As Butch scrambled 20 yards behind me to give a
couple soft cow calls, both animals continued to close
the distance on our position in a small clump of trees. As
the cow came into bow range, she veered to my right,
with the big bull right behind her. As I went to range the
bull, all I could see was red in the viewfinder; I hadn’t
adjusted the brightness of the display for the low-light
conditions! In desperation, I guessed the yardage at 60,
drew my bowstring and released. I could have cried as I
watched my arrow sail right over the bull’s back!Back for More
As fellow bowhunters can understand, that miss was
a bitter pill I would swallow again and again through-
out the remainder of that fall and well into 2018. Not a
day passed that I didn’t replay that shot in mind, seeing
the arrow sail harmlessly high and watching the bull of
my dreams disappear into the dark timber. To say I was
eager for a second chance would have been the under-
statement of the year!
Thankfully, the Jensens were gracious enough to ex-
tend another invitation for me to hunt in 2018. Deter-
mined not to let the same mistake happen again, I abso-
lutely could not wait for September to arrive.
My plans were different for 2018: For starters, I would
be hunting on my own, without a guide, and my camera-
man, Tanner, couldn’t make it until the fourth day of my
hunt. Needing to capture the hunt for my TV program,
I was going to be limited to sitting treestands and self-
filming until Tanner showed up. To make matters worse,
even though this part of the country had been in drought
conditions all summer, a tremendous amount of rain hit
the area right before I left for New Mexico. There was lit-
erally water everywhere — not conducive for my plan!With heavy rains moving through the
area just prior to the hunt, elk activity
at the waterholes was minimal. In fact,
the author saw more bears than elk
while sitting in his waterhole stands.