Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting The bull you could not recover....

Probly depends if its archery or not

We have a wound policy. If it was deemed a non lethal hit they can keep hunting. If it was a likely lethal they have to hunt for that animal for for at least a full day of hunting. After that day they can continue hunting for that animal for the remainder of the hunt as part of the original hunt cost. After the full day of trying to recover the animal the hunter can take another animal for a hefty trophy fee. We still pay the ranches for every animal recovered or not. The trophy fee is elevated to discourage taking another animal. Most guys agree they’re done when an animal is lost.

" If you draw blood and don’t recover do you notch your tag?"

YUP every time .

I lost a buck once, shot him low in the front leg, totally my f-up. Probably survived, my season ended.




P

I’ll never shoot a bull head on with a bow again, doesn’t matter if it’s 5 yards or not

And yet there are bow hunters that would argue you into the ground that it’s lethal shot. Like you, that shot isn’t for me.

It's lethal IF you can hit that hole under the chin every time. It's not a real big hole.

Elk Anatomy is different from Deer anatomy.

I had a good string of horses and mules. When I did not get drawn, I would go with a neighbor to help butcher and pack out the animal. After a bad recovery and an almost fist fight on a dangerous recovery, I sat some rules for me and my mules to get involved with.

A. the guy with the tag had to go to the rifle range with the type of ammo he was going to hunt with at least three times prior to the hunt. It has never ceased to amaze me how a guy would show up with his rifle with a variety of brands and bullet weights with no clue what was going on with any of it. One guy showed up at the rifle range with his 30/06 7400 with Remington 55g Accelerators, and figured to use a Leatherman knife to butcher his elk. During those 3 sight in trips, we talked about skinning, care of meat and how to keep the meat till it got to the processor, etc. Details seemed to really piss some off, reality of dealing with the amount of meat, processing a dead game animal, their having to get their hands dirty, etc. Often, it came down to their lack of interest due to the fact that their wife did not eat, nor would cook any elk or deer meat. Another guy showed up at the rifle range with his 7 mag BAR with a coffee can of loose ammo of different brands, when I questioned him on type of bullets, etc, his response was, "We do not get into that kind of thing", meaning him and his brother. They were able to keep the shots in an 8" circle at 100 yards.

B. Anyone that just wanted to go to the range and verify zero the week before hunting season did not get the pleasure of my mules packing out their game, since I was working for free.

C. Anyone that figured that their rifle was still sighted in from last year, was asked to loose my phone number...I did not care who he was, how much money he made, DR or Lawyer, they could all kiss my Azz.

D. If the elk was hit, ran off down a deep canyon, I would wait at the top, holding the mules while they quartered up the animal and packed the animal to the top. I did have 300 feet of rope, with a couple of mules broke to harness that could pull the hind quarters part way up. We Indian Skinned all animals, quartering, back strap, boning the meat off the neck.

Another poster said that 25% of the people that shot an elk had no idea of how to track an animal. I have seen a few that did not even care to track, but opted to "go get another one"...a terrible thing to actually witness.

I bow shot one two years ago in NM. I was in a ground blind 30 yards from a waterhole. A decent 5x5 came in to drink, facing away from me. Even though I’d killed five elk with my bow, I was excited. As he turned to leave I took a quartering away shot that I think went into his arm pit, angling forward. We left him for three hours, then six of us took up the track. According to my sons gps we followed a sparse blood trail over a mile. We saw him going over a ridge with several other elk, and we lost the trail. I don’t know if it was a fatal shot.

One time, years ago, four excited guys in a truck came roaring up to me while I was in front of our house. They were tracking/chasing an elk one of them had wounded on a ranch next door and ran onto our land.

The driver told me he wasn’t required to ask my permission to proceed tracking it on my property, but was being courteous by letting me know.

I told them to go ahead, and told how to find the two track through our place. I was taken aback at his understanding of NM hunting rules.

Recently I found this in the NMGF website:

“ Anyone who wounds or may have wounded any big-game species must go to the place where the animal sustained the wound or may have sustained the wound and make a reasonable attempt to track and kill the animal. This requirement does not authorize trespass on private land. Call 1-800-432-4263 for assistance recovering a wounded animal that enters private land.”

What would happen after a call to this phone number?

Lost a 5x5 Roosevelt. He recovered but I didn't recover him. Lessons are pretty obvious from my story. He was walking slowly down a steep hill broadside at 125 yards at my shot, 180 Swift Aframe in 06. I aimed tight behind mid shoulder, and he stepped in a hole and lurched down as I shot. The bull dropped like a stone and rolled down the hill. Hmmm... he should not have dropped like that where I was aiming. But he was down.

I walked up to him. I didn't see a wound but he was unconcious. I considered a finisher but my cell phone buzzed from my partner above me asking which way the herd had gone. I stepped away from the bull to see up the hill better, and he got up and ran away.

An excellent tracker and I tracked the bull for 8 1/2 hours, covering a mile and a half. The only blood was smears on the under side of limbs, never a drop on the ground. No tracks in the Olympic Pennisula ground cover, minimal bent ferns. Blood indicated he was hit high at the back of the withers. We could have made the entire blood trail with a half cup of blood and an artist's brush. The bull rejoined his herd a few days later with a dirty, mussed patch high on his withers. We watched him off and on all winter.

It wasnt a bull, but a cow and it still puzzles me.
Still hunting through timber, 30-06 with I think 165 fusion (It was in college, I wasn't the bullet nut that I am now). Shot was less than 50, MAYBE 30 yards, 1/4ing away. No hair no blood at the shot sight, but we had a good idea of where she was going so we tried to cut her off, or ambush her as she got there.

We crossed the trail and found a fair amount of blood, probably 200 yards from the shot site, if memory serves.
Tracked it, never found her and ran out of light. It was the last day of the hunt. Called local Game and Fish (I had shadowed her for school for a couple months so knew her well.) Told her the story, she said "youre free to recover, but remember the hunt is over."
I responded with "Shelley, I will not let a wounded elk suffer. I will let you know what happens".

Never found the elk.

If I had to guess, I shot her too far back. Looking back, I should have put it at the base of her ear.

Arrowed a cow, waited 1/2 hr and then lost tracks and sign on a skid road. Spent all of the next day running out every possibility. Two weeks later encountered some other hunters in the same locale, and two weeks back to the day they'd had a cow fall over dead in front of their rig. Waited about 20 minutes and no one showed up, so they loaded her up. They were still hauling my arrow around and I at least got that back. Glad Mother Nature was not the consumer.


Seems to be the policy if one is using a guide in this neck of the woods. Draw blood and your hunt is over.

I lost a bull during Archery season. I called him to 20 yards shot thought it was perfect. But the arrow didn't hit where I was looking. I had hit a tiny branch in the sun that I did not see. The arrow hit back in his paunch. I left him for 5 hours. Had 5 guys searching for him. Lost all blood and tracks kept searching for a day and half. Ripped my tag up and went home. 3rd day a hunting partner found him by smell and birds. He was laying in some rocks under a downed tree. We had walked by that area several times. I was sick never lost another elk since.