Flip-Flop Cow

Big Worries ‘Mate

I entered the lobby of our Perth, Australia hotel and was immediately met by my coworker and two young Aussie teammates. The first words were (I’m paraphrasing): “The client needs you to stay another week”. Now, this went over like a fart in church, as I had conditioned my trip on a finite two-week commitment. My 12-year-old son had his first Nevada cow elk tag. Season would be over without me if I bowed to my client’s wishes. Now I had a choice to make. Little did I know, the fateful decision could end in a flip-flop cow…

For better or worse, I instantly stuck to my guns and told my coworker that either he or I would have to tell the client NO. I love my clients, but this client was reneging on a deal after I’d flown halfway around the world per our agreement. Being fired by a client vs. letting down my son made for a quick and easy choice. Lucky for me, I wasn’t fired, but I was more than willing to accept that outcome. I was not willing to accept letting my son down or of missing the memories the hunt would provide. Life is way too short and I’ve never regretted my prioritizing family first. This choice found me on a redeye two weeks later. Perth to Melbourne, a 7-hour layover to get to Sydney before flying back to Salt Lake City and Elko via LAX. No fun, but I made it home in 31 hours flat!

Let’s Get Right to It

After a jet-lagged day of rest, Dad, Tammy, Jason, and I were ready to rock and roll. We piled into my new Ford crewcab at God-only-knows-what-time in the morning for the two-hour drive to the hunting area. I’m awful careful about making sure that two critical pieces make it into the truck. 1) the tag and 2) the weapon and ammo. Everything else can be lost or left and the hunt can still go on, but no tag or no weapon, and it is just another Sunday drive.

As we stopped at the first barbed-wire gate, desert dust illuminated by my headlights in the pitch-black morning, my wife exclaimed “oh, no”! Now, while my dad was getting the gate, a few things flashed through my mind. I instinctively reached for the elk tag sitting on the center of the bench seat, and then touched the rifle under my legs. What could possibly be the trouble? Confident that it couldn’t be that big of a deal, I turned to my wife to ask her what was the matter?

The Right Gear for Hunting

Now there is a lot of gear that can be so helpful in your hunt. Hunters can be absolute gear-geeks. The right backpack, knife, binoculars, spotting scope, and even clothing like camouflage, coats, and footwear can make or break a hunt. I find that two items are critical to me: 1) proper footwear – I have awful feet, and 2) appropriate and good-quality glass and tripods. But, hell, this was just a cow elk. This was the kind of hunt where a 30-40 Krag would work, so really I wasn’t too concerned about what my wife might say.

Boy, you could have knocked me over with a feather when she exclaimed “Jason forgot to bring shoes”! Shoes?! Shoes?! Who forgets to bring shoes hunting? My brain couldn’t even work out how this could be possible. I could see forgetting a hat, a coat, maybe even underwear, but shoes?! Well, it turns out that my method of leaving the house at 3:30 in the morning was partly to blame. My young son shuffled out to the truck in the dark wrapped in a blanket and wearing flip-flops! Some folks would have given up, but I was undeterred. This would be one heckuva challenge to put this young hunter onto his quarry in flip-flops! As I said earlier, if you’ve got a tag/license and a rifle and ammo, you have a fighting chance.

Here We Go: Flip-Flop Cow or Bust

We had hunted this area before, although in 2006 the Boyce clan still were relative elk rookies. We’d taken a couple of bulls and maybe four or five cows at that time as Nevada elk hunting was still in its infancy. We planned to review the area elk sign, avoiding private land, and make a plan. Tammy took Jason to a bluff that overlooked several square miles of elk habitat while my dad and I worked through the area looking for sign or elk, or listening for elk in the predawn.

I angled a couple of miles toward a small low butte in the middle of pinion-juniper “woods”, noting plenty of elk tracks, but not hearing any cow talk or bugles. Dad came in from above, both of us navigating around fenced-off private land. The elk were here, but we sure didn’t find them in that magical first hour of light. As we sat glassing the area, we could see our hunter and his guide perched about a mile from us.

Annoying Hunters

Now, my wife and son were near a public road and knew full well that they would likely see other hunters. Tammy parked just off the road with the truck below our team, and yet another group of hunters seemed to think that having a party by our truck was a good plan. I watched in near disbelief as these knuckleheads yelled and laughed and carried on for about 45 minutes about 200 yards from my team.

Now, it is public land, and everyone has the right to be there. I was nevertheless truly annoyed that these guys would yell and scream (I could hear them, literally a mile away) right by my truck. Any fool would know someone was nearby, or at least one would think. They wandered off, giving up on whatever their idea was. They wiped out another 45 minutes of the early morning for us. Honestly, I was fuming.

