LAST EDITED ON Sep-18-08 AT 01:34PM (MST)[p]I'm a big believer in the small Mom and Pop businesses that have been and always will be, the backbone of American drive. I make it a point to patronize these places on any roadtrip, and did so with the several at Fish Lake. Bowery Haven was one, and over the summer I found that the owners and I have mutual acquaintances. Thus, Jeff Bates kept himself aware of the ongoing Predator chronicles, and I always stopped by to see what he'd seen/heard while I was gone. Jeff this time told me to come back after closing, that he wanted to show me a couple places.
On the way to camp, there were trucks parked everywhere. Either the elk were showing up finally, or the rifle hunters were already arrived. I hoped not the latter, as I've found in the past that the next hunters tend to forget that there are still others trying to chase the same dream as they.
It was cold and miserable, let me tell ya. The temp had dropped and the wind....oh my,the wind was like a frozen knife. And it was freakin' bassackwards of what it had been all season!! That meant that everything I'd learned, everything I'd planned, was now messed up.
I consoled myself by fishing. HEY ALPINE, CHECK OUT THIS PIG, BUDDY BOY!
I was happy again. LOL I met with Jeff that night and he took me on, let's see how do I explain this-a darn brisk walk!! Now listen, Jeff is like 6-4, and I'm not even close to that, and holy cow can he walk. So if you can picture a giant walking slowly with a Shrimp running behind, well that's about what we looked like. We went to a meadow and sat down. Man, there were elk coming out of the woodwork!! Every opening we glassed had elk in it. Despite the threatening storm, we got a good show when we saw a raghorn 5 and a spike come off the opposite hill. Jeff got a chuckle when I muttered 'wish that was a 6, and wish I was that tree he just walked by'. They were so cautious coming down the hill, then like a switch turned the caution to the wind in the meadow.
That raghorn 5 took off in a bucking show that belongs on the NFR, let me tell ya. He was running circles around the spike bucking and rearing and making all kinds of elk sounds. That spike just stood there looking at him with a look of wonder (try to picture that fellas, they can look confused, I promise) as if to say "Dude, WTF is your problem???". Nothing else came out, so went hit the trail in the dark.
OMIGOSH, DID YOU HEAR THAT BUGLE??!!! It made my hair stand on end- a growly scream that sounded like it came from the bowels of the earth. He was so close that we could tell which was he was turning as he screamed. I could see in my mind his head lowered with the growl and extending forward with the scream and he bellowed side to side. He was less than 200 yards from the trailhead and making it positive that he was the MAN.
And I now knew exactly where he was going to come out tomorrow.
That night was colder than cold. But man oh man, you should have heard the elk chorus I had going on. 3 bulls across from camp, 2 behind. The one bull sounded awesome, throaty growl, long scream and a series of chuckles. It made me shiver every time. So I sat around the fire and pictured what was going on in the dark. The area was surrounded by rock, so each bugle just kept echoing right into the next. It was magical!
Didn't sleep much, those bulls were at it all night long. They shut off right as the dawn broke. When the alarm sounded, I opened my bag and HOLY HELL IS IT COLD!!! Now I have a quality bag, so I was toasty all night. But you try to de-scent yourself when it's below 32 degrees, it brings a whole new definition to rock t........um, nevermind.
Just trust me when I say it was a mite uncomfortable. Not to mention putting on cold camo and frozen facepaint.
Went over to a wallow and froze my butt off. It didn't smell like they were hitting it yet, but there were tracks. Enjoyed watching a doe who was very intent on food that morning. Noticed that somehow I'd missed the change from red to gray in the past week.
The wind and rain were just not fun, but I traipsed around cow calling. They might be bugling, but interested they were not. I thought about hitting some bedding areas, but decided to save that as a last minute desperate move. I later found out from Rick that a local LE hunter smacked a 370 bull off that wallow that eve-GO FIGURE.
