James Got An Elk!...on September 22nd

 I have a wonderful husband! He is very determined and also very manly. :) He loves hunting. I actually didn't realize how much he loved hunting until we got married. Well, his favorite hobby also happens to be the means by which we fill our freezer. The Lord blessed us this year with an elk and we give God all the praise. But, that doesn't mean James was lazy. He hiked many miles before hunting season, woke up very early every weekend, shot his bow every day, and went hunting every night after work. God definitely blessed his hard work! This is his story.

My First Elk

By James Carlson 

It’s interesting how one can survey past moments in his or her life and form a sort of esoteric timeline formed around how their answers have changed to the same question. For example, if the question was poised, “What’s your favorite TV show?” I could look back and think:

Ages 5-6: Ninja Turtles/Hey Dude
Age 7: Doug
Age 13: Saturday Night Live
Age 16: The Daily Show
Age 18: Conan O’Brian
Age 22: King of the Hill
Age 24-26: The Office/King of the Hill
Age 27: King of the Hill/Seinfeld/FOOTBALL! (yeah, I know FOOTBALL! isn’t a show, but the closest thing is “Monday Night FOOTBALL!,” and I can’t limit myself to Monday because watching FOOTBALL! makes up 90% of my Sunday. And the reason I’m capitalizing FOOTBALL! is because in a perfect world, every time someone says “FOOTBALL!” they would say it like John Madden). Point is, there’s an inseparable union between age and answer. When you think of the age, you think of the show and vice-versa.

On a more related note; what if someone was to ask me, “What is the purest exemplification of frustration?” I would have to answer:

Age 8: Mom throwing my Ninja Turtle toys away
Age 10: Mom throwing my FOOTBALL! card collection away

Now at ages 11-26 we have a showdown between two potential epitomizers: Dr. Leo Marvin in “What About Bob?” or Clark Griswold in “Christmas Vacation.” Now the debate that arises from these two giants of vexation would provide enough material for a whole other note/essay/whatever this is. SPOILER ALERT: Winner goes to Dr. Marvin, whose life is destroyed by a patient. Clark’s holiday is destroyed by himself. And a dog. Well maybe if he didn’t feed him from the table…

At age 27 my answer changed again, and unless my wife decides to divorce me, my mind is set forever. The irritation exemplar has to be, hands down: hunting elk with a bow. (NOTE: What I mean is elk hunting on public land with an open permit. Not the kind you see on the Primos DVDs where guys who are 150 pounds overweight fly out to Montana from Misiss... Misipp... the South to hunt private ranches and arrow an elk within 100 yards of where they parked their truck. I mean actual hunting. FURTHER NOTE: I still plan on buying every new Primos elk DVD that comes out).

Oh and just a note to those of you who know me pretty well and are skeptical: You’re probably thinking, “James didn’t you go elk hunting with Tyler Parks in 2008 and 2010, all BEFORE you turned 27?” My answer: No. When I went with Tyler in 2008, the first time was in bow season and I wasn’t hunting, just tagging along. That winter I went, but with a rifle. In 2010 my job sent me to California from August through November, and I only got a week in September to bow hunt an area I never scouted. Those don’t count.

On to the summer of 2011. I scouted every chance I got. I am unclear as to the exact miles I walked looking for clues as to where the elk would be in September, because I didn’t start recording my hikes on my GPS until June 10th. From June 10th through August 25th, the GPS has down that I walked 70.04 miles. This isn’t counting my hikes during bear season from May 1st-June 15th, and it’s important to mention that I didn’t go hiking every day this summer. It would not be out of the question to guess that I put 100 miles on my boots before the elk season opener. My GPS also tells me that between the 3rd and the 22nd of September I hiked 59.6 miles. This is just during hunting season, and I didn’t go hunting every day. My wife can testify that I hiked every chance I got and conditioned (punished?) my body to the point where she could hear me cry out in pain from the shower when hot water splashed into cuts, chaffing, and blisters. She went on a couple of those pre-season hikes with me. She wanted to kill me, and I can’t blame her. My work showed promise for the upcoming season though as I found countless rubs, potential wallow spots, and some sheds. Antlers, to the lay person.

