Why I Love This

A recent conversation got me to thinking about what it is that makes me love hunting and just what hunting means to me. When I think about it from a pure literal standpoint, it doesn’t sound like fun so much as my cousin, Cody, pointed out, but sounds a lot more like work! Between hiking miles in steep, rugged country and sitting uncomfortably among flies and dust while chasing the elusive wapiti, there is a lot about hunting that doesn’t SOUND enjoyable. However, there is something that hunting does that nothing else can do - an elk hunt of mine made a couple years ago really puts to words my feelings about hunting. I made this trip with several others, but have revised the story as if I’d been by myself, as that seems to best capture the true essence of what I love about hunting.

The fun started at night as I lay in my pickup bed, wrapped up in my sleeping bag staring up at the stars. Y’know, I could’ve counted three million of them things before I drifted off to sleep - and still wouldn’t have touched the surface. It makes a person feel mighty small. I figured then, just lying there looking at the stars while the smell of sage and juniper drifted across my nostrils, that I was having a great time. But, then I heard bulls begin to bugle back and forth, their statements bouncing off the mountains around me, and I realized, ‘I’m experiencing something that millions of people will never get to experience.’ And I felt sorry for them. The sound of a bull elk challenging the entire world is a sound I can’t begin to describe, but I know what it does for me. I know the chill that runs down my spine and the extra heavy ‘THUD’ in my heart when that regal announcement pierces the mountain air. My pulse beat quickly and visions of bulls pushing their harems filled my head as I finally drifted off to sleep. Now, I hate mornings the way that Elmer Fudd hates that “wascally wabbit,” but let me tell you, when I woke before first light, I was excited. My eyes popped open, and the first thing I heard was an elk calling to the morning. The long silence that followed was magical. A slight wind stirred the trees, and the cold mountain air tried desperately to wrap its fingers around me. When I finally got dressed for the hunt, I stepped down from the bed of my pickup and ate a breakfast bar; the first rays of light were streaking in the east. Through the trees, I could just see the sky turning color and indistinct objects began to take shape. Dark shadows became trees, brush, rocks, and stumps. I knew already that I’d had a good trip, and I hadn’t even started hunting yet.

I grabbed my bow, strapped on my day pack, and began climbing the daunting mountain. I went slowly. Brush was grabbing at me and then slapping me in the face and arms, and I hadn’t gone far when I had to stop for a breath of air. I rested, and while I caught my breath, an eagle spread its giant wings and lifted from its nest in a long dead tree, caught an air current and slowly began to lift higher and higher. To my right, two does and a small buck fed in a draw. I was content just to watch them feed up the draw in the cool morning, their hooves crunching the leaves marking their presence even when they fed under the lip of the draw, hidden from my view. The soft “mew” of a cow elk reached my ears then, and I swung my head in that direction. I began my hike again, this time angling towards the cow I’d just heard. The terrain got steeper, but the brush thinned out and my approach was quiet. I topped out on a finger between two draws and suddenly the morning was alive. Bulls were bugling up a storm somewhere in the distance. The small draw had blocked the sound from reaching my ears, but as soon as I reached the top, the silence was no more. The sun was still behind the mountain where I stood, but the draw before me was bathed in the early morning sunlight. An old logging road wound through the timber and as I scanned the valley, I noticed movement on this logging road. Through my binoculars, I saw a big, branched bull walking the road as if he owned the place. He stopped and laid his head back and I waited for the sound to reach my ears. It did in a piercing, beautiful bugle. A few cows meandered nearby. I spotted a spike then, and hunkered down to call to him. My first calls immediately caught his attention and he stopped walking and looked at me. He was only fifty yards away and looked intent on coming closer. I’m telling you, my heart was about to leap out of my chest at that moment! He let out a bugle that told the world he was a young bull, but he didn’t care. Just as I thought he was surely going to clear the brush and present me with a shot, two cows came by and he turned and fell in step with them. I went back to studying the valley. Another branched bull passed into view in the distance. Soon, I could tell I was on the edge of a valley that was just crawling with elk. I would never know how many elk were in that valley, but I counted at least seven mature bulls, three rag horns, and a lot of spikes. As the sun crept higher and finally touched my back, I caught my first glimpse of the bull that will live in my dreams forever. As satisfied as I would have been in harvesting that spike, I’m glad I had the chance just to see this bull. His antlers were white, not long having been relieved of velvet, and I could see he was a magnificent six by six. Of all the bulls, and keeping in mind that I saw at least seven different mature bulls, there was no doubt that this guy was the boss. What made it so awesome was that he knew it, the other bulls knew it, the cows knew it, and I knew it. Other bulls were bugling feverishly, but the herd bull never made a sound. He walked up and down the logging road, seemingly minding his own business, but I knew he was putting on a show. He was silently reminding the other bulls he was king of this mega herd. He walked up the hillside away from me and disappeared, so I settled in watching the other bulls. Soon, the big bull came wandering back into view caked in mud. It appeared he had found himself a good waller to roll around in to keep the flies off on this hot August day. The elk weren’t into the rut yet, and being that there had to be close to one hundred elk in the canyon, I knew I wouldn’t get a shot at this elk, but I would be happy to watch him the rest of the day. I hiked around the canyon and came in from another angle that took me to the wallow the big elk had hit earlier in the day. By now it was early afternoon, so as I sat down in the only available cover 80 yards from the wallow and ate my stale peanut butter and honey sandwich. I relocated the bull bedded down in the shadows of a big pine tree with four cows lying around him. I watched a coyote come streaking out of some brush not from where I was, reminding me that my human scent was swirling. I tried coaxing a younger bull close by cow calls, but instead got a calf to come running. The curious youngster came to within twenty yards, then ten, then five. It circled in behind me and I hunched my shoulders and slowly turned my head to look at it from the corner of my eye. The young elk walked within arms reach of me and stopped. The youngster finally realized something was wrong and whirled, scampering away. The afternoon grew hot, but elk kept moving around me. Finally, it became late and I had to get back to the truck and go home. Just before I stood to leave, the entire woods erupted. I’m still not sure what happened that caused the elk to scatter, but suddenly elk were running all around me, and brush was cracking and popping so loudly it sounded like the entire forest had sprouted legs and was running away! As the sound died away in the distance, the evening became still again, and then far away I heard the bugle of an elk. The bulls would round up the cows again, and the herd would reunite in another canyon somewhere. I carried my wearied bones down off the mountain and marveled again at what I had been shown this day.

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