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PHOTO: courtesy Jaret Falkowski

by Jaret Falkowski

Something changed in me that night. Standing in the Wyoming wilderness with this animal stirred my soul in ways I’d never experienced.I look down at the oranges and reds of the setting October sun reflecting off the water lapping at my ankles. My feet had gone numb as I stand all alone in my underwear hunched over the dead bull elk laying in the mountain creek. Working my knife around bone and muscle, my hands are bruised and scraped—but I can’t feel those either. I am loving every second of this.

I’d left the trailhead early that morning in crisp temperatures and a rare absence of wind. It was my first season hunting elk and the days in Wyoming’s rifle season were drawing short. I’d decided to try a new spot for this hunt after striking out in another area where earlier in the fall I’d found a set of sheds laying right in the open. The antlers left me to wonder if no one else ever hunted there and hoping the same bull would return to winter once the first cold snap hit. But after some frigid gusty days of glassing and no sign of elk I decided to change it up.

I had a good lead on this spot from my physical therapist helping me recover from a torn PCL I’d injured playing baseball a couple months prior. Everyone else told me there was no chance of me hunting that fall. I thought otherwise.Injured or not, my being on this mountainside seemed unlikely at best. I was born and raised in California’s Silicon Valley only a mile or so from the headquarters of Apple, Google and Facebook. We did a little hiking, but I was largely unaware of the world outside the city I grew up in and the high school sports that consumed much of my life. I never gave hunting a thought.

My path to discovering elk began a few days after high school graduation when I moved to Laramie, Wyoming, to attend the University of Wyoming to play football. Unfortunately my collegiate athletic career did not last long. My freshman year was plagued by injuries, and I ended up hanging up the cleats shortly thereafter.

I was devastated, to say the least. I had trained all through high school, working out early every morning, staying late after practice to watch film and get advice from my coaches. Once football disappeared from my life, it left a void I longed to fill.

This new-found passion for hunting began to rival my love of football as I learned how animals move and interact, what they eat and where they drink.

But sophomore year I started to make friends outside of sports who invited me to go hunting. I was immediately intrigued by the idea of harvesting my own meat and, being an athlete, the physicality needed to traverse the mountains. Their mentorship introduced me to some great experiences. Helping to scout, I absorbed as much information as I could and soon began packing a rifle along with them.That first year, I killed an antelope buck with a buddy and soon I ventured out on my own in search of deer. This new-found passion for hunting began to rival my love of football as I learned how animals move and interact, what they eat and where they drink. By my senior year, I decided to try for elk.

Being the first in my extended family to hunt made it hard for some of them to understand but I loved explaining why it was becoming a huge part of my life. Not much else forces you to study animal habits like when your goal is to harvest one. Through this I realized how fragile life is and how brutal winters can be out there in the wild. I had seen snow growing up but never spent a whole winter in a place like Wyoming. The animals there are so resilient and just watching them has given me deep appreciation for their tenacity and encouraged me to grow more
tenacious as well.

I’d seen frequent elk sign since leaving my truck at the edge of the wilderness boundary. I had only seen a couple cows all season and hiked more miles than I ever thought I could, but I am not giving up. My PCL is almost completely healed as is my confidence that it can handle the backcountry.I decide to hike down the drainage and become more and more aware of the increasing presence of elk droppings, rubs and tracks. This is amazing, I think to myself, a strange belief washing over me that I will get into elk today.Snow scatters the ground, especially in the shaded spots, making tracks easy to spot. After a couple miles creeping deeper into the wilderness I spot a mixed herd of cows and bulls a few hundred yards out. They have no idea of my existence, due in part to the creek between us drowning out the sounds of my steps. The lack of wind also helps conceal my presence as they continue to feed, enjoying the late October sun.

My heart begins to pound as I creep closer, lying prone to set up a shot and ranging one bull at 186 yards. Perfect scenario. I have no idea what his antlers look like—he has his head down feeding behind a tree with the tips barely visible. At this point in my hunting journey I could care less about the size of his rack. I just want to experience it all and bring home as much meat as possible.

This is amazing, I think to myself, a strange belief washing over me that I will get into elk today.

