Idaho Elk Hunt Day 5
We started the morning out together but soon split up. My goal was a series of benches at the tail of "Wallow Canyon". Steve was going to head most of the way up and then loop back througha saddle into an adjacent canyon. Jeremiah was going to go up top and spend most of the day out on his own.We got part ways up and saw the wallow from my last post. I split off and went up a small draw that ended in a saddle that was on the benches I was aiming for. I got up quite a ways and felt I was too high. I turned on the GPS and it said I was at about 9000 feet, about 500 feet higher than the saddle I was supposed to be in. No worries, I knew where I was going and this area looked great. Plus it was a nice view.
I hunted my way around until I hit pretty steep rock slide above the saddle. I could see where I wanted to be but had about 400 yards of this crap to get through first. It seemed fruitless but I went ahead and did it. About 100 yards to my goal, I hear a rustle in a nearby spruce and find it to be a grouse.
Hmmm, this could be interesting. I'm 25 yards out and know that if I shoot, the arrow is going to end up somewhare down in the creek. I decide if I'm losing an arrow, I'm getting the grouse so I move in for a sure thing. It sounds easy to move 10 yards but the angle of the slope and the slippery shale made it a bit of a challenge. I got close enough but couldn't find the dang bird again. Finally, I get the binocs out and find him tucked in some branches. I need to move 2 more feet and then I feel like it's a slam dunk. Of course the next step results in a flushed bird and no shot.
I finally get down to my destination and find almost no fresh sign. Jeremiah tells us this is a sure thing spot most of the time but as we find throughout the week, all the stuff down low seemed to have been presured pretty hard earlier in the season. I did find another nice wallow.
Like every wallow we have seen so far, there was no indication of use within the last 2 or mroe days. They looked great, they jsut weren't getting hit anymore.
I headed down for lunch and pow wow with Steve. He decides to head up stream a bit and hit one of the side canyons. I am going to try in the very head of the valley at about 8500 feet. We spilt off along the way and as soon as we do, I bump 2 muley does at 35 yards. They stop at 40 and dare me to shoot. I don't have a tag and that's too far for me even if I did but it's clear they aren't worried about me having a rifle. A little farther on, I bump 3 more.
As I get up into the canyon a ways, I find the going fairly treacherous., The creek gets very narrow and I am forced higher and higher on a muddy, shale slope. Slipping would mean a 50 foot fall intot he crrek below this little waterfall. I decide to be extra careful.
But the journey is worth it as I am rewarded by a series of meadows and marshy areas above the waterfall. And at the junction of 2 streams, I find this.
Now these look like something ight have been in them recently. And it smells like elk around here. I decide it's time to get a bt mroe aggressive. My history with calling elk is not good. Every time I have tried it, it has had the opposite effect desired. But they aren't bugling on their own so I figure I have nothing to lose. I get out my cow call and give it some lusty mews. I immediately get a bugle in retur. And it's close. And HOT! I'm flabbergasted. I get set up near a small meadow. The wind is good and I can just picture the bull coming into the setup perfectly. But after a couple minutes and some serious glunking, the bull seems to be in the same place. I wait a few more minutes and call some more which is immediately answered right back but from a little farther downstream. I move closer and go again, again answered quickly. But it is clear he is moving away. I try to sprint where I figure he is going and call again only to be answered from 50 yards farther down the valley. I finally figure he is with some cows who are either moving away to feed or away from this saucy competition. I think I know they are going up to some high meadows so I try a couple more times to get in front of them, each time they are even further than I think. I'm keeping up but just barely. I end up running out of room and there is no way to get in front of them. But, I played with them for about 40 minutes and had a blast. At least I got to talk to one.
In the meantime, it had started to rain and I figured it was time to head back to camp anyway. There was no way I wanted to try that mud slope in the dark, in the rain. About halfway through it, I find this cool muley shed.
I get back to camp at dark and find Jeremiah already there. He'd had a fun day but no really close encounters. He did track a couple bulls to their beds and ended up bumping them. They were both up high. Steve follwoed me int camp soon thereafter and had seen a 5 point bull but only got with 50 yards or so before getting busted. As we said our goodnights, the rain changed to snow. In the middle of the night, the wet clumps started bombing my tent and tarp. In my half daze, I thought something was in camp attacking us. Here's what we awoke to. Heavy snow and squashed tents and tarps. We all survived relatively nscathed but it sure was an unwelcome sight.
Here are a few of Steve's pics from the next day.
Steve headed up high in the morning. I slept in. He found these bear tracks. Momma and baby bear.
They went thatta way:
Steve did not follow but did end up recrossing their steps a little later in the day.
Here are a couple pictures that had a surprising effect on me when Steve sent them my way. You see, if you've ever hunted the Flattops in CO or in some areas of just about any mountain state, you will inevetibly find some blowdowns. I never took any pictures of them because I am trying hard to suppress all memory. But Steve just won't let me forget. I'm making up a bumper sticker "I HATE BLOWDOWNS". Jeremiah and I had a great time with them later in the this same day. More on that later.
Another fearsome foe of mine in the mountains are the dang squirrels. Steve tells me they are "protected". I disagree since I saw no force field around them. He still said I couldn't kill them. Some law or some such. For a squirrel hunter they were torture. Thankfully, they aren't much bigger than our chipmonks so killing them seems silly. But I swear, there was one of these dang things on every tree. And they are loud and stupid and just sit there like this one, begging to be kilt.
Steve killed our first game this day. A grouse. We ate it over the fire that night.
And some of his storytellin'
Ok, John's been doing such a good job with the story that I haven't felt the need to chip in yet. I'm not much of a talker anyway. I do need to add a bit more about that grouse though.
I've often heard these grouse refered to as "fool hens" and many a time the've earned that appellation by jumping up on a log ten feet away and practically screaming "shoot me!". Not so with the ones we found here. They were flushing from upwards of 40 yards away and instead of landing in the tree above them, they would often take off across canyon!
After about the first ten or so that I saw acted so skittish, I started to get a bit fixated on them and developed somewhat of a vendetta. Anyway, on this day I was way up at the top of the mountains on a rather large, flat bench. As I came around a large downed tree, this grouse flushed from almost under my feet and flew up into a tree only 10 yards away. After almost having to clean my shorts, I realized that I had a good chance at a shot. I pulled one of my judo tipped arrows from the quiver, drew back and let fly. A hit! Problem was the arrow stayed in the bird and the grouse was still alive, but hung up in the tree. So I shed my pack and gear and started up the tree to retrieve my prize. In so doing though, I managed to move some branches, freeing up the bird, which immediately hit the ground and started running!
No way was I losing this thing and so I hit the ground right behind it and away we went across the bench! We were in a race, weaving in and out of trees and downed logs, and then it turned into a contest of ring-around-the- rosie with a couple small saplings in the middle. Around and around we went and if I turned to go the other way, the grouse would turn just as quick and we'd reverse our patten. Finally, I pulled my wool jacket off and as I cut the corner on the next round, I was able to throw the jacket over the grouse and then pounce on it. A quick wringing of the neck and I had finally gotten my first grouse.
It's funny, the whole time this was going on, I was thinking about Rusty and how he described similar experiences on his Idaho hunt. It sure would have been something to see on video.
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