I didn’t see anything the first week of the season. Didn’t hear anything either. Questions of doubt plagued my mind. “Am I cow talking the right way? Am I covering enough ground? Am I getting up early enough? Am I not climbing high enough? Should I spend more time hanging out and glassing?” In all honesty I had no idea if I was doing anything correctly. All I knew is what I gathered from a couple Primos DVDs, a book I read and whatever knowledge Tyler Parks passed on during my incessant interrogations. Seriously, I felt like the neighbor kid in “Home Alone” who asks the airport shuttle drivers questions until they kick him out of the van. (Something needs to be said here about Tyler Parks. Tyler Parks is not just “the man,” rather, he IS “man.” He’s been elk hunting solo since 2004 or so and has harvested an elk every year. When he went to Alaska, he got a caribou, mountain goat, and Dall sheep that would have been in the record books as #8 IN THE WORLD had he gotten it with his bow. He shot it with his rifle from 40 yards away, cursing himself for leaving his bow at base camp. Tyler Parks is an endless source of elk information and I give him huge amounts of credit for my success this year. I couldn’t have done it without him, though he couldn’t be with me in person to help, which was this original plan).

A week later showed some promise. I was taking a nap on top of a mountain the afternoon of September 10th when I was awakened by a bugle. I wondered if it could be another hunter, as I had seen a couple earlier in the day. I figured it must be and tried to fall back to sleep. Then I heard it again. Thinking I might fool around with whatever hunter was imitating the bugle, I let loose with one of my own. About 10 seconds later, I heard a bugle that no man could ever imitate. It started out with a rumble like a diesel engine and reached a pitch near that of a plane engine right before takeoff. I gathered up my gear and tore off towards him. Turns out, I bugled too much while I was getting in position and was pin-pointed. After a dozen or so cows walked past me and the tree I was hiding behind, I stepped out of hiding to find a mack-daddy freak-nasty Rocky Mountain antlered-donkey staring me down from 60 yards. I wasn’t shaking before, but at this point I could have stirred paint cans if you handed them to me. We locked eyeballs for what seem like two hours as I felt all the blood in my body gather in my legs as I was too afraid to even move or breathe. I don’t think I blinked. I was afraid to. Finally I had to shift my weight. Seeing some sort of movement, the bull waved his crown of 350 inches of ivory-tipped sharpened bone at me while he walked off after his harem, chuckling the whole time. I tried to stop him with a bugle of my own and some cow talks, but he wasn’t having it. I tried following after the group, but never saw them again. At this point I knew that if I never got an elk this year, all my time would have been worth this interaction.

I checked my watch and decided I should probably spend the rest of the day perched above some wallows as I knew afternoon temperatures were around 85 degrees at this point and I hoped to ambush a bull on his way from his bed to a series of mudholes to cool down. I started up a north-facing ridge that is formed by a seasonal creek on either side. Record snow meant the streams were still flowing and providing water to the waist-high grass and shrubs that were doing everything they could to wrap around my ankles and equipment. I was anything but quiet as I—stupidly now, as I look back and you nod in agreement—hiked up an open slope rather than through the dense lodgepoles to my left and right. Fifty yards below the wallow I was wanting to oversee, I spotted movement uphill and to my left. A nice 6-point satellite bull, itself probably scoring 310, trotted right into the wallow and started tearing up that mudhole with more voracity than I had ever seen. It was like the opening scene to “Robocop.” I nocked an arrow and duck-walked uphill. Walking 30 yards to my left then continuing uphill in the cover of dark timber never occurred to me. I snapped a twig under my foot and the bull lifted his muddy brow and stared right at me. “Oh man,” I thought. “Not this again.” He didn’t see me, and not wanting to move too much to grab my bugle to redirect my cow call, I mewed with the call I already had in place on the roof of my mouth. I knew that in doing so I would be pinpointed if I wasn’t already, but I also knew that making a cow call could calm down the beast. It did, to the effect that the bull paced back and forth, stopping now and then to look down at me, searching for a cow with which to mingle. Hearing an elk but not seeing one, the bull walked uphill away from me as his suspicion grew. I stopped him a couple of times with a cow call, but the uneasiness was too much and he left me by myself to roll around in my own wallow of mistakes I made that day. As I walked uphill in desperate pursuit, the wind shifted uphill with me and I knew my hunt was over for the day. I hiked back to my vehicle in the dark, reliving every moment of the day and cursing myself for making such stupid mistakes that cost me chances at two wall-hangers.

