Blue Grouse and Bull Elk
A bowhunt left me to ponder the thin separation between life and death—and the moments that bind us to our prey.PHOTO: Donald M. Jones
PHOTO: Donald M. Jones
by Heather Fraley
I drew my bow, aimed carefully and triggered my release, sending an arrow straight through the body of the bird as it bobbed on a branch 20 feet up and angled its head to look at me from 20 yards away. The arrow hit with a fleshy swish and a puff of feathers, and the blue grouse slid through the branches to the ground, fluttering and thrashing. Elation swelled as I ran to it and grabbed the scaly legs, fighting an irrational upwelling of fear that it would get away. But when I seized and held it, a body so limp and lifeless where it had been so fluffy, so spastic, so full of that definable yet unmeasurable quality that is life—all I felt was regret. One simple action of mine tipped the bird to the other side of that knife-edged ridge all living things walk.
It had been a year since I had killed something on a hunt, and I’d forgotten how it felt to shoot an animal with an arrow. It hit me harder, somehow, and felt more visceral than launching a bullet or shotgun pellets. Picking up the dead bird was like a cliff jump—a heady rush followed by a cold, disorienting dunk in an icy lake. Why am I out here doing this? Would this feeling be even more intense if I was standing next to my first archery elk?
It was the final hour of the first day of my four-day solo archery elk hunt in my home state of Montana. So far, I hadn’t seen a single elk. But after hours of traipsing through sagebrush and up into timbered draws, I saw this grouse. It was only my second season bowhunting and I’d never shot a bird with a bow. That, along with all the pent-up desire to aim and release on an elk, spurred me to take the shot.
As I prepared the grouse meat in camp that night, the regret faded to an annoying, intermittent twinge, like the feeling of a piece of popcorn kernel stuck between my teeth. But another familiar drive began to surface as I took bites of fresh meat—the urge to taste elk. What a strange emotional roller coaster, I thought.
The next morning, I decided to venture even deeper into the drainage than the prior day, hoping to run into some elk or at least some fresh sign. I forged a path up through the sagebrush into thickening timber as light built at the edge of the sky. I slunk slowly through the trees, scanning through branches. But as I picked apart every shadow and limb, I couldn’t make antlers or ears materialize among the quiet lodgepole pines. After a couple hours I reached an old roadbed, long ago abandoned by loggers and now not much more than a suggestion of a path but filled with good grass for an elk to eat. A spring trickled just off the edge.
I’d been too focused on hunting to snack, so my legs were growing weak from hunger, a weakness exacerbated by flagging spirits. I pulled an energy bar out my pack and sat down on the edge of the road. After a couple bites, I thought I’d let out a bugle just for the heck of it. I trumpeted a young-sounding locator bugle, which in my newness to calling, was all I could offer. After about five minutes, a haunting answer floated up through the trees. What? Must be another hunter out there, I thought. It couldn’t be a real bull.
I tried again. Again, an answer. But this time, I heard the deep, guttural chuckling at the end. Not many humans can make those noises convincingly. That’s either world-class elk caller Corey Jacobsen or a real bull, I thought, stunned. The animal was paralleling me below and left, so I angled down and right to cut it off. Descending into a beautiful timbered bowl, I bugled every 100 yards or so, and to my astonishment, kept getting answers. I marked a waypoint on my GPS, titling it “bugle battle,” then used a stick to rake a tree near an elk bed worn down to dust and peppered with fresh tracks.
After 15 minutes of calling back and forth, I could tell this bull wasn’t going to chase my pathetic bugles. I needed to use his vocalizations to pinpoint his location and sneak within range. I guessed that he’d now chosen a place to bed for the afternoon, as his bugles consistently came from a knoll at the end of a finger ridge about a quarter mile away. I squeezed a couple puffs from my wind-check bottle to test the direction—coming right across the ridge and toward me. As I began my stalk, I could feel adrenaline and hope stirring in a potent cocktail that rendered my legs stronger and cardio better than they had any right to be after so many miles. I barreled up the steep side of the finger ridge, boots sliding on dirt and shale, clambering over broken limbs until I came to a coulee littered with fallen gray tree trunks. As quietly as possible, I tiptoed across them like a balance beam, holding my bow out to steady me.
After 20 minutes of side-hilling and climbing, it sounded like I was in the same room as the bugling bull and the strong musk of elk hung thick in the warm air. I knew I had to be getting close, and I held my rangefinder in the chest pocket of my base layer, ready to pull it out. I dropped my pack, wanting to feel unencumbered as I made the final approach.
Suddenly I saw an ear twitch in the tall grass between the trees. Elk! It was a bedded cow. Soon another sauntered over and sank down into the grass next to her. This might actually happen, I thought, amazed.
