September 17, 2019

It rained all night last night, torrential rain at times. After listening to the rain pound off the tent all night, I knew I would need a small miracle to locate the wounded bull. Unlike deer, elk can go miles upon miles after being gut shot. I knew he would probably go a long distance since he followed the herd of cows. The only thing we could do was to go back and give it our best shot.

Dad, Brian, Jason and I headed out when the rain stopped in the late morning. When we got to the site, we split up and started grid searching for the arrow. Jason located it quickly, and amazingly, it still had a lot of blood on it. This gave us some false hope, but the hope quickly dissipated as we continued searching.

We ended up searching for the better part of the day but had no luck. I was irritated at myself and disappointed that I wounded such a magnificent animal. I felt especially bad since I knew the elk would not live. Animals cannot survive gut shots when the arrow goes through the middle section.

Dad and Jason split off from Brian and I at midday and decided to hunt back to camp. When Brian and I got back to the tent, they weren’t there. When we heard them on the radio, we learned that Jason had killed his first bull elk. I was excited for him. There’s nothing like killing an elk, especially when he’s bugling on his way in.


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