Today, I hit the trail at daybreak again. I was first in and pretty certain no one else had come in later. I didn’t pass up an opportunity to call or keep my eyes open for the prey. In the first meadow that I could see above me, stood an elk. I knew before I grabbed my binoculars that it was a bull. My reading eyes are fading, but my hunting eyes are strong. My binoculars confirmed my belief. He was a nice bull. Not quite the caliber of bull from yesterday, but a bull worth the effort, nonetheless. I watched him for a minute and scanned what I could see of the hillside for more elk. Nothing, I could see. I checked my map to determine where he might go. I glanced around to see how to start my approach. Deadfall everywhere. Lodgepole pine lay crisscrossed all around. I thought, oh boy! I sent a bugle his way, and he immediately replied with his own. So I started my ascent playing hopscotch with the deadfall. At this point, I realized how tired and worn out I had become. I took it slow until I reached the clear. From here, it’s straight up. I felt an intense burn in my legs and as though I’m sucking air by straw. He answered every bugle I sent his way, but he was climbing faster than I could. I could barely hear him at this point. The sun was already hitting the hillside on his elevation. This would cause a change in thermals, and I could already tell it was getting swirly at my elevation. I made a decision to leave him be. I found a better way to come in from above later, if I could not get on another bull. So back down I went. 

I bugled as I walked to the point where I perched up for a bit yesterday. I bugled from there a few times with no reply. Now the mental game begins. Did I make a wrong decision? Where do I go from here? Go back and climb up above the elk I spotted? Keep calling? Make a move? Which direction?  So, I chose to walk into his bedroom and blow the plastic out of the bugle tube. I climbed to that flat bench, I am calling his bedroom, let out the nastiest, ugliest, most horrific bugle one could produce. However, he replied with his majestic territorial bugle. But, it was in the wrong direction. It was behind me. Almost exactly where I came from. He wasn’t home yet. I checked the call I was using and it was stretched out, so I dug out another. I don’t think he cared much, he was mad and on a mission. We bugled back and forth as I moved downwind. He was coming across the creek with an angle to hit the hill below me. The wind was pulling straight down as the thermals were still in effect on this hill. Somehow he didn’t smell me. (I can smell myself at this point.) I went silent and kept moving quietly straight towards his last bugle. I see him. He’s 50 or 60 yards out. Here I am again reminding myself to breathe. He was coming closer. I knew it was about to happen. I quickly started scanning for shooting lanes. I found one. I can hear my heart pounding. Arrow is knocked and release is attached. I found an opportunity to draw without him noticing. He’s looking for the intruder and nothing goes unnoticed. I’m full draw as he stops to look around. He starts stepping as I relax my grip to get settled in for the shot. It felt just like it had with the thousands of times I’ve done it at home. He stepped into the lane I had found. I pull back against the wall to settle the 30-yard pin just behind his shoulder. I hold and squeeze off the shot. The arrow is in flight. I hear tic, whop! The bull whirls in a run. I hear crashing and heavy hooves in the rocks as he runs off. I go to the point where he stood and immediately see blood. 

I look back to line up the shot and see a few limbs in the lane. Remember the tic before the whop? I certainly do. I am seeing decent blood for 10 yards. I sit down to say a quick prayer and text my wife and a couple of buddies from my Garmin Inreach. I’m not certain of the shot but knew it had made contact. I only wait about 30 minutes. Doubt was setting in so I start easing along to find blood and tracks. Sixty-five yards later I find my arrow, unbroken and bloody. The blood trail thins but is still visible. I continue this until the blood is down to specks. I am mainly following tracks. A couple of hours and three hundred yards later, I lost both. I find myself wandering around like the Israelites once did. I have exhausted all means to recover the beast. I have done my share of tracking wounded game since I was a teenager. I have tracked the dead and the ones that live to see another day. This one will live to see another day. 

I realize how extremely exhausted I am. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. I have only lost one other elk, back in 2007. It’s a sick feeling you never forget. From here, I have to do the walk of shame with a bloody arrow in my quiver and no blood on my hands. Total disappointment has set in. I had my chance! 

Success? Failure? You can judge. I believe it to be both, leaning heavily toward failure. Though the ultimate success is yet to be had, I had a boatload of fun. This is bow hunting elk in the September rut. I love it!