the truck with the rack and neck meat, a man with a string of horses was there. He was parked next to me, unloading a bull. It was mid-afternoon. “I’m done, you need help packing out the rest of your bull,” he offered. It was my last load.
With the extension of the elk rut throughout their range, don’t be afraid to call well into the month of October, even early November. The goal is to elicit a bull’s response, not lure it in. Hunting a bull you know is there, versus blindly wandering, boosts your confidence and rate of success.
No matter when, where or how you hunt elk, be prepared to work. While hunting elk tops the wish list of many hunters, it’s far from easy, especially once you kill a bull.
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