52 PETERSEN’SBOWHUNTING 09 • 20 19
paced back and forth inside 60 yards, but he never gave
me a shot. There’s no way to accurately describe the in-
tensity of having a mature bull elk scream in your face
from 35 yards away and, after blowing your eardrums
out, stare a hole through you while snot drips from his
nose with nothing between you and him but the thin
mountain air.
I’m going to kill this monster! I thought. He was worked
up and in range, the wind was in my face and I felt like I
held all the cards. I just needed a good shot angle.
After the 35-yard standoff, he grew leery of not see-
ing his stick-breaking rival and turned to leave. I drew
my bow as he did, but he saw the movement and froze,
broadside, 40 yards away ... behind an eight-foot-tall
pine tree that was halfway between us. I had enough
room to slip my arrow by the tree and through a little
gap in the branches. Or so I thought.
The arrow was gone. A second later, I saw two pinky-
finger-thick branches fall to the ground and my arrow
sail over the bull’s back. Sometimes, when you try to
thread the needle, you miss the hole. I missed it and got
a complete pass-through on some branches instead.
I was dumbstruck, and the self-torture immediately
began again. How did I not kill that bull? How will I ever
get another opportunity like that? That was the biggest bull
I have ever gotten a shot at — ever — and I blew it! I can
fully appreciate why archery elk success is only around
10 percent; it isn’t easy, and opportunities like that one
are few and far between.
I tried to move on, but the evening was uneventful
other than my seeing a few far-off elk in the big meadow.
As the sun set, I headed back to camp, dejected.
Head Games
The alone factor is harsh when your morale is down.
When encouragement is needed, all you get is silence.
The mornings seem a little colder, the days a little lon-
ger and the nights a little darker. I relived what had
happened for the next two days. The mental beatdown
came in waves, and I was left shaking my head after
every one.
However, after the waves broke, I tried to remind my-
self how lucky I was to simply be there, to even be expe-
riencing any of it. That He has a greater plan for all of us.
That things happen for a reason. That self-pity is useless.
That life is good. That I needed to keep grinding.
I awoke an hour early the next morning and decided
to go back above camp and give the snot-dripping 6x6
another chance. I chased a few bugles around that morn-
ing but never saw an elk. I sat by a waterhole during the
late morning and early afternoon hours with no action,
then I headed back down to the big meadow to see one
bull at dark.
All I wanted to do at camp that night was get into
my sleeping bag. Too tired to eat but knowing I needed
to in order to keep going, I sat in silence with my dim
headlamp on, eyes half open, slowly choking down de-
hydrated food and trying to come up with a plan for the
next day. And reliving the chances I had been given and
blown. Alone.
Against All Odds
Day five, the halfway point of my hunt, arrived. Phys-
ically, I was fine; other than a little weight loss, I was
firing on all cylinders. My off-season workouts had pre-
pared me well.
Mentally, though, I needed a boost. The days had been
long, and elk activity had dropped off the last couple.
The mornings had been a bust, as the elk were bedded
long before sunrise, and the afternoons were warm. I
had only seen four elk prior to 7:15 p.m. since my arrival,
and the evening activity was short. I had yet to see my
camp in the daylight other than the day I was dropped
off, as I left before sunrise and got back after dark. There
were elk around, though; I just had to find them.
As I lay in my sleeping bag an hour before first light
the next morning, trying not to dose back off but not
wanting to confront the chilly air outside, my late fa-
ther’s voice echoed in my head. Just like he yelled at me
34 years ago when he coached my junior-high football
team, I clearly heard, Toughen up a little bit! It’s some-
thing I often hear when I need to dig a little deeper, and
it always works.
I was soon climbing a ridge east of camp. I planned to
spend the day on this long, timbered ridge, still-hunting,
calling and eventually working my way down to the big
meadow to hunt for the evening. All day, I would take a
few steps, stop, look, listen and then repeat.
Bowhunting for elk is far from a sure thing. For the best chance
of success, get deep into the backcountry via a pack train.
Home away from home: A modern tent camp allows you to
comfortably hunt longer and harder for elk while still getting
away from the “real world” for a while.
