Writer recalls lessons learned from archery elk season

By AMY QUINLIVAN

Mineral Independent

This was archery season No. 3 for the three amigos.

A team consisting of only one bow hunter, my husband, Christopher, one designated caller, myself, and one thrill seeking, tree raking along for the ride 70-year-old Tennessean, Mike Hinton. Three novices with different skills and abilities but all sharing one goal and one dream, and just one elk tag.

Mike grew up reading the tales of Daniel Boone, Jim Bridger, and Lewis and Clark dreaming that one day he’d make it out to Montana to experience the wilderness for himself. His first several visits to Montana were through church mission trips, that’s how the three of us met. Then visions of big game animals and breathtaking scenery that once seemed out of reach for Mike had somehow transformed into reality as two young hunters conjured up aspirations to go archery hunting. Mike simply asked that he could follow along.

My husband Christopher and I grew up rifle hunting in the mountains of western Montana, primarily for deer. The pursuit of elk always felt like a farfetched endeavor that required better gear, more wisdom, grit, and experience. General season also meant hunting the elk post rut and took you to higher elevations and the most rugged terrain. In a decade of hunting together my husband has killed one bull elk, and I have yet to purchase a tag knowing just how low the odds are.

For years we’ve lamented “Archery is just too elite. It’s like being in an exclusive hunting club, for those with money and the best equipment.” With rifle season you grab your gun and some blaze orange and you’re good to go.

With bow hunting we discovered there is an entire encyclopedia of terms. Like arrows, broadheads, cams, D-loops, fletching, grains, limbs, nock, quiver, release, stabilizer and vanes.

Ever so slowly though we became intrigued with archery. I bought Christopher his first Craigslist outdated compound bow for Christmas. He then completed his archery hunters’ course. He flung arrows for months and practiced at various yardage. We acquired low end camo, boots, bugles, and a pack. With the popularity of YouTube hunting shows and icons we dove headfirst into learning the passionate and sometimes insane quest of archery elk hunting. We studied elk patterns and the complex dynamics of the elk rut in September.

Lastly but undoubtedly most essential, we had to become proficient in communicating with these magnificent animals. In the summer months we’d drive high up mountain roads in the evening and bellow out comical sounding bugles and cow calls.

I don’t think a hunter ever forgets that first response, that first faint scream back to you from a bull elk a few ridges away. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, your heart races. Almost immediately you ask yourself, “Was that really an elk, or another person?”

In our first archery hunting season our unlikely posse most assuredly had beginners’ luck. We had numerous “encounters.” Get into elk country, hike to a vantage point, let out a location bugle, hear a response then move in on the herd. We overlooked crucial elements like wind and how quickly an elk will smell you and then disappear. But the action was real and up close, and the bugling fests left us amped up and ready to go out again and again. We saw countless bulls that year, but committed rookie mistakes.

Last year’s archery season the luck was definitely gone. We were discouraged and dejected. The only bugles we heard were on opening morning, and closing day of archery season. We quickly understood that if you can’t hear them, you’ll never find them. The crux of archery season is how vocal the bulls can be during the rut. However, without a bugle to locate them you’ll hike 20 miles around a mountain and the closest thing you’ll find is fresh elk poop.

This year the three of us came more prepared or so we thought. Mike practiced his cow calling. Christopher and I reviewed the critical nature of diurnal thermals, wind and scent. Planning our hunting days, we even took into consideration the moon phases, and how the rut is triggered by the fall equinox.

Once our hunting companion arrived from Tennessee our boots hit the trail on Sept. 12. In our usual stomping grounds as the sky turned red at dawns first light, we heard a meek bugle respond to us several hundred yards down the mountain. We pulled up our newest hunting tool OnX maps on our phone and swiftly analyzed the topography. Morning winds had our scent going straight down to where the bull had sounded off.

We backed off to the west, headed straight down hill and tried to come in at the same elevation we predicted the bull would be. Our biggest issue this morning was that the timid bull went silent. Maybe it was too early in the season, or his less than mature size, but without another bugle to pinpoint him we were at a loss. As we ventured down a new logging road in the general direction of the bugle, we stopped and called often. It had been over an hour since we first heard him. We figured he was long gone, so we decided to make a new game plan and choose a new route back up the mountain.

As we rounded a corner on the logging road the three of us froze. I glanced down the ridge to my right and thought to myself it looked like a good bedding and grazing area. 100 yards down that same wide-open ridge stood a four-point bull elk and a few big cows. Just staring at us. This is not how archery hunting is supposed to look. In archery you use a calling setup to draw in a bull and use the element of surprise to your advantage. Not the other way around. This bull gave us a three second pause, but 100 yards is too far for even experienced bow hunters.

The bull and his small harem spooked to the left into thick tree coverage, Christopher sprang into action and moved in their direction while Mike and I fell back to cow call. To Christopher’s astonishment he came around another curve on the logging road and two spike bulls passed 80 yards in front of him. If he could get to where they crossed quickly, he’d be in the center of the herd. And there was the bull down off the road, at 15 yards. Not knowing if he should range the distance Christopher fumbled with his range finder, checked the yardage, and then got to full draw. Needing just one more second to make the shot, a cow elk ran into the bull elk's rear-end and they both took off.

