# Elk, bows and prayers?



## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

My hunt for elk this year started in the normal fashion, hiking 4 miles in with a backpack for a 4-5 day hunt. We set camp low and hunted above us in the morning. We decided to move camp 2 miles higher and hunt down from there. Well, Jason never came and moved his camp up that day which is not to odd he always seem to disappear from time to time, so I was not to worried about it. I got up the next morning and started down into the black, thick, dead fall jungle to hunt when I came upon what looked like a elk bedded. I soon realized that it was not bedded but dead. I looked at the bull he had a two blade hole in him......just what Jason shoots. I knew the animal had set at least overnight so I hurried and quartered it and hung it in the shade. Later that day Jason had worked his way to camp and walked in with low spirits. After I had messed with him for a while I told him I had his bull and it was hanging in the shade as we spoke. He said that he had been praying all day that he would find his bull. It would be a understatement to say finding his bull is 10 times harder than finding a needle in a hay stack. I was nothing short of a miracle that I blindly found his bull! (I wasn't even looking for it).It is so thick where we hunt you can only see a few yards ahead at times.








Finding this bull was one in a million or prayer? Look how thick it is....








I think that this might be a wallow?? :wink: 








Big country.... I had a nice bull come under my treestand 1/2 hour before I got to it . (trailcam). I will be heading back at the end of the hunt for 3-4 days to be continued....


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## FC2Tuber (Oct 26, 2007)

Cool story.

That's great that you found the bull for your buddy... I can't believe you did in that terrain.. haha


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## TEX-O-BOB (Sep 12, 2007)

It's a good thing Jason has been paying his tithing. What a miracle!  

Do you give elk finding lessons?


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

:?


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## elk22hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

Pay no mind to Tex and his "book of myths". Although he comes across a bit cheeky, deep down, he is a very religious man, he just doesn't know it yet.  I love a good Prayer story. I only wish that I had read this 2 hours ago and not right after my talk this morning. ha ha

I have a very similar story that they published in the Eastman's Journal a few years ago. It happened to my brother and I in Idaho. He had shot a bull one evening. I helped him get in on it and then at the whack of the arrow, I went up higher to a bull that I heard bugle right after his shot. I killed a Pope and Young 6x6 and it was down immediately. We then began looking for his very poor blood trail and determined to leave it till morn. He climbed over the hill to look while I took the easier route to bring the horses. He looked for hours and had given up on lack of blood and evidence. He had sent out many prayers. He then stood atop a little rise to bugle and got a cow chirp back immediately. He thought it to be a hunter as it was too perfect. The hunters came out of the trees and after some short (no pun meant North Slope) introductions they told him that they had happened upon his bull earlier and hurried and quartered it also like North Slope and had it hanging. They were sick for him and hoped that they would meet up with the saddened hunter instead of doing what some might do and claim the 347 point 6x7 for their own. Prayers were answered, friends were made and all turned out good in Elk camp that year with two big bulls taken with archery tackle within 150 yards of each other and only 30 minutes apart.


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

It was a cool hunt for sure. We checked on our gps the bull was 1/2 mile from the shot.......Luck I don't think so. :shock:


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## 4x4 Bronco (Sep 7, 2007)

That is a cool story. We all know how thick that stuff can get, and finding a downed animal can be quite difficult. Thanks for sharing.


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## pintail (Apr 20, 2008)

congrats on the bulls we were hunting the north slope last weekend on poison mountain. We hunted all up and down poison creek, all the wallows in spring creek and around henry's fork and dalgreen. did not see one elk. we always hunt it on the rifle and our group always gets one or two. glad you were able to get into them up there.


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## REPETER (Oct 3, 2007)

That is a great story, thanks for sharing it with us.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Two awesome stories guys! Angels indeed! I have heard numerous stories of idiots tagging found dead animals and slapping a tag on as fast as they can, good to hear a positive story this time! That is pretty awesome that someone would do that much work for a complete stranger not even knowing if they would ever find the shooter!