As the bull steps out broadside from behind the tree, I slow my breathing and crush the trigger of my new budget .30-06. The shot feels good. I watch as the herd rushes out of sight into the willows and timber, the bull among them. Elk must be super tough or I just flat out missed, I think. All offseason I had dreamt of a situation like this and in my head the bull always dropped immediately. Welp, this is interesting. I did not expect him to just take off like that. I approach the spot where the bull had been feeding, but can’t find blood anywhere. I get on tracks and trace where the herd had retreated to, spending 30 minutes scouring a third of a mile until the tracks begin to disperse. Still no blood.

My heart sinks as doubt begins to creep in— the worst feeling of my life. My inexperience feels all too apparent as I grasp for answers about what to do next. I had put so many rounds through that rifle over the summer. Maybe I did miss.

I continue tracking the herd to a creek crossing. I look downstream as I approach. Nothing. The thick willows make it hard to see upstream so I push my way through. Emerging from the tangle, I look up the creek and almost immediately spot the shape of a bull lying dead in the water. With a wave of excitement I ignore the chilly temperatures and jump into the creek with all my gear, slipping and sliding as I run up to him. I cannot believe it—my first elk is a bull, on public land, in a wilderness area, and I have done it myself!

I run my fingers down his 6x6 antlers, rubbing my thumb over little extra points near his royals and admiring the darkness of the rack—likely the product of rubbing on burned trees from wildfires that had blackened this area over the summer. Even more impressive is the size of his body. He must have been feeding all summer on all the new growth from those fires. I am not a very emotional person, but the feeling of standing in the Wyoming wilderness with this animal stirs my soul in ways I’d never experienced.

But my amazement fades as I start to think through the reality of having a big bull down, lying in a cold mountain stream, and I am by myself. I take all my gear out and lay it on the bank. I strip to my underwear and decide to hang my pants and boots in the willows hoping they will dry with the few hours of daylight I have left.

I spend a good 30 minutes trying to drag the bull onto dry ground. I manage to move him to one side of the creek and then the other, but cannot get him up on either bank. It suddenly seems comical to think that I can pull an 800-pound elk out of a creek and onto dry land, and I feel stupid having wasted precious time and energy convinced I could. Tired and unsuccessful, I give up the fight and stand there in my underwear for a couple minutes thinking what now? Guess I'll just have to quarter him in the creek. I don’t really have any other choice.

Fortunately the creek only comes up to my calves as I try to mentally block out the temperatures falling with the setting Wyoming sun. As I work for the next two hours by headlamp, moving back and forth from the bank to the carcass, an amazing clarity comes over me. I think about my life in football, how I’d felt lost after my playing days ended, yet how fortunate I am to find hunting and this connection to wilderness and wildness.

Exhausted and cold from bending over in the freezing creek, my feet have gone numb and my hands are becoming so stiff I can barely hold a knife as I finish quartering him.

I decide to make a fire to warm up and soon welcome crackling flames illuminating the hollow of willows. I also discover that my pants and boots have frozen solid, so I place them near the fire. A sense of vulnerability comes over me as I think about being in the wilderness at night. Growing up in the city, I was always able to return to the comfort of my house. I’d been in Wyoming for four years and am far removed from the California lifestyle where I grew up, but I sure feel soft and scared in the darkness.

Yet as my body thaws, another realization comes to me under the starry Wyoming sky. This is awesome.

Warmed, rejuvenated and still running on adrenaline, I shoulder the first load of meat and spend the rest of the night packing the bull out, taking four trips to my truck and back. I am not in grizzly country, but I need to get him out that night to make it to an exam tomorrow.

As I haul quarters, I sing songs, talk to myself and pray in the dark. My headlamp illuminates just enough to traverse over burned timber and downed logs. An instinct kicks in that I have never experienced before. I am not sure words can explain it; I just know what I need to. I do not look for excuses. I put my trust in God and will not give up. I have been blessed with this beautiful animal.

As I drop the last load in the bed of the pickup, I hop in the cab and drive the whole way back to my college apartment with a smile on my face, utterly exhausted but excited to tell my parents and buddies about my bull. I have discovered something in hunting I had not been able to find anywhere else. A passion that will stay with me for rest of my life.

My heart sinks as doubt begins to creep in— the worst feeling of my life. My inexperience feels all too apparent as I grasp for answers about what to do next.

Jaret Falkowski lives in southwest Montana with his beautiful wife of a year. He works as an independent contractor in construction and is very thankful for any time he gets exploring in God’s country looking for antlers in the spring and chasing elk in the fall.