Sometimes writing can be frustrating.
Before I became an outdoor writer, I thought that I was a pretty successful outdoorsman. I think the truth of the matter is, I’m no better or no worse than before — it’s just now that I have to painfully write out in detail an article on how I didn’t harvest any organic meat if I wasn’t successful. And it’s engraved in stone for all to see.
So with that preamble, let’s get into this past week’s elk/deer archery hunt: round one. I was up in the mountains by Atlanta but wasn’t seeing much. I came home, reloaded and was going to head back up after church, but I had not submitted five newspaper articles. Maybe I’d leave at daylight Monday morning. Nope, a magazine editor needed some more pics for an article. I finally got away mid-Monday morning.
Ahh, it felt good to get away. I grabbed an elk tag for an area that I hadn’t hunted in a while.
I recommend always packing a target to camp when archery hunting.
I remember I was antelope hunting over in Colorado some 20-something years ago and two came in. Easy shot. I pulled back and ripped one loose. Whoa! It went 2 feet below it. What the heck. No way I could I have missed at 20 yards. Slowly, I remembered that my bow had taken a bad fall and obviously knocked the pins out of line.
So, with the above said, I shot a few arrows in camp to loosen up and was good to go. I love my new Copper John Smackdown sight and Obsession bow, now to just add elk.
I ran down to a spot where I’d seen a bull’s tracks during spring bear hunting and set up a Montana Decoy. Today, I was using the RMEF cow decoy and a Rocky Mountain Elk bugle. Hmm, no one was home. That night I had a high-profile dinner. Canned Wolf Brand chili over Fritos and a peach, and then I hit the sack. The next morning it was pretty much the same story.
If I’m not seeing game, I move. Elk can’t fly, so they’re going to leave tracks. That afternoon I went down the road five miles to where a buddy had seen elk. I jumped up to the top of the mountain and saw a few deer. I got within 20 yards and had pulled back, but at the last second I noticed a small bush slightly in the way. I took a half of step to clear it and they spooked. Ugh!
I got into skiffs of snow left over from the previous week and set up my decoy and called. Nada, but not the end of the world. With all the wolves, I call in plenty of bulls that slip in and never make a peep. Not so this afternoon, though.
Even though I didn’t call anything in, I went back up the next morning and climbed up top again. Nada. Time to jump, so I broke camp and took off to another spot 30 miles away where I’ve seen a lot of elk.
I got there, set up camp and climbed up a mountain behind camp. It was thick and steep. As it got dark, I dropped down to camp and got there right as the sun disappeared. A buddy, Josh Connell, drug into camp right after midnight and threw his sleeping bag on the floor of the tent. We were out.
The next morning we got up before daylight and took off for the high country. The plan was to go back a ways and then jump on top and hunt some tough-to-access areas that no one else had hit. Dang, a little too rough of country. No good spots up high.
We went down mid-afternoon and headed to a spot I’d called in numerous bulls before. The week ended with no bulls and me having to run to Cabela’s on Saturday afternoon to take pics of Caden Braun getting outfitted for his elk hunt with “Hunting Dreams.” The next morning before daylight I jumped on a plane to Louisiana to go red fishing. More to come on both topics.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