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

elk22hunter said:


> Pay no mind to Tex and his "book of myths". Although he comes across a bit cheeky, deep down, he is a very religious man, he just doesn't know it yet.  I love a good Prayer story. I only wish that I had read this 2 hours ago and not right after my talk this morning. ha ha
> 
> I have a very similar story that they published in the Eastman's Journal a few years ago. It happened to my brother and I in Idaho. He had shot a bull one evening. I helped him get in on it and then at the whack of the arrow, I went up higher to a bull that I heard bugle right after his shot. I killed a Pope and Young 6x6 and it was down immediately. We then began looking for his very poor blood trail and determined to leave it till morn. He climbed over the hill to look while I took the easier route to bring the horses. He looked for hours and had given up on lack of blood and evidence. He had sent out many prayers. He then stood atop a little rise to bugle and got a cow chirp back immediately. He thought it to be a hunter as it was too perfect. The hunters came out of the trees and after some short (no pun meant North Slope) introductions they told him that they had happened upon his bull earlier and hurried and quartered it also like North Slope and had it hanging. They were sick for him and hoped that they would meet up with the saddened hunter instead of doing what some might do and claim the 347 point 6x7 for their own. Prayers were answered, friends were made and all turned out good in Elk camp that year with two big bulls taken with archery tackle within 150 yards of each other and only 30 minutes apart.


So when are you taking me to Idaho??


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## elk22hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

As crazy as it sounds, I havent been back for probably 10 years. I went for 5 years in a row and killed 3 of the 5. I have been drawing elswhere or going with someone else who has drawn good tags lately and haven't felt the need to go back. It was a great area but I may be a bit old for it. We would take a trailer full of horses and pack in a ways. I loved that part of it. When I was younger, every year I would be so excited to go that I could hardly stand it. Once I got there and began my hike in the early morning I would remember how steep it was and get discouraged. To do that monster hike every day for a week was very difficult. Now that I am older and even though its been several years since I last went, I don't forget how steep it was. That must be a sign of old age creeping in.


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

elk22hunter said:


> As crazy as it sounds, I havent been back for probably 10 years. I went for 5 years in a row and killed 3 of the 5. I have been drawing elswhere or going with someone else who has drawn good tags lately and haven't felt the need to go back. It was a great area but I may be a bit old for it. We would take a trailer full of horses and pack in a ways. I loved that part of it. When I was younger, every year I would be so excited to go that I could hardly stand it. Once I got there and began my hike in the early morning I would remember how steep it was and get discouraged. To do that monster hike every day for a week was very difficult. Now that I am older and even though its been several years since I last went, I don't forget how steep it was. That must be a sign of old age creeping in.


I guess is what your saying is that it is time to pass the torch. Do you want to PM me the direction or should I come over and get more detailed info. I love to hike up steep, nasty, hills. Why would you want this area to go to waste? At your age we should get sit down soon and talk about this. (you might forget everything)


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## elk22hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

north slope said:


> At your age we should get sit down soon and talk about this. (you might forget everything)


..............................................uh, what were we talking about? :mrgreen:


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

:?


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## dkhntrdstn (Sep 7, 2007)

congrats to your buddy and nice job helping him findhis bull.


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## archerben (Sep 14, 2007)

I wasn't going to post my story, but the last two have inspired me to pass on yet another story of simple human kindness. 

