It was Thursday Sept. 12th, the day that I had planned and waited all summer for, I was leaving for Idaho to go elk hunting. We left at 11:00am on a 35-hour drive to Idaho. I was going hunting in the North Fork of the Clearwater River in the National Forest, it is called unit 10. This is the same area I had successfully hunted bear in May. We arrived in Idaho late Friday evening and stayed in Kamiah. On Saturday morning, we bought all of our camping provisions and headed up into the Rocky Mountains 

We met up with some friends of ours from Idaho. That night we set up camp and after a good night sleep we headed out. I never realized how strenuous a Rocky Mountain elk hunt was. We walked up and down mountains that seemed impossible. 

The day was warm, in the 60's and the 70's and the elk just were not bugling. We hunted until dark and then sat around the campfire talking about how rugged the mountains were and how breathtaking the scenery was. For any one who has never been in the Rockies, it is hard to explain to someone the experience of walking into and then out of the depths of the canyons. 

The next day brought the same thing, warm temperatures, but no bugling elk. That night there was a major thunderstorm, rain and lightening. This change in weather helped cool things off considerably. 

Early the next morning Paul Coward stopped by our camp. He asked us if we had had any luck. We told him we had not seen anything happening. He said that he had some luck bugling bulls and had already shot his bull this year. He said he had heard a bull bugling in a canyon a few miles. He told me he would take me up there and see if we could get the bull to fire up. 

We jumped into his truck and headed up an old logging road. When we got up there, Paul began bugling a couple of times and said, "I don't know, maybe it is getting too late." 

He gave it one more try and just when we thought that there wasn't going to be an answer. We heard a faint chuckle. 

Paul whispered, "He is way on top of the other mountain" We started down into the canyon. We stopped and Paul bugled again. No answer! He grabbed a couple of sticks and started thrashing and rubbing on an old fir tree. And that is just what it took. The bull fired up with a high pitch bugle like he was saying, "You are not going to come up my mountain!"

Paul said, "We are going to have to go toward him to threaten his cows." The closer we got, the closer the bull came toward us. He did not want what he thought was a threatening bull coming up his mountain to take his cows. We got close to the creek in the bottom of the canyon and Paul told us that he was "Going to have a discussion with him." 

I have never seen anything like it on TV or otherwise. Paul was bugling, thrashing and beating on the ground and cow calling. He had this bull really fired up. 

We sat up on our side of the creek in an opening, and Paul did everything to get the bull to come to us. But this bull did not want to cross the creek. He wanted us to come to him. 

He wanted the "challenging bull" on his ground. We crossed the creek and set up in another opening. It was perfect. I had shot opportunities from every angle. He was fired up and coming in fast. When suddenly, Paul says, "We have to move now, the wind has changed." So, we got ahead of the bull and got the wind in our face. 

This region is so thick and brushy there are very few openings. We got into an area where there were some big fir trees and a small opening. It wasn't the perfect place, but suddenly we could hear him and he was close. Paul ran about 30 yards behind me and he set up to bugle. I was looking up the hillside thinking that he would be coming this way. When suddenly, from my Walker's Game Ear, I heard some brush move I looked over my left shoulder and there he was looking right at me. 

The bull was awesome he had ivory tipped eye guards out to the end of his nose and his face was solid black. This bull had a look on his face that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I could not see his body because of the brush. All that I could see was his face and horns. Paul let out a challenging bugle behind me.

The elk bugled back and took one step forward. 

I could see his shoulder through a baseball size hole in the brush. I thought that this is my chance. I drew my bow and aimed through the hole, right behind his shoulder. My arrow hit like a guided missile, I knew that I had made a perfect shot, but it sounded like I had hit solid steel. My dad was videotaping the hunt so we rewound the tape and the shot looked perfect. 

It went right through the hole in the brush, right where I had aimed. We gave the elk about 20 minutes before we started tracking. There was no blood but Paul said that was normal, as some elk don't bleed until about 20 yards. 

