Elk Hunting Scenario

[cohunter14]

It\'s your last day of the hunt and you glass some elk traversing a nearby hillside. You quickly get to the edge of an opening that you anticipate them crossing and knock an arrow. You are at the bottom of the opening and they are going to be crossing uphill from you, which is great as you still have the morning thermals blowing in your face. One by one, ten cows begin filtering through coming from the trees on the right and moving to your left. They are slowly feeding as they go and you are able to range them undetected at 40 yards. As the cows slowly begin to disappear back into the woods on the left side, out pops this bull. He is traversing across the hill in the same direction, but he is a little higher on the hill and is 60 yards away. The elk are still oblivious to your presence in the shadows of the trees, but there is nothing between you and the bull and no way to get closer undetected. If you allow the bull to continue on and follow the cows, he will enter the woods and begin dropping down into a steep draw. What is your plan of attack?

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[bowhunter]

Can\'t wait to se what the experienced elk slayers say.

I would probably screw up this opportunity by throwing out a couple soft cow calls.

 

[Baby Huey]

With my compound, I would get set up and ready for the 60 yd shot. I would try to stop the bull with a cow call when he got to a good position for the shot. If he doesn\'t stop, then I would not shoot and would follow the scenario below.

If I had my recurve, I would start angling behind the and toward the cows as they descend, trying to intercept the bull as he follows the cows. If no interception, then I would keep following him down to see if I could work to get a shot. Another scenario (which I probably wouldn\'t do - just because of my hunting style) is that if I snuck to under 60yds with some cover, I may try a bugle to get him to come closer, to make him think another bull slipped right in almost between him and his cows. But, I would rather try to sneak in on the bull, as I do not like to give away my position when I hunt. If I bugle then he will know something is there - elk or hunter...but since it is the last day of my hunt I may try this more aggressive approach.

 

[Bowfreak]

I would be tempted to shoot but I never make the right decision elk hunting.

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[cnelk]

Like Roman said:

First I draw and settle the 60yds pin 1/3 up his body, following him.
I would let out a loud \'UMMMPHHH\' sound.
And he would stop and look in my direction.

This is not the time to hurry. Taking my time.
Im thinking 5 seconds....

I would put my pin right here and drop the string....

Some may think its a little far back, but at that range, I want to be sure to stay away from the scapula
Arrow penetration prob wont be a pass-thru but both lungs will have holes.

 

[WW]

Nice bull! Look at the 3\'s on that guy. They will add an extra 8-10 inches to his gross score. I can stop him on a dime with a nervous bark. But even then, 60 yards is out of my sure kill range. I\'ll let him pass and just be thankful to have had an enjoyable morning of hunting. Maybe tomorrow he will be closer.

 

[kjack_74]

My experience has been the cow call doesn\'t work well to stop a bigger bull like that in that spot they just keep walking, if he\'s with a herd of cows he hears that all the time ... It\'s background noise. If I\'m in his heard of cows I give him either a chuckling noise (best I can describe it, ElkNut does a great job in a podcast called hunt the Backcountry or I even give him a challenge call if I\'m really in with the cows I think it pisses him off that a bull got in like that without him knowing it and he will stop to answer back or come in a lot closer and look like he\'s gonna just kill you ... Or pick up his ladies and go.

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[cnelk]

Elknut?

These are elknuts

 

[elkmtngear]

BARK, FOCUS, RELEASE !

 

[cohunter14]

Welcome to the site Kyle! :welcome:

 

[Bowfreak]

Lol!

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[WW]

JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:

Let\'s say you are able to stop the bull @ 60 yards away which I know I can do 100% of the time. And let\'s say you are shooting a fast bow. Remember, you stopped him with a sound and he is now on alert and probably looking in your direction. On the average, a hunting arrow will travel about 265 FPS. But I\'ll give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you speed freaks 300 FPS. That equals 204 MPH. The speed of sound is 767 MPH. Now which do you think the elk is going to react to first, the sound and movement of your shot, or, the arrow impacting him. I sure hope your bow in quiet as church mouse.

Here are some figures to think about:

300 FPS = 204 MPH. Speed of sound is 3.75 times faster

265 FPS = 180 MPH Speed of sound is 4.26 times faster

200 FPS = 136 MPH Speed of sound is 5.64 times faster

 

[cohunter14]

JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:

Let\'s say you are able to stop the bull @ 60 yards away which I know I can do 100% of the time. And let\'s say you are shooting a fast bow. Remember, you stopped him with a sound and he is now on alert and probably looking in your direction. On the average, a hunting arrow will travel about 265 FPS. But I\'ll give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you speed freaks 300 FPS. That equals 204 MPH. The speed of sound is 767 MPH. Now which do you think the elk is going to react to first, the sound and movement of your shot, or, the arrow impacting him. I sure hope your bow in quiet as church mouse.

Here are some figures to think about:

300 FPS = 204 MPH. Speed of sound is 3.75 times faster

265 FPS = 180 MPH Speed of sound is 4.26 times faster

200 FPS = 136 MPH Speed of sound is 5.64 times faster

But also remember that we are talking 180 feet. The sound gets there in 0.16 seconds.

