The Power of the Mind
During this hunt, more so than any of my others, I can truly say I left it all on the mountain—including the skin on my feet and the cartilage in my knees.
PHOTO: Jose Alonso
by Kate Small
I caught glimpses of the bull as he weaved his way through the trees, playing the script just as I had imagined he would. As he moved closer, I drew my bow and waited for him to step into a shooting lane. His big brown body soon appeared at 25 yards, and I squeezed the trigger of my release, letting the arrow fly. I heard the unmistakable, hollow thunk of an arrow connecting with an animal before the bull turned and wheeled away. Unbeknownst to me, it would be a grueling, emotionally turbulent night before I saw him again.
After drawing a rifle elk tag for the 2024 season in my home state of Idaho, I didn’t plan on buying an archery tag as well, but I quickly started to regret that decision. So, when the leftover tags went on sale in August, I couldn’t help myself, and as fate would have it, I was lucky enough to be able to grab an over-the-counter archery tag.
I’d kept my archery skills in tune while shooting for fun over the summer, but with only two weeks until the season opened, I knew I had a lot of scouting to do in a short amount of time to narrow down potential hunting locations. I had limited time to hunt, as I didn’t have any babysitters lined up for my kids on such short notice.
The week before the season opened, I spent a couple of days hiking a few game cameras into areas I knew fairly well. Two days before the season, I decided to throw a Hail Mary and take a couple more cameras into another area I was familiar with but had avoided due to the time and effort it takes to get in there. I typically backpack in and camp when I hunt this particular area because it’s more than 1,900 feet of elevation gain and 3 miles as the crow flies just to where I like to start hunting. I hoped to get at least one whole weekend to hunt, making it worthwhile to throw these cameras up. After getting confirmation from my game cameras that the elk were indeed inhabiting this area, I made the easy decision to hunt the backcountry spot.
The first week of the season came and went, and I wasn’t able to hunt at all. Knowing I had a tag burning in my pocket was killing me inside—I couldn’t focus on much else. After eight days of this torture, I couldn’t take it anymore and all but bribed a babysitter to watch my kids from 3 a.m. until a few hours after last light so I could have one day to hunt.
Excited for my first outing of the season, I drove an hour to public land and parked my truck. In the quiet of night, without another soul around, I grabbed my pack, bow and headlamp and began the two‑hour hike in.
About 25 minutes into the hike, I was regretting wearing a jacket and stopped to take it off. As I put my jacket in my pack, the light from my head lamp flashed over some timber about 60 yards away. It was there I saw a pair of eyes staring back at me. My intuition told me those eyes didn’t belong to any ungulate, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
The mountain lion’s eyes glowed yellow as it sat curiously watching me. Within a couple short seconds, I caught sight of another lion a couple of yards to the left. I watched them move a few strides back and forth using bushes as cover. Not sure of what their next move would be, I drew my sidearm, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it. The cats finally came to a halt and sat, not taking their eyes off me. For what seemed like an eternity, but was only about 20 minutes, I stood there in the pitch black, alone, pistol in hand, having a staring contest with these felines.
Eventually they either got bored or perhaps realized I was probably too small of a meal, and slunk off in the opposite direction. The adrenaline pumping through my body was overpowered by the frustration of being late getting to my target spot by first light. Still on edge and keeping a vigilant eye on my surroundings, I tried to pick up the pace.
Dawn was faster than I was, and I was still hiking as daylight broke. Thanks to my earlier standoff with the curious cats, my hopes of catching a bull heading to his bedding ground were starting to dwindle.
I wanted to get to the next drainage but kept a diligent eye on my surroundings, knowing I could run into elk during any moment of the trek. As I climbed over a finger ridge, I spotted two bulls about 150 yards away in the wide-open sagebrush.
Wind in my favor, I slowly and methodically crept up on them as they continued to lazily feed. I cut the distance to 72 yards. Unfortunately, they sauntered off in the opposite direction, and with their four legs far quicker than my two, I knew chasing them would be a pointless endeavor. I called it a win to have gotten into elk already.
I kept moving, and as I neared my destination, I saw four more bulls feeding through the trees about 250 yards away—I would’ve already been there if it weren’t for the mountain lion encounter. I swallowed my disappointment and decided to try to cut them off. With very little cover on my end due to a recent wildfire that blazed through this area, I did my best to go unnoticed as I moved in. Right as I made it within about 100 yards, I stopped short when I heard a branch break in some nearby timber.
