Long post here, but please stay with me if you can. I need to share this with some friends who understand.
Last night, my buddy David and I called in a raghorn elk. It was a textbook call-in, after a multi-mile, multi-thousand-foot hike to get the wind in our favor, at the end of a truly epic day. The area we were hunting is a patchwork of BLM and private land, and absolutely full of elk. In the evening, we saw a couple bulls and worked in to a spot we could legally shoot, setting ourselves up on a little rim on the edge of some thick timber, with a long, extremely steep, wide-open mountainside stretching above us. My teenage daughter, suffering from bad blisters on her feet, was sitting a couple hundred yards up the mountain watching the whole thing. She wasn't hunting or carrying a bow, just along for the experience.
For once, the elk did what they were supposed to. We heard branches popping for several minutes as we softly cow-called; I saw the antler tips appear through some dog hair aspens, thought he was going behind me toward my partner, but then he suddenly turned and popped out exactly where I needed him to, about 25 yards away, a range I'm very comfortable with. He was facing me, trying to figure out what I was but not particularly alarmed. After a few seconds he turned broadside. I zeroed in on the sweet pocket behind the shoulder and sent my arrow.
Then disaster happened. The bull decided to be a whitetail and spun around while the arrow was in the air. I saw him disappear into the aspens with the arrow stuck in his rump. I felt sick. Two bulls popped out onto the wide-open hill; we weren't sure if either of them were "mine," since there were several small bulls in the immediate area. One of them trotted way up high, coming within a few feet of my daughter. Watching them through binoculars, we could see the arrow in his butt. He and a few buddies ran around on the mountainside for a good half hour or so; none of them seemed to have any idea what had happened.
The arrow was very high on the elk's rump, pointing straight back. We watched him for a long time, trying to figure a way to get close enough for a finishing shot. I told my buddy, a compound shooter, to pop him if he got the chance. But there was no chance--that slope didn't have enough cover to hide a prairie dog, and any move on our part would have spooked them further.
The elk was annoyed by the arrow, occasionally reaching his head back like he wanted to pull it out, but there was no blood on the arrow or on his rump patch. None at all. He didn't show any sign of weakness or wobbliness; he wasn't even limping. All of that led us to the conclusion that the arrow was sitting just under the skin. It had penetrated a good ten inches or so, but it it was barely in the muscle if at all. There wasn't any blood and the elk didn't seem distressed; in fact by the time he got to where I could try to pull a sneak on him, he had started grazing again.
By this time it was getting dark. "My" elk was grazing on the edge of a little draw with some tall sagebrush where I thought I could have a go at it. I blitzed up to the top of the mountain while my buddy and daughter stayed a little lower to keep an eye on him. But by the time I got to the top, traversed a couple hundred yards over, and snuck down the draw, he had wandered off and it was too dark to find him again. Several other bulls were hanging out on the same mountainside, and I'm sure we thoroughly educated them, but other than barking at us some they didn't seem particularly concerned with the whole thing. This area we were in is a fairly popular place for weekend campers to ride their side-by-sides, so I guess the elk aren't too bothered by seeing humans walking around.
It was pitch dark by the time we got back to camp a couple miles and several mountains away. I was physically and emotionally wrecked and my daughter's feet were bleeding. She's an extremely tough kid and she had shown some real courage getting through the day with no complaints and a smile on her face. But I just couldn't ask her to do any more.
The three of us talked it over and decided to get her home. I'm really second-guessing that decision now. I think I should have found a way to stay up there and find that elk and finish him off. That's what I wanted to do. But my daughter didn't think her feet had another tough day in them, and she's the kind of kid who wouldn't say that if it weren't true. I didn't want to leave her alone in camp, with people from the campgrounds in the area riding their side-by-sides through every few hours; I'd have been worried sick about her. It was after midnight by the time I got her home; David and I were far too exhausted to safely make the hour-long drive and two hour hike back to the area, especially since it's hot and the elk are bedded down by about 7:30 a.m.
And that elk wasn't in the least slowed down by that arrow; he wasn't just going to bed down somewhere and bleed to death. we strongly doubted we would have any chances of finding him, calling him in, or correctly identifying him even if we did manage to get close. David and I both agreed that it wasn't a lethal shot, just a superficial wound, and the elk was almost certainly going to be just fine once the arrow worked itself out. So at the time, taking all of that into consideration, prioritizing my kid and coming home seemed like the only right decision. Now? I don't know. Sitting here at home, I can think of some ways I maybe could have stayed up there and kept trying, but at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
I'm thinking about hanging up my bow, guys. Watching that bull run around that mountainside with my arrow in his butt, it took all my self-control not to smash my bow on a rock. I think the only thing that kept me from it was the desperate hope that I might somehow get another shot at him.
I made a good shot; I'm not blaming myself for that. David saw the whole thing from just a few yards away and he said the same thing: My arrow went right where it should have; I had no control over the elk switching ends and no way to know that's what he was going to do.
But I've been chasing elk with trad archery gear for over 20 years, and have yet to be successful. Shot opportunities are few and far between, and for various reasons this might be my last year to try. All the years, all the hours of making my own gear and practicing, practicing, practicing, trying to work things out with Mrs. Badger (who is less-than-supportive of my hunting habit), honing my arrows, getting myself in shape, scouting to find an area with really good chances, studying maps to plan an approach, hiking for hours to get into position, putting my daughter through all that pain...it all comes down to the moment of release, and my arrow went in an elk's butt, and it got away. It makes a person question their life choices. How many years will I wait for another opportunity like that? The last shot opportunity I had was around five or six years ago. I don't think I have that many years left of hunting elk.
But it isn't just the years and hours and stupidly lost opportunity. I really love elk. Not just hunting them. I love seeing them, watching them, talking to them, reading about them. They are admirable, courageous, magnificent creatures. I've killed a few (with a rifle) and I'm fine with that. But seeing that arrow in one, and knowing I did that to him, and he was suffering because of something I did, and there ain't a thing I can do to make it right. That's heart-breaking.
And of course there's the second-guessing. I can't shake the feeling that I should have stayed out there somehow and found him, even though logic says I did the right thing coming home and taking care of my kid, and there's no way I could have driven back up early enough to do any good without killing myself or someone else, and the wound was superficial, and the elk is almost certainly going to be OK. But he's still out there, and that's my arrow in him, and I'm sitting at home.
I'm gutted, guys. It's going to be two weeks before I can get back out and hunt again. I badly want to get out there and try again...and I just as badly want to chop of my bows for firewood and quit kidding myself.
If you're still with me, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Need to share this with somebody who might understand. I feel awful.
