Congested Cow Elk

Cow Elk Tag Congestion

My wife and I always look forward, along with hundreds of thousands of other folks I’m sure, to our big-game tag application results. Well, 2019 was no exception as one of us was checking pretty much multiple times per day as the deadline drew close. As it turned out, we ended up with a pretty good outcome, as we include our family in our results. My dad and brother each got early rifle deer tags. My nephew received an archery deer and rifle antelope tag. I received an archery antelope tag and my wife an archery mule deer tag. Finally, my wife and I each received identical cow elk tags.

Our daughter also gets over-the-counter tags in Idaho, and I pocketed a deer OTC tag this year myself. So what this really meant is we might kill more animals than our freezer needed. Having tagged my antelope and with my wife not tagging her deer, I was contemplating returning my cow elk tag to focus on hers. The final straw came when I added in the factor that the NDOW had tripled the tag quota on what I already considered to be a congested hunt. My tag was returned and my points restored for another day.

Cow Elk Preparation

As it turns out, we knew our area very well. We’ve laid down several cows within a 200 yard diameter circle in the area over the years, so we weren’t too worried. We did a brief look-about on the area during the summer, but this is the huge advantage that comes with knowing your area well. Although we were confident, the previous year had already seen an increase in cow elk tags in the area and my son was barely able to harvest one lone cow.

We actually arrived in the area a day before season, thinking we would camp in trees a short hike from our hunting area. Because the hunt started on a Saturday, we reasoned that out-of-town folks would wait until the following weekend to hunt so they could make for a better long weekend. I figure we are creatures of habit, and long weekends usually terminate on Sundays rather than starting on Saturdays. I don’t know if we were right about this as there were quite a few rigs near us when we came in that evening.

Setting Up

I motored my truck down a faint road that wound through pinion and juniper trees, confident in my online planning and hunt setup. Well you know what they say about plans surviving first contact – they didn’t. Right where I had planned to camp was a big diesel pickup parked at the end of the road. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t have an option B for this camp. You must always have options A through D at least! I did have B and C options, but they weren’t for this particular herd or location. Oops.

All was not lost, as we were able to cast about and find a nearby open area very close to the road where we could hide our truck and our camp. Whew, I was beyond relieved, although it nagged at me whether that other fella or gal had similar hunting plans to mine. We ate a cold meal and had a beer or two before we laid out our beds in the back of the truck. As we were lying there looking at the brightest possible stars, we heard a four-wheeler coming up the road. Pretty soon it went by and we heard the diesel truck fire up as well. Both soon passed by us, unaware we were camped nearby…this made me feel very encouraged about the prospects.

Day One Options A and B

We snuck out of camp with about 45 minutes until legal shooting light and 75 minutes until sunrise. A short 30 minute hike was punctuated with bulls bugling in the distance, but not quite where I expected them. We finally found a cow that was just barely in shooting range prior to legal light, but as we waited something scared her and she ran quickly to our left and out of our lives. Not a few minutes later, we heard six shots ring out at a point that would make a pretty even triangle from our location to our camp to the shots!

I figured our elk would take their normal route back to the trees and it wouldn’t be all that far from our camp, so we started double-timing it back between the location of the shots and our camp. As we neared our camp we spotted the elk some 400 yards away and moving toward a low hill about 300 yards from our camp. Although we hustled and were able to bring the shot into about 360 yard range, my wife judged the shot on milling elk as way too risky. I didn’t see it her way at the time (I may have mentioned it to her), but in hindsight she was right.

Day One Options C and D

We decided to regroup and pack up our camp then attempt to follow or intercept the elk in the trees. We pretty well lost their trail as we carefully moved between sagebrush flats and pinon/juniper woods. Finally, I recommended that Tammy circle up through the deepest areas in the trees to see if she could cow-call and get a response, or possibly just bump an elk. I would get the truck and meet her a couple of miles further along at the nearest road.

According to Tammy she was able to get within range of cows, but they would not quit moving and she ended up either bumping them or they just got nervous. Either way, we were out of luck for the morning so decided to grab some lunch and relax for a bit. As we contemplated our options, we scouted out a nearby guzzler and found very little sign. Tammy decided to spend the rest of the afternoon waiting near another big-game guzzler to see if anything would venture in during daylight hours. While she did that, I went to a nearby vantage point to spend the evening glassing elk.

