A September Archery Hunt
Like countless others, we had been planning a fall archery trip all year. Our group had done the scouting, conditioned the pack llamas, went over the gear lists and finally it was September and time to go hunting.
The first day of the trip would be travel and packing in camp using the pack llamas. Our camp was to be located roughly 8 miles from the trailhead. We ended up reaching camp around 4 in the afternoon, just enough time to get camp set up and have the evening to do a little glassing.
The first evening yielded encouraging results. We glassed up a hand full of elk in the distance and herd bugling in the timber. We were excited for what the morning would bring.
As first light we left camp and the pack llamas who were staked out on leads. As it slowly began to get light we realized we were socked in with thick fog. Visibility was limited and becoming even more limited by the minute. By 9 am the line of sight was down to 100-200 yards at most. The positive however was that we were hearing bulls aggressively bugling.
We decided to split up, one of us would sit a saddle and myself and one other would continue on into the timber after the bugles. It didnt take long to close the distance on the bugling elk, however due to the fog we couldn’t see anything. We decided to set up and try some cow calling. I hadn’t thrown out 2 or 3 cow calls when a bull bugled and started coming in closing the distance on me fast! Not 30 seconds later a bull was well within shooting distance. I pulled up my range finder to range him but due to the fog the rangefinder wouldn’t work. I guessed he was around 45 yards, leveled my bow and released an arrow. The arrow sailed high and the bull ran off. Afterwards we paced it off and the actual distance was around 30 yards…… Between the fog and having bull fever my guess on yardage was just horribly wrong.
Meanwhile almost at the same exact time the lone member of our group sitting on a saddle was freezing in the fog and rain. He herd a bull bugle and it was coming his way. Very shortly after a herd bull was broadside in front of him. He went to range the bull but similarly the fog prevented his rangefinder from working as well. He guessed 60 yards, leveled and released…. for him as well… the arrow flew high, missed and the bull ran off.
I truly believe bull fever is a real thing, however we practice with our bows all year so to miss two bulls in one day due to miss-judging the distance is very rare. All we can think is the fog that day not only rendered our range finders worthless but also skewed our ability to judge distance.
We continued to hunt another 3 days but the elk moved on into different country. We were left scratching our heads trying to figure out what had caused the elk to go absolutely nuts rutting in the fog and cursing our range finders. In the end we did not harvest a single elk that trip but learned valuable lessons. The pack out was quick, only taking 3.5 hours. The pack llamas performed flawlessly. I must admit, on that walk out we all felt some shame for coming out empty handed while having such great opportunities. Alas we have memories that will live forever.
