How to Hunt Elk Solo in the Backcountry: The Shot, the Pack Out, and 24 Hours of Hurt (Part 2)
I was up and at ‘em hours before dark and making my climb back up the ridge. When I got up there, I used the spine to my advantage I stayed just on the opposite side, keeping my thermals from getting pulled down into the drainage where I expected the elk to be. The bugling started before the sun rose, and the herd was in the bottom of the drainage again, maybe 400 yds below me. I took it slow, waiting for the sun to come up and the thermals to start rising before easing my way down into the action.
The sun hit my side of the drainage early, so I dropped a few hundred yards to the dark timber and waited another 30-45 minutes for the sun to warm things up and provide a consistent wind coming up out of the bottom where the herd was still hanging. You could tell the herd bull was doing his best to fend off satellites from stealing his cows. His bugles were agitated and generally pissed off as he ran in circles down below me, doing his best to maintain possession.
I had to be really careful not to bust any elk while sneaking in there. These elk wanted to be here, and going in all guns blazing on day 1 wasn’t the right approach. If I pushed them all out of this drainage, my hunt would get considerably harder, mostly due to the added miles I would need to cover to stay on elk. I needed to take it slow and not f-ck this up.
I got to within 100yds and my cover started to get a bit thin. I backed off just a bit and started in with some raking, excited bull vocalizations and excited cow calls, trying to sound like there was something dirty happening up here that Mr. Herd bull might want to investigate. He responded but he wasn’t moving. Eventually, he moved his herd up onto the adjacent ridge and things got quiet. I backed out, and made a plan to circle the entire drainage and come in above them from the next ridge over. Based on the topography, my feeling was that they were going to bed down somewhere up there and wait out the heat of the day.
It took me about an hour to make the trek around to the other side and it was now about 10 am. There was very little cover up there, making the stalking quite difficult. I had a good idea of where they would be, a stand of dark timber on a steep section of the ridge approximately 300-400yds above that same drainage/shithole. Well, I was wrong. They were all bedded just above that dark timber, and I busted them all out of there, getting a good look at the herd bull, a nice 6x6, as he took off down the ridge. Fack me!
I figured it was a cow that saw me, as the wind was perfect, and I could tell he hadn’t seen me. So I decided to dog them, and off I went down into the bottom of that drainage, hot on their trail. After getting into the bottom and following their tracks through the thick softwood, deadfall, spring seeps, and other shenanigans, I could hear him start bugling again, likely working to bring order back to the herd and wrangle up any loose ladies still riled up from my appearance. But I also heard other bulls already on the scene, and I knew that was going to distract him from my presence and give me the chance I needed to get back in close.
My strategy in this situation is simple. Move fast in the thick cover and use cow calls with a pleading type of “get over here” tone with some light bugles mixed in. I call, projecting the sounds back behind me, rake some trees, cause a racket, move forward 20-30yds and stop for 5 minutes and listen. I’m trying to convince a bull that there’s a cow in heat asking for a bull to come and get her and that there’s another bull in the area that’s kinda sorta involved. I move forward to change my location, hoping they will key on my last calls and move past me to get to them. I use this same tactic when stalking whitetails in the mountains of the northeast and it works really well. I don’t want to be standing where they expect me to be, I want to intercept them on their way in. I know that the herd already came barreling through here, so most elk within ear shot are on their feet and wondering what’s going on anyways. It’s a bit exhausting but also a ton of fun, keeping you engaged and dynamic in the process, something my very A.D.D. brain needs.
I had done this for maybe 3-4 setups and had just made my move from my last listening spot when I caught movement in front of me. I could see a rack coming at me through the thick softwood about 50yds out and quickly nocked an arrow, without time to even hit record on my GoPro. It was not a great spot, super thick with very little shooting lanes. He came through below me at about 20yds and I picked out a lane about 3 feet wide and drew my bow, he was walking as he entered it and I didn’t even try to stop him, holding behind the shoulder and let the arrow fly. The hit was a bit high, and I kicked myself as he crashed off. But then I heard a lot of crashing, followed by silence. I dropped down and found blood but no arrow so I waited for 20-30 minutes before following the trail.
He was piled up 75 yds away! The hit was high but the angle got the arrow into a lung, and he died quickly. A nice 5-point on one side and a single 3-foot sweeping spike on the other side. A very unique bull, and I was elated! I sent an InReach pin to my buddy Kevin to let him know of my success. His response was something along the lines of, “Nice work! You’re in that shit hole lol!!”
And then the real work began. Shooting them is the easy part; getting them out is what we train for. Doing it solo is a whole different ball game, from butchering to loading your pack to making the trek out. He died on a side hill with his back on the downhill side against a big blowdown. I couldn’t flip him and it took me hours longer to quarter him. I shot him at around 3:30 pm, started butchering around 4:15 and started out with my first load a little before 8 pm, getting to the jeep at about 11:00 pm. I got the final load to the jeep before dark the following day, somewhere around 24 hours total. I was beat up, but the stoke was high and I was going to be bringing several hundred pounds of meat home to my family.
My training prepared me physically and mentally for the challenge of packing that bull out of the backcountry alone.
Adrian Guyer CSCS, RSCC, NSCA CPT, USAW2, CSAC is a full-time strength and conditioning coach and owner/founder of XIP Training Systems and Ridgeline Athlete. He and his staff have worked with thousands of athletes from almost every conventional sport and also outside the lines in backcountry athletics. Adrian’s passion and success in backcountry hunting allow for an in-the-trenches approach to designing more effective backcountry training programs that transfer to the demands of backcountry hunting.