brotherjack
09-01-2006, 10:48 AM
So, this morning The Wife (tm) and I got up, we thought, in plenty of time. We had a nice breakfast, and headed out. As we noted the light in the sky as we walked out the door, we realized we were late. I double checked the GPS's sunrise time, and it was wrong by an hour because it thought we were in a different timezone (GPS is brand new as of yesterday). Dang it, this thing knows exactly where it is on planet earth, shouldn't it know what timezone it's in? Oh well, honestly, tis' our own fault for not looking up sunrise with a known reliable source (we'd have to look up what time the sun rises, as we're not normally crack of dawn kind of people). Dang it. Nothing to do now but keep going.
The spot we were heading to is a unassuming stand of trees, just off the forestry road in the middle of a clearing. You'd probably never know it was a great place to hunt elk unless you spent a day or two glassing it from across the deep draw like The Wife (tm) did last year, and saw how the elk gravitate to the stand of trees when crossing the clearing like they do most mornings about an hour or two after daylight. As we were pulling up to the nice stand of trees where we intended to wait for our elk to show up at, we saw our elk were already there, about an hour earlier than we've ever seen them in this spot. Double dang it.
We just kept on driving the 500 yards or so to the end of the road (well, overused skid trail may be would be a more adequate description). As we passed by, the elk spooked a bit up into the stand of trees we had intended to hunt, but appeared to let us pass on by without heading for the far mountains. Now out of site of the elk, we bailed out of the car as quietly as we could. We left all our stuff except for the calls and the crossbow and tiptoed into the forest at the edge of the clearing. We had a real good chance, we thought, that the elk would keep on coming our way.
5 minutes later, I get one of those bathroom emergency situations we all hate to have in the bush. What terrible timing! At least I had toilet paper on me (don't go in the bush without it!). A few minutes later, my business finished, I stood up to buckle my belt and such, and I spied two elk a good ways away, out in the clearing making their way slowly towards a point in the forest about 200 yards away from me. What luck - they weren't heading for the now smelly part of the woods, and I had spied them before they spied me!
I ducked back into the bush deep enough that they wouldn't see me moving, and scampered over to about where I expected them to hit the bush. There was well traveled elk trail there, so I setup about 25 yards off of it on the downwind side, with a nice little shooting lane, and waited.
20 minutes later, I suddenly hear a rather loud 'crunch crunch', and an elk mew. Unfortunately, the sound came from directly behind me. They must have changed directions in the clearing, and were now sliding through the forest edge from entirely the wrong direction (at least wrong from my perspective). I was never going to get a shot facing the way I was facing, and I knew the closer they got the more likely they'd see me move. I was never going to get a better chance to turn around, so I went for it. I'd no sooner moved my head and upper body about an inch into my slow motion turn when the "crash crash crash" of spooked elk echoed through the bush. As my head came slowly around, I saw their rumps scattering into the forest at high velocity.
Ah, what a glorious way to start a hunting season. Not as glorious as if we'd tagged an elk, but a thousand times better than the days I've spent in years past elk hunting where I didn't see nothing but squirrels!
So, a bit of rest this afternoon, and off after whitetails this evening. And tomorrow will be a new day.
:)
The spot we were heading to is a unassuming stand of trees, just off the forestry road in the middle of a clearing. You'd probably never know it was a great place to hunt elk unless you spent a day or two glassing it from across the deep draw like The Wife (tm) did last year, and saw how the elk gravitate to the stand of trees when crossing the clearing like they do most mornings about an hour or two after daylight. As we were pulling up to the nice stand of trees where we intended to wait for our elk to show up at, we saw our elk were already there, about an hour earlier than we've ever seen them in this spot. Double dang it.
We just kept on driving the 500 yards or so to the end of the road (well, overused skid trail may be would be a more adequate description). As we passed by, the elk spooked a bit up into the stand of trees we had intended to hunt, but appeared to let us pass on by without heading for the far mountains. Now out of site of the elk, we bailed out of the car as quietly as we could. We left all our stuff except for the calls and the crossbow and tiptoed into the forest at the edge of the clearing. We had a real good chance, we thought, that the elk would keep on coming our way.
5 minutes later, I get one of those bathroom emergency situations we all hate to have in the bush. What terrible timing! At least I had toilet paper on me (don't go in the bush without it!). A few minutes later, my business finished, I stood up to buckle my belt and such, and I spied two elk a good ways away, out in the clearing making their way slowly towards a point in the forest about 200 yards away from me. What luck - they weren't heading for the now smelly part of the woods, and I had spied them before they spied me!
I ducked back into the bush deep enough that they wouldn't see me moving, and scampered over to about where I expected them to hit the bush. There was well traveled elk trail there, so I setup about 25 yards off of it on the downwind side, with a nice little shooting lane, and waited.
20 minutes later, I suddenly hear a rather loud 'crunch crunch', and an elk mew. Unfortunately, the sound came from directly behind me. They must have changed directions in the clearing, and were now sliding through the forest edge from entirely the wrong direction (at least wrong from my perspective). I was never going to get a shot facing the way I was facing, and I knew the closer they got the more likely they'd see me move. I was never going to get a better chance to turn around, so I went for it. I'd no sooner moved my head and upper body about an inch into my slow motion turn when the "crash crash crash" of spooked elk echoed through the bush. As my head came slowly around, I saw their rumps scattering into the forest at high velocity.
Ah, what a glorious way to start a hunting season. Not as glorious as if we'd tagged an elk, but a thousand times better than the days I've spent in years past elk hunting where I didn't see nothing but squirrels!
So, a bit of rest this afternoon, and off after whitetails this evening. And tomorrow will be a new day.
:)