Cow Elk Circus, Circus

It turned out that whatever my plan for limiting congestion was either not up to the task or I seriously “misunderstimated” the crowding in the area. There were camps, trucks, and generally people everywhere! Even my viewpoint was stacked up with other people, so I had to sneak around to another side of the hill to do my spotting. What I saw was a lot of people and no cow elk. Folks were clearly interested in the same country we were.

Incidentally, we heard at least four volleys of shots fired on morning one. The six shots nearby appeared not to result in a downed cow elk, judging by the lack of traffic in the area after the shots and the way they were spaced out. The other three volleys came from the other points of the compass while we were hunting or packing up our beds. After that it was silence, but at best only four cows were killed in that 20 or so square miles that day, at best. Clearly, we would have to spend more effort outsmarting hunters than we would the elk.

Decisions

As we were coming back from Tammy’s perch in the dark, we discussed whether to go to our Plan B area some tens of miles away, or to give the Plan A one last go. Since it was already dark, Tammy and I agreed the best idea would be to roll the dice again with Plan A. We motored back to our night one campsite with no obvious headlights or tail-lights anywhere around us. I felt pretty good that we were back in there ahead of everyone else again. All we needed was the cooperation of the elk.

I marveled again at the moonless clear sky overhead as I drifted off to sleep. The Milky Way was as brilliant and pronounced as I’d ever seen it and I laid there for a good while enjoying it. Around about 1:30 in the morning I awoke to the moonrise over the mountain and to bulls bugling! I swiveled my head around out of my bag to try to pinpoint their location and was very happy to note that at least three bulls were sounding off just where we hoped to find them a few hours later!

Plan A, Option A, Second Time’s the Charm

Tammy and I struggled to sleep anymore that night, but we must have a little. Same routine, different day, and before long we were in the trees above the elk out on the sagebrush flat. I could tell the bull far to my left was on hot cows but he wouldn’t be easy to find. I was afraid the other two bulls were just ornery satellites hoping for something nice. As we neared shooting light, Tammy was able to pick out some elk to our right. Knowing that “some elk” meant cows, even though we couldn’t see for sure in the light, we started moving quickly to get on a potential intercept route.

Now as we had come into the area, I gave some intermittent cow calls. I like to do this so that the elk know I’m there and I’m one of them. I wasn’t calling them up. I was just letting them know they could break for safety up here with me if the shit went down. I’ve had that work for me before, and whether it is superstition or true, I still think it helps. In this case we had a big decision to make and cow calling would not help any further.

Final Decision

We had to decide: should we try to predict where these elk were headed and ambush them, or should we go directly at them in the relative darkness before legal shooting light. I reasoned we could use the intermittent trees between us and them to close the distance to shooting range within five, possibly 10 minutes. Tammy agreed with my plan and we quickly but carefully started our cross-breeze approach. As we got to the last tree between we and them, I advised Tammy to load her rifle and get on one of the elk after stepping around the tree. We had a short argument I cant reprint here, but she ultimately decide my plan was ok.

As she got sat down and was looking at the elk through her scope, I was watching the clock. At one minute after legal shooting light I gave her the green-light. I was just letting her know to let me know when she was about to shoot so I could prepare, when kaboom(!) she shot! In a little bit of pain, I asked which one she shot at to which she responded in a way I cannot reprint here, but it was something like…the one on the left. That seemed good to me because even though she scared the crap out of me with her shot, I thought I saw an elk disappear on the left side of the herd between watching, flinching, and getting my binoculars back up. Indeed, it turned out she had put that cow down!

Epilogue

We prepped that cow for field dressing and I decided to walk back to break camp and bring the truck around. I was able to work the truck across an open area to very close to the elk for retrieval. In fact, I was able to use my reciprocating saw to allow us to take the elk apart while preserving most of the bones with the meat for aging. We later learned that our rifle wasn’t as well sighted in as it needed to be and we had gotten a little lucky putting her down with that first shot by hitting her in the spine. Always carefully sight in your gun before your hunt and even check it during the hunt if you are out for many days.

We didn’t hear any other shooting that morning. It appears we got to the herd first and apparently, we did it so early that nobody else was able to take advantage. Well, that’s what happened to us the prior day, so I couldn’t feel too bad for everyone else. I would certainly encourage folks to consider the human competition for hunting areas as a prime factor to determine your success. It is possible to hunt in congested areas as long as you can outmaneuver the other hunters. My wife did.