I turned slowly and saw two smaller branch-antlered bulls staring back at me from 60 yards. A split second later they ran in the opposite direction, crashing through the forest and out of my life. Knowing they were gone forever, I returned my focus to the other four bulls. To my severe disappointment, my efforts proved unfruitful. The quartet of bulls had vanished. I decided to change strategies and turned my eyes to the dark timber.
I stalked ever so slowly through tangles of lodgepole and fir, taking care to set my feet quietly and maneuver around each branch and bush. After about 30 minutes, my eyes caught a bull in the timber only 50 yards ahead. With branches acting as makeshift armor, I had no choice but to try to make it within 30 yards for a clear shot. I used the thick forest to my advantage and closed in. As I cleared the last obstruction between me and the bull, a second bull, this one a raghorn, suddenly crested over the ridge toward me.
The raghorn had me pinned down and unable to draw for a shot at the bigger bull. I stood still in hopes I would be afforded another chance. That hope faded as the two bulls wandered off silently. I stalked behind them, but despite my best efforts to keep up, they, too, wandered out of my life.
At this point, I was a little disappointed.
I’d come so close without releasing an arrow. But my spirits soon buoyed—seeing 10 bulls within the first hour made for an unreal morning, to say the least. I knew the woods were about to settle down. I headed to an area I know elk frequent in hopes of catching any stragglers still on their way to bed.
Hours of creeping through timber went by without any action, and it was late afternoon when I finally heard a bugle not too far off. I pulled out my bino and glassed through the timber. My eyes fell on the tips of tines raking a tree about 170 yards away. I quickly nocked an arrow and decided my best bet was to make an educated guess on what he might do next and cut him off. As quietly and quickly as I could, I snuck in to where I thought—and dearly hoped—he might head.
My hope of finding this bull was dwindling fast, and the thought that I had shot an animal and wouldn’t be able to recover it made me sick to my stomach.
I slipped into position, watching as the bull weaved in and out of the burnt trees, trudging toward me as if on a string. He played his part perfectly, choosing the exact path I hoped he would. His movement was almost trancelike, as though his fate was predetermined. As he stepped behind the last tree between us that I could use to conceal my movement, I drew. I steadied my breathing as I waited for him to make his way into a shooting lane. The moments seemed to drag on, but at last this enormous, beautiful creature stepped into a window at 25 yards. The world around me went quiet as I readied myself. I felt the metal of the trigger against my finger as I slowly squeezed. I watched the arrow fly and heard the undeniable sound of it connecting with its target.
I saw my arrow sticking out of him for just a split second before he bolted in the opposite direction. I was ecstatic but had a feeling of uncertainty—was the shot too far back? I decided to play it safe and wait for a couple of hours before I started tracking. As I sat there, I listened intently for any indication that the bull was nearby.
After those two excruciatingly slow hours, I began tracking from where I had originally shot the bull. Moving with purpose, I trailed pools of deep red blood with ease for about 110 yards. With each step, the splatter dwindled and became spread farther and farther apart. By 140 yards the blood trail sputtered out. With light fading and not knowing what direction he went, I didn’t want to bump the bull if he did happen to still be alive, so I made the tough decision to back out and return at first light the next morning. The elevation was high enough and the temperature was cool enough that I felt good about the meat not spoiling.
My mind battled between hope and heartache during the long hike out. I knew the more help and eyes looking for the bull in the morning, the better. When I reached cell service, I got ahold of my friend Chad and explained the situation. Without any hesitation he said he and his 13-year-old son, Gavin, would hike in to meet me first thing in the morning.
I hadn’t planned on spending the night on the mountain, so I drove home to try to get some sleep. My kids were fast asleep by the time I pulled into the driveway, and I arranged for a close friend to watch them the next day so that I could go look for the bull. That night I don’t think I slept at all. I replayed the shot over and over in my mind, trying to remember exact arrow placement and dwelling on the worst possible scenarios. I prayed that the bull had died quickly, wasn’t suffering and that I would recover him the following day. It was an internal turmoil I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
With fresh eyes the next morning, I found more blood and was able to trail it about 40 yards before losing blood again. On Chad and Gavin’s approach, relief and a sense of newfound hope washed over me knowing I had help. On hands and knees, we found pin drops of blood, which clued us into a general direction the bull had traveled but was ultimately a dead end as well. With the amount of blood and the lengthy trail, consensus was the bull was dead. We just needed to find him.