- At 300 FPS, the arrow gets there in 0.6 seconds. A difference of .44 seconds
- At 265 FPS, the arrow gets there in 0.68 seconds. A difference of .52 seconds
- At 200 FPS, the arrow gets there in 0.9 seconds. A difference of .74 seconds

In my scenario, when I put \'slowly feeding\' I meant that they would occasionally stop and feed. But definitely a great point Bill! Does that 1/2 second matter if you have to stop a bull with a noise and he is looking in your direction? What about at 30 yards? The time is cut in half, but is that significant?

 

[WW]

It is just like I stated, (Just something to think about) Personally, I choose not to take the shot. It is beyond my self imposed range. Animal reaction time is amazing to say the least. I\'m old school! As for bowhunting, I still believe getting close is the name of the game.

 

[cohunter14]

There is a method to my madness, so to speak, with this scenario. This is a real scenario that happened to me this year, except it was during rifle season. The yardages were certainly different, but some of the same issues were there. If I didn\'t take the shot when it was presented, the opportunity was pretty much going to be over. In the scenario I drew up here, once the bull moves into the trees and begins to go downhill into the drainage, your opportunity is basically gone. You could try to chase after them, but the morning thermals would more than likely blow straight to them once they are below you. You can circle downhill and try to approach them from below, but your time is running out as the thermals won\'t stay blowing downhill forever.

In my real world scenario, I was 775 yards away from the bull. Here is a photo from where I was at with an arrow pointing to where he was.

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If he entered the woods, it was going to make it extremely difficult to get on him. Thermals would soon be switching, which takes away the option of moving to my left and trying to sneak up on them from underneath. I could have tried to get above them and enter that steep draw from up high, but the chances of me sneaking quiet enough down that steep slope and getting a shot in the thick stuff with a bunch of eyeballs around were minimal. I didn\'t have the option to get closer and wait them out since we were leaving that afternoon. And I certainly wasn\'t going to be able to get closer for a shot. By the time I covered enough ground to get through those trees in front of me, he would have been deep into the woods.

Lucky for me, I had practiced shooting well passed 1,000 yards and was confident at this range. I had time to prepare for my shot and was able to squeeze one off when he stopped perfectly broadside, allowing me to punch my tag.

Unfortunately, there are many times during a hunt when things don\'t go absolutely as planned. You can position yourself in what should be the perfect spot, only to have an elk take a different route and leave you with a longer shot. Shooting at 60 yards with a bow seems to fall into the same \'long range\' category that rifle shots over 300 yards do. My point in this exercise is to encourage those of you who aren\'t confident at longer ranges to get out and practice. Work on stretching your limits. You can see in the responses that the guys who are confident at this distance are letting an arrow fly and probably have a very high percentage of punching their tag. Those who are waiting have their work cut out for them at a minimum, and I would be willing to bet they will more than likely be heading home with tag soup in this scenario (since it\'s the last day).

You can control only a handful of things during any given hunt and your maximum lethal range is certainly one of them.

 

[cohunter14]

It is just like I stated, (Just something to think about) Personally, I choose not to take the shot. It is beyond my self imposed range. Animal reaction time is amazing to say the least. I\'m old school! As for bowhunting, I still believe getting close is the name of the game.

I completely respect that Bill. Getting close is certainly the name of the game. Like I mentioned, there are times when things just don\'t go as planned and you can\'t control that. I was just curious to hear from someone with your experience if you had seen scenarios where that time difference is substantial. Obviously difficult to tell when we are talking portions of a second!

 

[midwest]

If I was Cam Hanes, I shoot it at 60, pin wheel him, and the camera man gets everything on film. I\'m not Cam Hanes, so he gets a pass.

 

[cohunter14]

That\'s kind of my point though Nick. With some practice, everyone can extend their range (if they want to). If a dummy like me can learn to shoot longer ranges, anyone can. I know some don\'t have any interest in doing it, but for those that do it\'s just a matter of committing and practicing. I can tell you it\'s way easier to learn that than it would be for me to learn to run 14+ miles like you did today! That\'s impressive stuff!

 

[Iron_Will_Eric]

Great post, and thank you for the further motivation to get out and extend that shot distance! It is SO frustrating when you do everything right and are rewarded with an opportunity, and the bull walks out 10 yards past your effective range, only to be gone forever. This has happened way too many times to me, and needs to stop THIS year!

Time to get out and practice! :train:

 

[elkmtngear]

I pulled off basically the exact same scenario this Season at 45 yards. I released within one second after I stopped the bull (with a bark). My buddy was 20 yards behind me with the decoy, and never heard the shot.

After Spring, I shoot daily out to 80 yards. My results at 80 yards are not consistent enough for me to ever justify that shot.

However, at 60 yards I\'m very consistent. I shoot both downhill and uphill at 60 yards. Probably wouldn\'t have considered it in earlier years...but the shooting has paid off.

I\'d take him at 60.