I went back to the meadow in the eve, and the wind was just playing heck, it was one way, then another and it was raining. I jammed myself into a copse of pines 45 yards from where the raghorn crossed and crushed sage all over myself. I hoped it would work. My feet were cold, my hands were numb and my nose had serious booger problems. (see, I don't spare any details of a tale!). I was still sick and it was hard as all get out trying to stifle coughing up a lung. I was just about to give up when a bugle pealed off the hillside above. I watched as cow after cow appeared and began feeding; it was clear that this bull was either big or lucky because I quit counting at 10. Then he appeared on the ridgeline and skylined himself. He cut out the most awesome, classic bugle you have ever heard.
I was suddenly warm again. I waited patiently, but as the light began to wane and another storm threatened, I realized that the cows were not feeding toward me at all. I must go to them and began a stalk up the hill. It was steeper and noisier than I anticipated. I lost the light before I got close enough, but did decide that bull could probably taste pretty good.
I backed out and went back to a much needed fire and warm bag. Golden's son Craig came over to camp when his girl locked him out of the trailer (it was an accident). We listened to those bulls going at it and shared some stories. He told me that his uncle did not yet shoot a bull, but thanked me for the willow tip, they were going to hit that again sometime during the week.
The following morning I snuck out of the bag and got right behind one of those buglers, who led me up through some of the nastiest crap I've hiked save in pursuit of a mountain goat. He led me up into the clouds. I ran away when the lightning started, as with my luck, the odds were good of me getting at least some bum hairs singed. It was freakin' miserably wet and cold that day. I put 12 miles on my dogs and didn't see much at all. The wind was really pissing me off, I didn't know what to do with my spots now that it was blowing the opposite way. I was a little frustrated, but remembered what Taylor, Gordy, Chad and Rick kept telling me was true, that it can only get better as the week went on.
That night I returned to the meadow with a plan. I needed to be in place earlier and a lot closer to get that bull. The wind was still blowing opposite, so I had to hike to the end of the meadow just to come all the way back with favorable air current. Now the other evening while Jeff and I attended the bullfest, Jeff looks a mile or so down meadow and proclaims that he sees a shed. Mind you, we are at 9500 feet, so I call BS. There was like 5 feet of snow on the ground in March at 9500 feet this year, no elk in his right mind would be there. Jeff tells me where to look, and I see a tiny white spot. "That's a shed", he insists. I still think he's full of crap and tell him so. He insists it is a shed and firmly believes some bulls never leave the plateau.
So I'm now at the other end of the meadow and looking up at the huge rock outcropping above which is his 'shed'. I look at my watch, I've got time, what the heck, it's just more hiking, right? So I head up that godforsaken piece of crap, and it sucks. I nearly turn around a couple times, but now I have decided to go up there and take a photo of the 'shed' to prove Jeff wrong. By the time I fight my way through the rockslides and brush, I'm thinking to myself that it better be a damn shed, or I'm gonna have a coniption.
Guess what it was?
No kidding. Jeff, you have my sincerest apologies. You are the King of Shed.
Now this is where it got a little wierd. I bend over to pick up that shed, and I am not lying here. As my hand wrapped around it, the wind shifted, elk smell smacked me in the face and a bugle goes off less than 100 yards above me followed by cow chirps. I about died. So I chirp back and use that shed to rake the brush.
I scared him right off the ridge. IDIOT!! When I try to follow, I realize that carrying a shed as big as I am with a bow and a pack on a steep slope ain't all that smart. So I decide that the bugle I heard was not anywhere near the same sounding, and it was probably that raghorn. I go back to my original plan and decide to cache the shed in the meadow to pick up after dark, so I head downhill, not in any particular direction, just straight downhill.
Within 200 yards I ran into the other shed. Can you believe this??? Well, I guess I have a bull in a way.
Omigosh, did I have a time getting off that hill intact with both shed, my bow and my pack. They weighed a ton, or at least felt like it. I was trying so hard to be quiet, but they knocked together all the time, and it sounded so LOUD.
I cache the shed and work my way up to a ledge from which I should have a 30 yard uphill shot to where the elk came out the night before. It was cold, but at least not raining. Every once in a while I heard a cough, one of the cow calves must be sick, I thought. Well, dark fell and there was not a sound save that coughing calf. I could not figure out what had happened, unless someone had hunted in the morning and boogered the bull out. I found that hard to believe, the backside of that ridge is hell, he had all he needs right here unless someone pushed him very hard, he should still be right here.