Saturday morning found me climbing into in my treestand about 15 minutes after first shooting light. My plan was to sit the stand for the morning and, if nothing happened, I was going to spend the rest of the day exploring the next canyon over. The first hour and half was very quiet and I had nearly made up my mind that there were no elk in this canyon today. It was so quiet in fact that I had stepped over to my buddies tree treestand (he couldn't make it today) because his seat is a lot more comfortable than mine. Shortly after 8:00 I started to hear something moving around on the hill above me. The sounds slowly continued to get closer so I decided I better get back into my stand because that was where I had left my bow, and it was a long reach from the stand I was in. Just after sitting down, a branch popped behind me. As I slowly turned to look I saw a cow making her way towards me. I slowly got my bow in hand and hooked my release onto my D-loop, just in time for her to step into a lane and stop, giving me a perfect broadside shot. I then looked at the next elk in line and noticed it was a spike, and thus decided to pass on the lead cow. As she started to move on the splike then stepped into the lane and I drew my bow. Unfortunately, he did not stop and just walked right through the lane. I let my bow down, hoping I would get another oppurtunity in a different lane. Almost immediatly I then noticed the lead cow taking a course I did not expect which lead directly away from me. I started to worry that I had missed my oppurtunity altogether! Just then the lead cow made a hard right turn and veered up the hill into another wide open lane. Fortunately the spike followed. I drew my bow as the spike approached the shooting lane and he stopped at 23 yards, very slightly quartering away. I put my 20 pin at the top of the pocket just behind the shoulder and started my shot process. Two seconds later the arrow exploded out of my bow and the elk all jumped about 20 - 25 yards before stopping to figure out what had just happened. Through the trees I could just see the head of the spike. As I put my glasses on him I could see that he was slowying swaying back and forth and I immediately new I had made a good shot. After about 15 seconds the swaying stopped and he toppled over rolling down the hill and wedging himself underneath a fallen tree, which I would later have to cut in half to get him out. I waited for about five minutes to climb out of the tree, and then proceeded to go to work on the elk I had just taken. I knew I had a long day ahead of me as I was a little more than 1 1/2 miles from the trailhead and had no help with me today.

Now for the reason for posting the story...As I was quartering the elk I suddenly heard a voice say "Nice elk!" I looked up to see another hunter coming up the hill. I thanked him and we proceeded to introduce ourselves, during which he told me that he had an any bull tag. He sat down and BS'd with me while I continued to quarter. After a couple of minutes of conversation, he asked if I wanted some help packing the quarters out. Knowing that he had a big bull tag I told him that I could not accept his offer as he has bigger and better things (literally) to worry about. Yet he insisted that he help me. Between the two of us we were able to get the elk out in one trip. Thanks to his generosity I had the entire elk home and was butchering by 4:00 in the afternoon. Hopefully one day I can return the favor. I imagine there's a good chance I'll run into him again. As we talked web quickly realized that we've got a couple of mutual friends from the competitive archery world.


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

Most of the people I met in the woods have been cool people..........Nice story.


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## elk22hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

That was a great story Archer Ben but along the title of this thread, you missed a key point. You mentioned Elk, You mentioned bows but you forgot to mention that you had been praying that someone would help you.  Congrats on your hunt.


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## archerben (Sep 14, 2007)

> You mentioned bows but you forgot to mention that you had been praying that someone would help you.


You're right, I didn't mention a prayer asking specifically for somebody to help me because there was no such prayer. However, I did offer a prayer before I started the quartering job (as I always do before going to work on an animal) with three key points:
1- to thank the Lord for the oppurtunity to take and recover the animal,
2- to ask the Lord to bless me with the ability to safely take care of the animal (sticking a knife in my leg is one of my biggest fears while hunting),
3- and to ask the Lord bless me with the necessary strength to pack the animal out.

So all send and done the Lord did answer my prayer as I didn't so much as even nick myself with my knife, and I had plenty of strength between myself and my new found buddy to get the elk back to the truck.


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

Amen!


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## Treehugnhuntr (Sep 7, 2007)

archerben said:


> > You mentioned bows but you forgot to mention that you had been praying that someone would help you.
> 
> 
> You're right, I didn't mention a prayer asking specifically for somebody to help me because there was no such prayer. However, I did offer a prayer before I started the quartering job (as I always do before going to work on an animal) with three key points:
> ...


Huh me too......... and I didn't even pray. Weird.


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## chkrhntr (Sep 20, 2007)

Small world, your buddy Jason is my best friends older brother. Tell him Jake says congratulations! Has he killed a deer yet? Maybe I'll give him a call. 
Way to be "in tune" NS!


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## north slope (Sep 8, 2007)

He got into some big deer on the opener but nothing yet, we might go this next weekend. That is funny, I forget his name but it must be the brother that is in school in Logan. Your right small world!


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## chkrhntr (Sep 20, 2007)

Yep, Brandon is in school up in Logan. They were my nieghboors growing up.


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