Deploying Tactics - Archery Elk 2022
Deploying Tactics - Archery Elk 2022
Bear Spray, Blinds, Moon Phases, and Calling
Six days. Six days is what I had this year to try and seal the deal on my third year of going after archery elk in September. As a DIY hunt, this one would be different and saw my hunting buddy and I employing tactics we had picked up in years prior working with top-notch outfitters, and would include:
Quickly changing locations and topography until we found elk.
Leveraging OnX maps for e-scouting and boundary marking.
Bear defense.
Our own calling with reeds and bugle tubes.
Praying.
Lots of miles both on foot and behind the wheel.
More praying.
The Location
Our tags were for the Island Park region in the Eastern part of the state that butts up against Wyoming and Montana. In fact, our meetup point was just a short thirty minute drive to old-faithful and you could tell the town of Island Park was built around seasonal tourism to Yellowstone Park. However, we were not going to be going to the park, instead we were focused on navigating the grizzly bear-riddled woods near the Madison Range following along the Continental Divide.
Knowing that we had several areas to check out, we arbitrarily picked a location off our list for our first evening and set out to find a wallow we had previously scouted. This area had been overrun by high-mountain open-range cattle and for a few hours we sat amongst vocal bovine until we realized that we would likely not be getting any elk encounters that night. After a quick walkabout we found what looked like a bobcat den with feathers-galore spread about in a macabre an ominous way and made our way out of the woods and back to our trucks.
With no luck on night one, we picked out another area on our map and went to set up camp nearby so we could hit it at first light in the morning. Similarly, though, the morning was a bust with no signs of elk and none returning our pleading calls into the dank darkness of the pines
It wasn’t until day three and our third location that we finally heard the sweet sweet call of an elk bugling back at us and we knew the chase was on. For the rest of the hunt, we spent our time in this area working a herd that we could hear in the dense vegetation, but never actually got eyes on. Miles were put on our boots and we tried every trick in our small playbook, which included sitting in blinds over an active wallow for hours on end, cutting off the heard, and stalking known bedding areas at mid day.
The Problem(s)
All of our efforts during the week were being hampered by two key events. Warm weather and a full moon. The former, warm weather, was something we had known was coming. It has been exceedingly hot here in Idaho for the past two months and the break in the heat wave was not looking like it would relent before our hunt. We knew this would mean that the elk would be moving less and seeking shelter from the burning rays during the day giving us a smaller window in which to hunt.
To exacerbate the heat, we were also hunting during the full moon. Aside from the added threat of wear-wolves, this was presenting a very real problem where with the added light at night, the elk were rutting during the “safe” night-time hours. I thought this would truly be hogwash, but one of the first nights of our hunt we spent the afternoon hunting the periphery of H****man State Park and didn’t see or hear a single elk… Until later that night. Right as rain, once the bright light of the moon hit, we heard an elk rip a bugle at about 10:30 pm, and they kept it up all night. They gave a small window of chase opportunity at first light around 6:45 am, but it didn’t last long before they all worked their way back into the safety of the park and quieted down after a long and eventful night for them.
‘Frag Out’
Throwing out the weather and astrological problems, we also had a rough start in general. Our first morning we were excited and in my truck heading to a trail head at about 4:30 am. My partner in crime was in the passenger seat and working to get his boots on when we heard a sound that neither of our pre-coffee brains were able to register.
“Pssssssssssssssssshhhht”
Curious as to what the noise was, I turned to my buddy who had a shocked look on his face and just yelled, “BEAR SPRAY!”
Those words aren’t something you generally want to hear anywhere, but especially when you are cruising in a closed cab at 40 mph at 4:30 am. About the time he uttered those words my brain connected the dots and my throat began to close quicker than expected. I pulled over, struggled with my seat belt, and eventually rolled out of the cab to breath some of the relieving cold morning air and figure out what the heck happened.
Laughing, we both couldn’t believe that we had unintentionally bear sprayed ourselves— with my buddies pants and leg taking the full blast. It turns out that the bear spray canister my partner had grabbed was missing the safety latch, and when he went to put on his boot, his heel struck the trigger of the can that was in his bino pack — yeehaw!
Fully awake, we tried our best to air out the truck and then proceeded to the trail head a few miles away with our heads hanging out of the windows like some goofy cartoon characters. The only thing we could think from a positive perspective was that we were pre-sprayed with bear deterrent, which may keep any grizzly’s from attacking us without the need to even discharge our spray!
Near Misses
Despite the weather, mishaps, and other challenges we were on two different occasions able to call in elk within bow range. One of the mornings, we awoke from camp and got ready, only for me to let out a bugle and hear four bulls calling back. The issue with this scenario was that three of the four bulls were on the Montana side of the continental divide (thanks, OnX), and only one was in Idaho where we could legally take him.
With some deft maneuvering, we were able to work our way around this group—with the wind never quite being in our favor—to try and work the Idaho bull. Blasting our way through thick vegetation and beautiful aspen patches, we got into a position where we thought we could call this beast in.
With a series of cow calls, we could hear the bull getting worked up and making his way in our direction. Once the raking of his antlers became louder, I positioned myself behind a pine tree and ranged the tree line that I was hoping he would emerge from. 50 yards. A long, but doable shot, for me to take.
As his presence was being felt and the breaking of limbs was getting louder, I nocked an arrow onto my bow and prepped for a relatively close encounter. Yet, as he neared the tree line, the same issue I have run into on every spot and stalk hunt I have ever done occurred— the wind shifted. Then, with the snap of a finger, the bull caught our scent and disappeared as if he had never been there. Tough break.
Solo Trek
After the first five days of hunting together, my buddy and I both had some business to attend to back west and packed up our gear to go home. My job was to get back to full-time daddying and round out my paternity leave with a list of chores longer than you could ever imagine (mostly chopping wood for the impending winter at the cabin). As I pulled in to the driveway I felt relief to see my two babies and to help out my amazing wife who had spent the last 5 days taking care of a four week old infant and our toddler daughter — yet, after a nights rest, my amazing wife encouraged me to take another day or two to drive back out and see if I couldn’t have more luck with the cooling temperatures and waning moon.
After some mental wrestling and latent feelings of guilt, I took her up on her offer and re-packed my truck to head back out for another day and a half of hunting. Once back up into the high-country I was focused and determined to give it my all in that time frame. The one morning I had was amazing. Bugles were not too distant and I was able to lay chase to at least one bull who was willing to play the game. I chased him for a total of about 5 miles through steep terrain which taxed my body in a way that felt ‘worthy’ of the time I was now spending away from my family. However, in the same fashion of the bull my buddy and I called in a few days prior, this guy would not quite commit and never presented me with a shot.
Later that evening the wind turned on, gusting at more than 30mph for hours on end, shutting down any effective hunting. So, I went and sat a wallow for a few hours, turned up a few grouse, and bumped into a moose that scared the crap out of me. After the moose and with the wind still ripping I sat to glass up a nearby hillside only to quickly locate a very large Grizzly bear poking around in the area I had hunted just a few hours prior. With that sign, I decided to call the hunt good and get back to my wife and kids and put the pin on a great few days of hard bow hunting.
The Outcome is not the Goal
Though I have now closed the chapter on my third year of ‘unsuccessful’ bow hunting for elk in the Rocky Mountains, I am not discouraged. This sport is hard and doing it yourself is even harder. Being able to replicate and leverage mouth calls to bring in huge beasts to within bow range will never get old, and Septembers will always be reserved for that experience. I can’t wait to evolve and eventually bring my entire family out to drop camps around the state and give them the joy of hearing the bone-rattling bugles of the coolest dang animals out there— elk.
