My brother and I both drew Fish Lake LE elk archery tags this year. Unfortunately, after a lot of hunting neither of us were able to connect with a big bull. We had a few chances and ran across some great bulls, but it just never panned out for us. However, the last night we were there my brother connected on this great buck. He had just ran into a small herd of elk and after he wasn't able to get within range he started hiking off the mountain to meet up with me in my spot. As he was strolling down the trail there were 3 does that caught his eye. As he tried to get a better look at what else was with them this buck showed up. My brother was able to circle around the ravine that the buck was down in and get to a vantage point about 50 yards uphill of the buck. When he got up there he noticed that the does had made their way out the top and the buck was still down in the bottom. He was able to get a 50 yard shot on the buck and hit him good. The buck went about 150-180 yards before piling up. My brother watched the buck run off and then walk through the trees before stopping for quite awhile before walking over the hill. He recovered the buck about 30 yards passed where my brother last saw him. Here's the crazy thing. While my brother was gutting the buck he noticed that the arrow never pierced the body cavity. The arrow had gone in right above the shoulder and had exited in the armpit area without ever entering the body cavity. My brother said there was tons of blood and he never had a problem following the bucks route and the deer was a bloody mess when he recovered him. He must have hit an artery or something that runs through that area. Unfortunately we weren't able to get any pictures of the buck in the field because it was dark when my brother recovered him, but we were able to take these pictures when we got back to camp. Another cool thing about it though is that he was able to get it all on video. He has a motorcycle helmet cam that he strapped onto his head light strap and he was able to turn that on and get it all on video. Pretty cool way of getting your hunt on video while you're all alone! The buck measures at 23" wide and is my brothers best buck to date. I had to keep reminding my brother that this was his redemption after he had missed 2 very nice bulls during the previous couple of days! Although he's very happy with this buck, we really wish we would have been able to tag one of those bulls also. Oh well, I guess that's what hunting is all about! We were able to spend 2 weeks in the hills with our Father and 3 of us brothers and although we weren't able to use our LE tags we were able to make some good memories.