I went to bed every night for the next 11 days telling myself I blew it. How often does someone get the chance at two 300-class bulls in one day? I knew my luck was expended, not to mention my emotional and physical strength and most of my will. It all continued to decrease exponentially as evening hunt after evening hunt yielded no results.

I woke up the morning of September 22nd with resolve to try something different. I had been checking out a spot on Google Earth for the past few days and decided “What the heck, it looks good, might as well try it. My luck can’t get worse and at least after I explore it I’ll stop the nagging thoughts telling me to find out what’s there.” I had hiked this area a couple of times in the summer but didn’t see any elk sign. I did on one occasion see two very nice mule deer bucks so I thought at the very least I could get a shot at one of them. I hiked around for a few miles then with about an hour and a half of shooting light I decided to hang out above a big pool of water that had collected from the snow melt. Set perfectly on an east-facing bench on the side of a mountain, I had discovered this area with my wife earlier in July. I hadn’t been there since, but figured it must be the office water cooler for this part of the woods. A quick glance when I arrived told me I was right. Tracks from deer, moose, elk (!) and bear layered each other in the mud left by the receding pool. My strategy would be simple: find a spot about 20 yards above the pool, sit down, bugle, cow call a couple times, then wait for something to happen. It did.

As I let out my last mewing cow call, I pulled out a book and started reading. Five minutes later, I heard a twig snap. I peered into the vegetation, my eyes straining as I attempted to slice through the foliage. Nothing. Thinking best-case-scenario, I nocked an arrow just in case a bear or one of those muleys showed up for a drink. I pulled out the rangefinder and pre-ranged some trees on the opposite side of the water, just before the bench drops off into a slope. If anything was going to come from the bottom of the slope to the far side of the bench, it would be within 35 yards of where I sat. Perfect. A couple minutes later I heard something walking and caught movement. My heart started picking up again. Something was definitely out there. I pulled up my binoculars and searched in the direction of the sound. Through some bushes at the base of the bench, I saw it: the body of an elk. It moved its head. I saw antlers, and that can mean only one thing. I kept looking to see if I could count the points. At the beginning of the season I told myself if I had a shot at a bull with five points on one side, I was going to take it. I counted a fifth small point on his right side. I couldn’t help but smile. That whole day I prayed the entire hike that God would bring me a bull. Now I was staring at one from 50 yards, and it met my criteria perfectly. What was I going to do, tell God, “Gee thanks but when I asked for an elk I meant a bigger one?” As soon as my mind clicked from “four” to “five,” I knew I was going after this bull.

In an instant my adrenalin spiked through the roof, followed closely by my heart which lodged itself in my brain and started drumming in triplets like John Bonham on speed. In a matter of seconds I knew what I was going to do. I was going to cow call through my bugle tube while pointing it up and to the right, throwing the bull a head fake that would—hopefully—bring him straight past me broadside. I would bring my bow to full draw when he was walking up the side of the bench and out of sight, then when he was past the lip of the bench I would cow call and stop him on the far side of a big pine. He’d be at 25 yards and offering a textbook broadside shot at his vitals behind his right shoulder. It was too perfect. I felt like the General Patton of elk hunting. Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men…