It was a hard learning moment for us all, but an exciting hunt. The afternoon disintegrated in several ways, both my husband and I fell ill with a serious head cold, while at the same time our region began to be blanketed by the miserable thick smoke from wildfires on the coast.

It took several days for our hunting party to recover and once we did the unhealthy air quality made hunting and being outdoors downright hazardous. By the following weekend the smoke improved some, and according to the moon phase calendar the bugling action would be cranked up.

Saturday, Sept. 19 heavy rain left us soaked and pushed the elk down lower. After drying off that afternoon we started at the bottom of the mountain and stalked a group of cows to a ridgetop. Once we reached the trail the herd was on, we got a bull to bugle back to our calls. But each time the herd kept pushing further away. After chasing them in the last hour of daylight my husband made a last-ditch sprint effort up a different ridge toward the bugling bull. Mike and I stayed down near a spring, I cow called every minute or so, and let out a bugle every five minutes.

Staring up the ridge toward Christopher’s direction, Mike and I suddenly heard an aggressive bugle, right behind us. We spun on our heels, and looked at each other dumbfounded, neither of us had a bow, and now we were closer to a bull than our shooter was. I let out a series of calls to let Christopher know he needed to return to our location, quickly! Winded and exhausted he arrived and we relayed the situation. Roughly 100 yards below us a bull was bugling back and forth with me and it sounded mad. Once again, Christopher departed into the thick forest, but shooting light was waning fast. The bull skirted around us and headed off to the west.

Back to town it was for our ritual post hunt burger from Huck’s Grill and milkshakes to ease the pain.

Mike’s flight was scheduled to depart for home on Sept. 23. We only had a few hunting days left for the three of us together. On Sunday morning before church we proceeded to call in a pair of hunters, and while rushing back to the truck to make it in time for worship service, we heard an actual bugle not far away.

Sept. 21 was the night before the fall equinox. That afternoon was hot, and my morale was low. With the warm temperatures I wasn’t feeling optimistic. After praying over our hunt, we walked a half a mile from the truck and I let out a location bugle. A hundred yards up the mountain in a patch of dark and shady timber, a bull immediately called back.

The wind in our favor, we silently marched up the ridge dripping in sweat. Christopher pulled ahead and I fell back to create a calling setup, a few soft chirps and we got another bugle. In thick brush, this bull sounded like it was now off to our left. Christopher moved up several yards and I followed at a distance. Suddenly I saw antlers, a bull crested the hillside right above me with its five orange tinted tips. This wasn’t the bull we were talking with though.

We were stuck. From Christopher’s angle he ranged the bull at 45 yards, an easily shootable distance. But all he saw was antlers on either side of a ponderosa pine, the bull’s body woefully protected. The bull held its position for several minutes than turned back uphill toward the herd. Christopher followed close behind and spotted more cows, and a chocolate brown five-point bull that was doing all the bugling.

For the next three hours we chased the herd up the mountain, with the wind coming downhill we never spooked them into a flee. It was more of a nuisance bull setup; I would bugle, Christopher would move in quietly trying not to be noticed by cow elk in every direction and the bulls took turns screaming back at me.

All the while Mike was wielding branches raking trees trying to imitate the bulls thrashing above us.

Multiple times Christopher got within 60 yards of a bull but couldn’t get a shooting lane in the dense timber. The “orange” five point was so preoccupied with a hot cow it hardly noticed we existed. We were within the elk herd for nearly 45 minutes, in a standoff with cow eyes and bulls not willing to budge in our direction.

Our hunt ended high up on the mountain, still among the herd in a bugling frenzy that left my ears ringing for days. Hiking out in the dark our exhilarating excursion was over. It may not have produced a harvest but once again we all left wiser and more in tune with the elk. We were never in search of a trophy; any legal sized bull would do.

Regardless we all keep imagining the moment that dream we’ve all worked for comes to fruition. The times we came so close this season, I thought I’d have to pack Mike out of the woods from an adrenaline induced coma. These hunts stick with us, and the memories are treasured.

This archery season we learned when to “talk” to the elk and when to go quiet. We learned playing the wind is crucial. We came up with our very own hunting proverb, “You don’t see elk if you don’t go out, but you won’t see elk when you do!” What works one day may not work the next, where they traveled before, they may never return to. Just when you think you’ve got elk figured out, you’ll realize you don’t even have a clue. We discovered that in archery hunting it’s a game of inches but the days are measured in miles.

We were reminded to be grateful, even on the days when we don’t hear or see a thing, and when the weather is terrible, or when someone takes “your” spot.

Just being out in this beautiful country is a gift, our public lands are treasures, and elk are a majestic elusive species. I hope the three of us never forget that spark we had in our first archery hunting days when just finding warm elk poop made us happy.

I pray we never lose the thrill of hearing an elk bugle, or smelling their musky scent mixed with pines trees. Archery hunting for elk is truly addicting, it’s amazing what these creatures will push you to do.

For now, we keep the dream alive and wait for next September.