ARCHERY
High country in the mornings are a constant reminder that each day is a fresh slate and a chance to start again .
A lightweight horse camp is a welcomed respite after a day in the mountains . a frontal shot at 10 yards once he cleared the thick brush . At 20 yards the bull swung uphill of me . The cagey old bull knew the game . The thermals were still sending our scent uphill and he was going to try to get the wind on Ben ’ s call . I was directly in front of Ben which meant he would catch my wind first , likely sending him thundering off the mountain . The wind was quartering to me , giving me a slightly better chance at a shot . My only hope was one opening , maybe an 8-inch wide gap at 25 yards . Chip shot I thought .
What transpired next took probably five seconds . And to this day , it still hurts like an eternity . Could I have used a bit more time ? Absolutely . I ’ m not making excuses , because I messed up . The outcome was not good , but at the time felt confident in my system so I let it play out .
I draw , anchor , level my bubble and wait for the bull to come into my window . As the bull got closer I coached myself through the shot . “ Steady . Level .” The front shoulder comes into view . There ’ s the pocket , “ Aim ,” Cow call . “ Squeeze .” Then the un-mistakable sound an arrow makes when it impacts the side of a bull resonated . If you would ’ ve asked me right then if I ’ d made a perfect shot I would ’ ve bet my life on it . I felt like I had the bull shot right through the heart and he ’ d be dead in 100 yards or less .
Ben and I sat and waited the standard 30 minutes before we began unraveling the blood trail . Immediately we found blood . Always a good sign . We were 100 yards into the track and we were still on a bright red , steady blood trail . I didn ’ t question my shot . I just figured the bull was tougher and bigger than everything else on the mountain . At 300 yards into the track I began to question my arrow placement . I replayed the shot and the sequence over and over and over . “ He ’ s got to be dead right here ,” I told myself .
Still tracking . We were now over 1,000 yards into the job and I knew something wasn ’ t right . We had a steady blood trail that Ray Charles could ’ ve followed , but he wasn ’ t heart shot like I had thought . As I began to gather my thoughts and tell Ben we should back out , the disheartening sound of a bull crashing through the timber filled the draw . Right as we were about to turn around we jumped him . I sat in complete disbelief . I hung my head in shame and disgust , kicked rocks the entire way back to camp praying that the bull would lay down and die . He did not .
The next day I tracked the remaining blood out to where we jumped him . The blood trail ran out and I dry tracked him throughout the day . The next day I was sick to my stomach . We talked about
zach mansfield photo hunting another area , but I couldn ’ t bear the thought of arrowing anything until we found my bull . I spent the day looking again . It was a fruitless search . The following day I returned to the area where we jumped him and started gridding the area covering nearly 14 miles that day . Up , down , all around that draw and I didn ’ t turn up a thing . The morning of the fourth day the thought of elk hunting wasn ’ t even on my radar . I would ’ ve been just as happy burying my head into the granite rocks I ’ d been hiking around for the past six days . That afternoon we decided to leave the area . The elk had left and we were physically and emotionally exhausted .
That was it . My archery season was over . I couldn ’ t stomach the thought of hunting anymore even though I still had 10 days left in Oregon ’ s archery season . Did the bull die a slow painful death ? I hope he found a creek bottom , laid in it , sealed himself up and lived on . After all the tracking and the replaying of the shot thousands of times in my head , the only thing I can put together is that I hit him low . Low enough to miss the heart , but cause enough bleeding to make me think that he should be dead . Back home I kept waiting to get a text or see something on a website about a rifle hunter who shot a bull with an arrow lodged low in his chest during rifle season . Nothing .
Even though my season was over a few days later I received a text from my good friend Chad that he ’ d shot a bull . It was the first bit of good news I had in over a week . He thought the shot was a bit far back so he did the right thing and gave the bull time . Sure enough his patience was rewarded with a fine 6-point Rocky Mountain bull .
The last weekend of elk season Ben tried talking me into hunting , but the thought of losing that bull was still to fresh and I couldn ’ t get up enough gumption to do it . Not sure if I have a weak mind or a strong heart . Either way , elk mean so much to me that I figured that I at least owed it to the bull I shot and lost to not go out .
The next morning while enjoying a cup of coffee with my wife I got a text from Ben saying he killed a bull from six feet . My immediate reaction was he was full of it . I called him as quick as I could . The shakiness and excitement in Ben ’ s voice confirmed his text was not boloney . He really did kill a bull at six feet ! The double lung shot put the bull down within view of where Ben could see him and he expired in a matter of seconds . I finished my coffee , threw the pack frame in the truck and drove up to help with the pack out . It was without a doubt one of the highlights of my 2017 archery season . The story of Ben slipping up on a herd of elk undetected and getting the shot without making a peep was almost unbelievable . But if anybody could do it would be Ben . The guy is lethal .
zach mansfield photo
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WESTERN HUNTING JOURNAL