Against the Odds

Usually, after the first hour of daylight, elk are hard to find. Now, in Nevada where we have open groves of pinion-juniper trees, a patient hunter can still locate elk moving in the openings later in the morning. Lucky for our team, my wife Tammy is just such a patient hunter. Several hours into the morning, Tammy reached out to Dad and I over the radio to let us know they had some elk located that were beyond mine and Dad’s position.

Eventually, Dad and I located the elk, after moving around a bit to get some elevation and angle in our favor. Clearly, we had a herd of elk that I felt we could approach for a stalk. I called Tammy back and asked her to come toward us and meet us at the road nearest our position. Having marked the elk, I got hooked up with my young flip-flop shod hunter, and we hatched a plan.

Getting There

We sent Tammy and Dad back to our perch to watch the action, while Jason and I took a more direct route toward the elk. It took us about 30 minutes, moving (shuffling even) slowly, to get about 400 yards from the bedded elk. Taking a break, set up on a small bluff that overlooked a basin with the elk bedded at the far side. At this point, we couldn’t see them, but I expected we would with a little patience. Instead, someone on a UTV decided to come racing up to my truck to see what was going on. This crazy loud noise spooked the elk and they jumped up and ran straight away from us.

Pissed, again, I told Jason to just hold tight and see what happens. Maybe something else would move, or maybe an elk or two snuck out the other way. We had a good vantage point and I figured we might as well wait a while. Often, just being quiet and patient while a ruckus is ongoing will result in a punched tag. Well, as Karma would have it, another UTV went blasting down a road that was about a mile from us, and past where the elk went. Well, hallelujah! Sure as hell, here came those elk right back at us on a rope, running at a heavy lope. I’d bet my bottom dollar neither of the two road hunters ever knew those elk were reacting to them, nor ever saw the elk.

Setting Up

I told Jason to watch those elk and get set up for his shot, expecting things to happen fast. As the loping elk got within about 300 yards, I readied to let out a couple of cow calls. I saw a couple of cows that were running in sparse trees to the right of the main group and when they got to about 270 yards, I made my cow call. The lead cow faltered and slowed on the first chirp. So I quickly followed that call with a second, and she stopped broadside at 260 in a clearing. I told Jason to hold dead-on and take the shot.

Boom! Jason’s shot put the herd back into full motion, still running straight at us. The cow took a couple of steps to the right and disappeared behind a tree. Jason quickly said he thought he’d flinched and shot over her. He was ready to take a second shot and asked me to help pick out another elk. I told him he couldn’t risk taking another shot in case he shot the first cow and we watched that herd barrel right over the top of us. The bull was a beautiful 360-class toad and he passed about 40 yards from us at a full run. Our hearts were in our throats, and Jason remarked he’d love to come back with a bull tag to this area!

Frustrated Hunter

My hunter wasn’t thinking very highly of me at this point. He knew he could have dumped one of the cows as they went by us close. He also knew he had missed that cow. I wasn’t so sure. She moved slowly to the right, causing me to think she might be hit. My son at 12 was already a pretty good shot and I knew a cow standing broadside at 260 shouldn’t have resulted in a clean miss. We have a rule: if you shoot at an animal and cannot 100-percent verify you missed them, you’ve gotta go look. So, we set off, boots side-by-side with flip-flops, to see if we could figure out what became of Jason’s cow.

I let Tammy know we may have a wounded elk and to meet us at the truck. I walked quickly to the tree I’d marked where the cow had disappeared, and we almost immediately found her track. Jason and I hadn’t walked forty yards on that track, when that cow made movement in the trees. She couldn’t get up, but a quick coup de gras at close range quickly ended the deal.

Flip-Flop Cow: Moral of the Story

Jason’s flip-flop cow died about 80 yards from the road, luck being with us. We dressed her and squeezed her into the bed of my truck well before noon. As we headed out, we passed by the party folks who had so deeply annoyed me that morning. They wanted to visit. I didn’t, so as my Dad said “I think they want to talk to us” I elected to just drive by them and wave, with four hooves flopping around above the bed of my truck! I just didn’t feel charitable at the moment, but I smiled and was friendly when I waved!

That concluded what was for me one of my most memorable hunts. The fact that my son had accomplished the whole thing with seriously substandard footwear just added to the memories of the day. If I’d have been a baby about it and turned the truck around, we’d have missed so much. That thought never entered my mind. We all learned some great lessons that day.

1. Don’t give up in the face of flip-flop adversity.
2. Once you’ve shot, you are done shooting at anything unless you are certain you are repeating fire at the exact same animal or that you clearly missed.
3. Always follow your shot on the ground unless you have a verified miss. Make sure you don’t find blood and track it for a while to be sure.
4. Hunting with your son for his first cow elk is a treasure to be remembered forever. Clients don’t hold the same place in my heart.