So I pick up my shed and go back to the truck just in time to see someone getting into a rig the next parking spot down. I heard a cough. That's right, some NIMWIT had come in behind me and sat UPWIND coughing. No wonder nothing came out. Oooooh, I was pissed. Seriously pissed. I had hiked my butt off for nothing.
Oh wait, that wasn't quite true!
When I got to looking at them, I realized that the bull I had been chasing was more than likely the same bull that shed these horns. The configuration was exactly the same. That gave me some food for thought.
Went back to camp and noted that the 'chuckler' had moved uphill or that another bull had come in. They were again still going at it by dawn, so I again put the granola bar in the pocket and took off. The wind was still bassackwards, but it looked like it might be an OK day. I trailed that bull for hours, for miles. He answered back to a small bugle, but wouldn't leave his cows. I was right behind him and had a couple close calls, but when I reached this kindof terrain, his four legs were more sure than mine!
When he hit the top and literally disappeared in this crap, I decided that I didn't care if he was 400 class, packing a bull out of this was suicide!!
So I turned around. I clearly was fairly close to where AlpineBowhunter turned around. My camp is at the edge of the treeline below....
Look what gave me the evil eye, what do they eat up here??
That afternoon I needed to get water, so I grabbed my stuff and hit the spigot. While the water flowed, so did my mind, and I was debating whether to try for the Shedbull one more time when I realized that there were elk on the hillside opposite. HOLY MOLY, THAT'S A BULL!! I grabbed my stuff and off I went.
The wind was quatering from left to right and slightly uphill. So I came in right to left from below. The bull was bugling, so I could keep tabs on where he was. I found myself 55 yards below him. Oh yeah, he was a solid 350 class 6. His vitals were covered by brush. I was standing in a boulder field (yeah I know, gets old huh) and looked down to see where I could move my feet to and open up a shooting lane. I started to move left and.....
BARK!!! Never saw that cow. She was less than 5 yards, and had come into my lost cow calls. She had her head back, looking down at that long nose at me with the whites of her eyes showing. She was stamping her feet and for a minute I thought she was thinking about stomping my guts out. BARK BARK!!
Poof. I was left standing on the rocks with the dust settling around my shoulders and nothing to show for it but fading elk musk. *sigh*. Hey, that was AWESOME!! I got barked at! Cool!
Rick was coming up the next day, I was looking forward to hearing how CAElknuts was doing. That night, it was eerily quiet. Very little bugling at all. I sat a wallow until noon, but not a thing appeared to be moving. Even the cows had left, and the silence was spooky. I passed the time curled up with my book and thought about what to do that evening.
Just before good hunting hours the wind FINALLY shifted back to normal. That's it, I'm going back to Willow Meadow. I ran into Golden's brother and his son Mark, and they were headed the same way. We decided he would hunt the lower wallows and I would hunt the upper. As I settled in, it was so quiet. I was not used to not hearing the cows, or some bugs or some birds. Wow. Silence. I suddenly realized that the leaves up high were changing. The aspen were turning to gold. The sage was blooming, and the brush was on fire with the red harbinger of fall.
It made me sad, as I knew it also meant this adventure was soon to end. I hoped it ended well, and eagerly awaiting my bulls. I knew something was wrong when at a particular time they should have bugled, nothing but silence remained. I waiting until I could no longer see my pins. They were gone. Who knows where, but the Willow Wallow was done for the year. Bummer.
I went back to the truck and found a note from Rick inviting me to dinner. YEAH!!! WARM TRAILER AND REAL FOOD, WOOOOO!! Oh it felt so good. Rick's son was in with some clients he was guiding ,and we whooped it up pretty good. But I was fried, I had put nearly 40 miles in this week, and begged off to bed. I drove back toward camp, my mind again wandering with the bend of the pavement.
HOLY MOTHER OF !!! LOOKIT THAT BULL!!! I was slamming on my brakes and he lazily walked out onto the road. He was every bit of 380, a positive brute. I had to pick my jaw up off my lap and wipe the slobber off my steering wheel to keep going. Oh, that's it, that's it. I'm hunting him the last day!!