It went exactly how it was supposed to, only faster than I expected. I came to full draw just as he cleared the edge of the bench. He saw movement and stopped and stared at me head on. No. This can’t be happening. Not for the third time. I held my bow at full draw while the bull stared right through me from a distance of two first downs. I couldn’t hold my draw anymore. Seventy pounds of pull were taking their toll, and I knew I was too weak from blood building up in my arms to make a good shot if the elk were to turn. I slowly, slowly leaned to my left, blocking the elk’s vision with a tree. As deliberately as I could I pointed my bow to the ground and let the string slide forward. It was slow, but the sound of the string and cables sliding back into position were heard by the young wapiti I had just lured into range. He turned and trotted down the hill. Before my heart had time to sink back into my chest I cow called. The bull stopped and turned around again. My heart resumed beating in my brain. Bonham was back for an encore. As the bull walked back up the hill, I took advantage of that moment provided by the bench’s blind spot and moved 10 yards ahead of me to the conifer that I had blocked myself with before. Now I had cover, not just some silhouette break-up provided by the stump I was leaning on earlier. Unfortunately, in my haste I left my rangefinder and bugle on the ground next to my pack. Now I could no longer head fake or pinpoint a distance. If they hadn’t already, things just got a violent shove into “beast mode.” Quiet desperation was the only emotion I felt now. John Bonham had passed out and I finally exhaled after about 20 minutes of holding my breath.

I cow called again, knowing I had given away my position, but also knowing that I had just told that bull that a cow was here somewhere. He came walking up the hill again the same way he had come before. When he cleared the lip of the bench, he stopped and turned broadside and stared in the direction of the “cow.” I knew he couldn’t see me, and slowly peeked around the tree to see exactly how far away he was. I figured about 20-25 yards. I clipped my release on the string behind the arrow’s nock, slowly raised my bow to come to full draw, and stopped. Oh no. I thought I had come to the woods alone, but my friend Murphy decided to tag along. Jerk. Holding my bow in positing for the draw, I noticed that one of the blades on my mechanical broadhead had deployed partially (not wanting to be the source of negative publicity, I won’t tell you the name of the broadhead. Let’s just say that it rhymes with “Sage 2-blade”). This means that the flight of the arrow would be compromised due to complex physics I call “whacky aerodynamics” and not hit on target. Even if it managed to stay on target, enough energy would be lost due to partial deployment to prevent the penetration I needed to get through the rib cage and into the vitals of a 700-pound ungulate. Again, I leaned back behind the tree, reached down, and locked the blade back into place. Guess who saw me do it? That’s right. The bull walked a full circle and started to head back downhill again. I did the only thing I could do. I cow called. He stopped again. *phew* OK, he hadn’t SEEN me, but he was getting tired of NOT seeing the elk that was making noise. When he stopped he was broadside again, just offering his other side. He was a little farther away, but I knew no more than 30 yards. I started to draw my bow again, but something stopped me. Literally. I looked up, and there was a branch from the tree I was hiding behind actually blocking my string, disallowing a full draw. I turned and put my back to the tree and leaned against it for a couple seconds. This was unbelievable. It was like that point when you’re playing “Madden,” and you’re doing really well then all of a sudden the computer decides that no matter what, there’s just absolutely no way you’re going to win the game.

Finally, the light turned on. “Why don’t you come to full draw with your back to the tree, then slowly peek around and hit him broadside?” Duh. I looked back over my shoulder. The bull was still there, looking for the cow he was hearing. I was facing 180 degrees from where I needed to shoot, and I came to full draw. I felt like I took a full year to turn my body to point my arrow at that elk. When I did, I couldn’t believe it. The bull had taken a step forward and a small tree that had been broken about 5 feet up from the ground was now covering everything behind his shoulder. I had no shot. I was not going to get this elk. Every bit of adrenalin I had was gone, replaced instead by failure. He was going to bolt. He had been hanging around for about 20 minutes and had not found the cow that had sounded so enticing at first mew. There was only one thing I could do now, and that was to try to get the bull to take one small step forward and expose that pie-plate sized target that housed his pumping station. I was standing just to the right of the tree I had been hiding behind, and if cervus elephus hadn’t seen me yet, he would as soon as I called. But it was my only hope. I called. He turned his head, and then did the unimaginable. He took a step BACKWARDS. There was now a two-foot window between the broken tree and a full-grown lodgepole pine through which I had to thread my arrow and plunge it into the bull’s boiler maker. I wasn’t completely sure of the distance, but knew it was still around 30 yards. I put my sight pin behind his shoulder and released my arrow.