OK, they are at about 60 yards away and downhill a little. There’s a downed tree up there that will be perfect cover about 30 yards in front of them. I’ll circle to the top of the ridge, sneak up to that tree, pop over it at full draw and shoot one when they stand up.
I slid off my running shoes for extra stealth and, rocking from my toe to my heel, set each stocking foot down feeling around to avoid twigs that might snap.
I snuck to the very top of the finger ridge, taking care to stay out of sight of the cows. When I reached what I was sure was the right fallen tree, I came to full draw and slowly rose up. No dark brown ears or light brown bodies poked out of the grass. No! I must have spooked them and not heard them bust. Disappointment hit hard.
Nothing to be done but walk around and see if I could tell where they went. Though I had no tracking snow in the summer-like fall weather, I might spot their creamy-orange rear ends bobbing away downslope. I began slowly working my way along scanning through the sparsely treed ridgetop. Then, as I glanced down a shooting lane smooth and wide enough to roll a bowling ball down, I saw a giant bull elk 40 yards away lying at the end of it, like he’d materialized out of thin air, dropped from the sky. My brain could barely register it. It was too big, too beautiful and too close to be real.
The bedded six-point bull quartered slightly toward me. His eyes were closed, the sun hitting his light tawny back and almond brown face; his dark, heavy beams swept back and up, his sides gently rising and falling with his breaths.
It was the most rapturous moment I’ve ever experienced in the outdoors, a spiritual instant that felt like an eternity as I did mental gymnastics trying to keep my composure. I had my bow up and ready, but with a 40-yard, slightly quartering-to shot on a bedded elk, I was way out of my archery league. Circling to gain a broadside shot would require crossing that open lane. Circling behind him would send my scent straight to his sensitive nose. All I could do was wait and see what would happen.
Then the spell broke. Some movement I made alerted him. My camo worked; he didn’t know what I was, but he knew I was something and that something was much too close for his comfort. In an instant he sprang to his feet and trotted a couple steps straight away, putting brush between us. He put in another 90-degree turn, trotted parallel to me for 10 or so steps with brush shielding him, lifting his legs high with incredible silent power like he was walking on springs, then turned away again and headed downhill. I rushed forward to the edge of the knoll he’d dropped off, hoping for a shot window if he paused. Then suddenly a smaller bull with a lighter-colored rack thundered upslope toward me.
No doubt drawn by the commotion from the bigger bull, he galloped in and raked a spindly pine sapling 30 yards away. Distracted, I tried to draw, but trying to react quickly felt like trying to catch smoke.
As I turned to aim at the second bull, six cows rose and jogged downslope. I realized instantly that the cows I’d seen earlier had actually been bedded a little farther down the finger ridge, and I must have snuck up behind the wrong tree. They trotted downhill with ears flicking back uneasily. Unable to get my scent, they weren’t entirely sure of the danger. Their ears swept back and forth sifting through information, and facing away from me, they offered no shot.
My legs shaking, I worked to steady my heart rate. By the time I calmed, the knoll was empty. One of the bulls started bugling again down below me. It sounded like he couldn’t be more than 150 yards away. Taking deep, steadying breaths, I glanced at my phone. Three p.m. I froze in place, paralyzed between the pull to chase and knowing if I shot an animal this late, even if it dropped dead instantly, I’d be taking a risk with my safety and with the meat, especially in grizzly country. Even without meat on my back, I was two and a half hours from my car.
The bugles continued their siren’s song, but I knew these elk hadn’t smelled me. If I snuck out now and returned at first light, I might have another chance.
Yet still I hesitated. I finally forced myself to turn back the way I had come, collecting the flotsam and jetsam of shoes and backpack I’d strewn about in wild haste.
Hours later as I lay in my sleeping bag, I thought about the dead grouse and how it looked at me just before I shot it. Then I thought about that bull sitting in the grass with sunbeams shining through the trees, his eyes closed, basking in the late-September warmth. A snapshot of vibrant life. I thought about how many times a bull that large must have cheated death to reach maturity on hard-hunted public land. I tried to sort through the many emotions I felt about our encounter: mainly awe, but also relief that he was still alive. It battled with my desire to send an arrow through his lungs, watch him stagger and go down and know his death would help sustain me.
I thought about life, and I thought about death and how one chance encounter, one single moment, holds the difference between the two. And, like so many other humans have, I pondered what does it all mean? And I realized that question is partly why I hunt. No. 1 is the protein and No. 2 the introspection, the indecision, the chance to reach out and touch the bare, cold truth that life feeds on life, to feel a visceral connection to the uncertainty of life and the frightening certainty of death. And with that thought thrumming through my mind, I spiraled into a sleep-world where blue grouse and bull elk circled at the edge of my dream hunting success and an elk population’s potential to thrive.