We had walked less than 20 yards, when I found my arrow. This also seemed normal, because I usually get a complete pass through on all of the animals that I have harvested. I picked up the arrow and there was just a little blood about 4 inches up the shaft of the arrow. But the worst thing was, the broadhead was snapped off clean at the insert. I knew that something was definitely wrong. 

Paul looked at the arrow and said, "You must have caught the knuckle of the shoulder bone." This cartilage absorbs impact. 

I shot this elk with a 70 lb. Mathews that was shooting 285 feet per second. I was using a 420-grain Carbon Express CX -Hunter 200 tipped with a 4 blade Muzzy broadhead. I travel around the country demonstrating how a Muzzy broadhead will shoot through a steel drum and not even break the blades. 

The only thing about this knucklebone on the elk is that it can withstand the impact of a 30-06 bullet. 

Paul told me that he has seen arrows glance off of that shoulder and still kill the elk. The problem was, I hit dead center of the knucklebone. 

There are hunters that hunt year after year all over the country and never even get a shot at an elk. Here I was with the opportunity to shoot a 280 class Pope and Young bull on my first elk hunt. The excitement goes from your highest high to your lowest low. The best thing that came out of this whole ordeal was the elk was fine. We followed the elk's footprints for about 80 yards without any sign of blood. Paul told me that the elk would be a little sore, but he would be okay. The next day we went down into the canyon and actually bugled the same bull to within 30 yards, but he would not come out of the brush for another shot. The elk and I both learned a big lesson. You don't shoot close to the shoulder bone and the elk learned that you don't keep coming closer until you see another bull. 

On Thursday night, we had a couple of game wardens stop by our camp. They asked if we were having any luck. We told them no, but we had heard a lot of wolves howling at night. The game wardens said that they did not know where the wolves came from. He said that they did not plant them there. The game wardens and several people from the area told us that the wolves were systematically going from canyon to canyon killing a large number of elk. They said that the wolves go into a feeding frenzy and sometimes wipe out a whole herd and in some instances they will just eat a couple of elk and then move on to another canyon. It is unbelievable, how frightened every animal in the forest is of the wolves. When the wolves are howling, the forest becomes deadly silent for hours. 

A lot of concerned people in Idaho fear that if the number of wolves is not lowered, there will not be any elk or mule deer left in the forest. 

The weather warmed up and we hunted 5 more days. The elk had shut down and quit bugling. I have said it before and I will say it again. Idaho is the closest to untouched wilderness that I have ever hunted. 

You can only imagine how rugged and beautiful this part of our country is. 

I want to thank Paul Coward for the most exciting hunt that I have ever been on. I am already counting the days until elk archery season in Idaho next year. 

Randy
 

Randy Oitker, age 15, is an avid bowhunter and outdoor sports writer. Randy is also a professional archer who hails from Plainville, IL. Randy can be seen giving tech tips to young hunters each week on the Outdoor Channel on Sportsmen's Outdoor Strategies and his little sister Tiffany does a lead in a commercial on this show.  It can be seen at 7:30am.on Wed., 11:30am on Friday and 7:00pm on Saturday Central time.  Randy Oitker is sponsored by:  Mathews Solocam bows, Muzzy Products, Scent-Lok Odor-Elimanating Suits, Realtree Camo, Bushnell Sport Optics, Sims Vibration Laboratories, Carter Releases, Tracer Products, Rinehart 3-d targets, Shrewd Archery Products, Feather Visions Lenses, Outdoor Edge-Knives, LaCrosse Footwear, Carbon Express Arrows, SKB Bowcases, Eze- Crest Arrow Wraps, Walker's Game Ear, Cannon Country Game Calls, BCY bowstrings, Arrowspeed Radarchron, Bug Tamer Suits, Coleman Outdoor Products, Cobra Electronics, Magellan GPS Systems, Toxonics BowSights, Knight Rifles, Bolle Eyewear, Walls Outdoor Wear, Badlands Backpacks, Rock-it-Outdoors Duravanes, and Morrel Range Bags, and local sponsors from Quincy,IL: Gem City Ford, McDonalds and Outdoor Power.

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