There was the sound of a cracking 2x4 as the arrow struck home. The elk bolted down the side of the bench and crashed through the timber. I cow called to calm him down. By golly, it worked. He stopped and looked behind him. The beast was so huge he had no idea he had been hit, only that something wasn’t right. I cow called again, and he turned, showing me his left side. All doubt was removed. Steady blood flow from the entrance wound told me all I needed to know. The shot was spot on. As his adrenalin wore off and he began to succumb to weakness and lie down, I turned around and leaned up against the tree again. This is a bittersweet moment. That elk gave his life for me, and this is his time. I respectfully closed my eyes and sat down while I let him expire. A sudden release of pent up emotion and exhaustion hit me at once, and my eyes watered up. It’s tough to explain, that feeling of sadness and joy happening at once.“Bittersweet” is not a powerful enough word. I let a couple of tears clear trails through the mud on my face as I thanked God for his provision.


I’ve been told and read that even if the arrow hits in the perfect spot and the elk drops like he’s been pole-axed, you wait a good half hour before approaching the elk, just in case. If you bump up a wounded elk, they’ll run for miles before lying down again. The wait was the longest 30 minutes of my life. I was almost panicking, since I had about 45 minutes before sunset. From where I was sitting, I could see the elk without my binoculars, which made the wait even worse, especially since both my mind and my gut told me the elk had expired. Wanting to get to the elk before the bears did, I stood up and gathered my gear. I walked to where the elk was standing at the point of impact and turned back to the tree I was hiding behind when I released 400 grains of carbon and steel. I had guessed 30 yards, and ranged it at 27. I sighed the millionth sigh since I had heard the arrow impact. Thank You, God.

The blood trail was easy to follow; the damage done by the broadhead left just as much blood on bushes at chest level as on the ground. I found my broken arrow shaft about 10 yards from where the elk was standing. It was broken about an inch from where the broadhead attaches, and blood and lung tissue was on the shaft almost up to the fletching in the rear. All these signs are extremely positive. When the arrow breaks it means the blood can flow out, which speeds up death in the animal. Blood that far up the arrow meant excellent penetration and tissue meant I had hit lungs. (During the field dressing, autopsy would reveal a double-lung hit. Perfect. The elk had passed out then died in about five minutes. This is exactly what you want). Less than 75 yards from where he had been hit, there he was, deader than charity.

I started the field dressing and tied back a leg and anchored it to a tree to allow air flow to cool the body overnight. My parents and my wife came with me early the next morning to finish the job and pack it out. We all painstakingly hiked the three-and-a-half miles to the trailhead with 100 pounds on our backs. As the last pack was loaded in my vehicle, every moment and emotion of the hunt was relived in about two seconds. There wasn’t a joint in my body that didn’t ache, and muscles I didn’t know existed cried out in pain. I paused for a second before opening the door to my rig. It was over, and I couldn’t be happier. I was also sad, because I knew it would be another year before I could experience this again.

150 pounds of meat on his back and the elk head around his shoulders. James, you are the best!

I didn't really know what I was getting into as we hiked up the elk early Friday morning. James' parents knew exactly what they were doing as they helped him field dress it, but I had no clue. I did what I could - holding this leg or pulling on this skin - but I really wasn't much help during that part. I thought that being from California and having never seen a harvested animal, I would gasp at the sight. But much to my surprise, I didn't feel anything. It wasn't that I'm calloused and I didn't acknowledge that this elk had given up his life for us. It was that I realized that this was going to be our food and that God had provided it for us - the old fashioned way. 

I couldn't even stand up with my backpack on. There was probably over 100 lbs in it and after being in that car accident, I haven't been able to much heavy lifting. Everyone had over 100 pounds (James and Jim were probably carrying between 150-200). We hiked straight downhill through blow downs. A couple of times I fell and I literally couldn't get up. Everyone was in pain and pushing their body as far as possible. Even when we got to the trail and it was downhill from there, I almost slipped on the loose gravel and dry dirt. I have never felt more exhausted or helpless in my entire life. Finally we made it to the car and we drove home and I got ready for work. Needless to say the next week and a half I was in a lot of pain. But, overall it was worth it! I am so proud of James for all his hard work and we are so grateful to his parents for going above and beyond the call of duty in helping us pack it out. Five years ago I couldn't have even imagined anything like this. 

I love our life.

P.S The Elk meat tastes GREAT!