We decided to grid the area and spread out, beginning low and gaining elevation with each passing sweep. We did this a few times, accumulating miles and covering a large amount of ground. I became more and more discouraged with each loop.
To add insult to injury, the wind began to blow hard with dark clouds looming as if a storm was going to roll in. With an abundance of barely standing dead timber surrounding us, it was the last place we wanted to be in high winds. My hope of finding this bull was dwindling fast, and the thought that I had shot an animal and wouldn’t be able to recover it made me sick to my stomach. Fearing getting caught in the storm, Chad said, “let’s do one last sweep and head out.”
By the tail end of the loop, I was fervently looking, willing each branch to be a tine or brown logs to be a patch of fur, but all the wishful thinking in the world couldn’t overpower the dreadful feeling deep down in my chest that this one had gotten away. But I wasn’t giving up yet, and I continued to hike around.
I had just passed some downed trees and was watching my feet to navigate the deadfall that littered the forest floor when I looked up and my heart stopped. Twenty yards straight ahead of me I saw tines and a brown body resting against a tree.
I screamed “I found him!” almost not believing it myself. Chad and Gavin excitedly ran over and we all hugged. Walking up to him I got to see just how big, beautiful and majestic he truly was. This was the biggest bull I had ever shot! I couldn’t believe it all came together.
We stood for a few moments admiring the bull before caping and quartering him. Not a single piece of meat was spoiled. Knowing we faced a couple hours of hiking back to the trucks, we decided to get moving. Gavin took one of the bags of the loose meat, which was a pretty darn heavy load for anyone, let alone a 13-year-old. After this trip out, I was going to have to get the rest of the meat out by myself, because the next day Chad had other obligations. So, we hung the rest of the game bags, knowing they were in a cool enough place to prevent spoilage, and began the long hike.
Three grueling hours later, the trucks thankfully came into view. We happily dropped our heavy packs on the tailgate. The packout had done a number on me; I could hardly take another step. My shoulders, hips and feet were wrecked and my waistbelt had rubbed the skin on my hips raw. Running off pure adrenaline, I got home late, hung up the meat, made my kids’ lunches for school the next day and tried to get some sleep.
Over the next four days I put on 28 miles, half of those with weight on my back, to get the rest of my bull out. Each day I got slower, and everything hurt a little more. Every time I loaded my pack with elk meat, it rubbed the preexisting wounds on my hips raw all over again, shooting searing pain into the abrasions with each step. By the end, I was using Leukotape over open blisters to act as my actual skin because it felt like I didn’t have any left on most of my toes and the bottom of my feet. It was taking me about three hours to hike in and three and a half to hike out.
PHOTO: courtesy Kate Small
It was not an ideal situation, but it’s important to remember that you don’t shoot things where you can’t get them out. Not only is it illegal to waste meat, but it’s highly unethical. The point of the hunt is always the meat, and due to a very unfortunate incident involving a tripped breaker, I had just lost all of mine from last year, making this meat extremely important to me. I woke up in the morning thinking that I could not take another step and that there was no way I was going to make it back up that mountain. But not going wasn’t an option. I had to.
This hunt once again reminded me of the exquisite power of the mind. All it takes in even the most impossible situations is a switch in mindset and a certain mental fortitude, and you can do just about anything. That being said, if anyone has pack horses, I’ll be wanting your number next year.
I woke up in the morning thinking that I could not take another step and that there was no way I was going to make it back up that mountain. But not going wasn’t an option. I had to.
It’s funny though—the morning after I got the last of the meat out, I was sitting on the couch drinking my coffee when a sadness crept over me as I realized my archery season was done. Not 12 hours after I had been cursing myself, I wanted to be right back out there. There’s just something about the hunt and the mountain. It takes every little bit of you and spits you out, but somehow it leaves you with so much more.
Kate Small is an Idaho-based big game hunter and trapper with a passion for predator hunting. She is a registered nurse, wife, mother of two and co-founder of the Western Wolf Academy, a three-day retreat created to educate on wolf hunting and trapping.
