I had the opportunity to draw an elk tag in Colorado this year and had some success so I wanted to share a short video and a couple of pixs of my success. After 3 days of hard hunting, I found a good game trail that led to water. The bulls weren't talking much so I thought my best chance would be to wait for them to come to water. This particular trail had lots of fresh elk sign so I decided to make a ground blind. It was a perfect set up. I set up at about 4pm. Not a lot happened until about 5:30 when a nice sized black bear passed at 25 yards. The bear ended up smelling us and ran up the game trail we were waiting on. At 6:30, I saw an elk about 350 yards up on the hill in a small clearing and could see that he was a legal bull. I thought he might use the trail we were on so we set up and waited. After an hour of waiting, I told my brother that we would wait 15 more minutes. I could hardly control myself from shaking...partly nerves and partly the cold canyon we were sitting in. Just as we were about to leave...7:45, the bull came out of the trees. Check out the link to see how things transpired.
http://www.monstermuleys.net/videoclips/5x5elk.asf
I thought I had made a pretty good shot on the bull although he was still slightly quartering to me. I really think he had winded me and I was afraid he was going to bust. After the shot, I went and found my arrow with blood all over it. However, I was a little worried because I saw some green on the fletches as well.
My brother and I decided to leave and hike back to camp which was a little over 2 miles away. After eating dinner we hiked back in and started our search. We only found 2 drops of blood and searched for about 30 minutes without finding anything. Then we made circles to see if we could locate my bull. About 15 more minutes and I found the trail my bull had taken. I found him piled up under a pine tree but never found any more blood. He ended up about 125 yards from where I shot him. It turned out that my arrow had entered right behind the front should but then deflected and exited in the flank on the opposite side of the bull....hence no blood trail.
We were able to quarter him out and get him back to camp at about midnight. It was a great hunt and very rewarding to get an elk with my bow. Here are some pictures when we found him.
http://www.monstermuleys.net/videoclips/5x5elk.asf
I thought I had made a pretty good shot on the bull although he was still slightly quartering to me. I really think he had winded me and I was afraid he was going to bust. After the shot, I went and found my arrow with blood all over it. However, I was a little worried because I saw some green on the fletches as well.
My brother and I decided to leave and hike back to camp which was a little over 2 miles away. After eating dinner we hiked back in and started our search. We only found 2 drops of blood and searched for about 30 minutes without finding anything. Then we made circles to see if we could locate my bull. About 15 more minutes and I found the trail my bull had taken. I found him piled up under a pine tree but never found any more blood. He ended up about 125 yards from where I shot him. It turned out that my arrow had entered right behind the front should but then deflected and exited in the flank on the opposite side of the bull....hence no blood trail.
We were able to quarter him out and get him back to camp at about midnight. It was a great hunt and very rewarding to get an elk with my bow. Here are some pictures when we found him.
