6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Loren Maloney, Connecticut
“I had spent the day hiking about nine miles up and down the eastern side of Red Mountain, behind my house in Silverthorne, Colorado, searching for fresh elk tracks and scat. By afternoon I was pretty worn out, so I hunkered down in some tall marsh grass surrounding a swampy area that was loaded with fresh sign. Even though it was late August, as soon as the sun began to set behind the mountains, the temperature dropped to just above freezing. I curled up into a tight ball to conserve body heat and began to plan the route I would take back home.
More from boredom than strategy, I made short cow elk mews every few minutes. As dusk approached I started shivering uncontrollably. I decided I would call 10 more times and then start the two–hour hike to the trailhead. I brought the call to my lips and let out a long whining cow call. Before I could catch my breath, a bull’s bugle tore through the silence of the forest. It reverberated off the lodge pole pines and filled the air with its primal intensity. I scanned the woods with a desperate eye, but couldn’t pinpoint where it had come from. I wondered if my mind had conjured up the unearthly sound. Perhaps I was much colder than I had judged and hypothermia had already affected my mind. Had an elk really just bugled from the nearby pines? The forest returned to its monotonous creaks and moans and the ever present rustling of aspen leaves in the wind.
Suddenly, I heard a great commotion on the hillside above the swamp. Brush snapped and a squirrel let out a frightened chatter as the bull raced down the hill. Adrenaline consumed my thoughts, and in dumb excitement I called to the bull again. Instantly, a bugle shattered my senses with its unbelievable volume and strength. I heard the soft thuds of galloping hooves and caught a glimpse of tan elk hair. The bull disappeared and reappeared as he ran through the tight trees, covering ground like a coal train rumbling down the tracks at full throttle.
Then, in an instant, the forest was silent again. I realized I had not taken a breath since his first bugle and gasped! Purple spots flashed in my vision and I swayed on my knees. Without much thought, I decided to try to get closer to where I last saw the bull. In a classic hunter’s crouch, I inched my way from the swamp towards the edge of the pine forest. I felt thousands of years of instinct controlling my movement. Silently, I made my way towards where I thought the bull had stopped; five feet, 10 feet, 15 feet closer to my quarry.
I entered an alley in the forest lined with Douglas firs...their thick lower branches obscuring my view outside the alley. At the top of the wooded canyon a fallen lodge pole had created an ideal natural blind. I stared at this perfect ambush spot, every ounce of my existence determined to reach it in silence. Blood pounded through the vessels in my head and adrenaline wrecked any sense of calm I had enjoyed just minutes earlier. Again, I felt the invisible hand of human evolution guiding me towards the fallen pine. How many ancestors had crawled the same path, chased the same game, carrying only their bow and a quiver of sharp–tipped arrows? My focus was complete, perhaps too much so.
I paused beside a tiny scrub pine to catch my breath and stretch my cramped knees. Glancing down at my bow, I double checked that the arrow was still nocked on and sitting nicely on the arrow rest. I looked up to plan the remainder of my route and saw the bull standing silently at the far end of the alley! On one knee I gently swung my right shoulder back so I could shoot past the gnarled branches of the little pine tree. From 20 yards, the bull glared at me, his nostrils flaring with defiance. He snorted aggressively and the breath ran out of my body. The bull swung his antlers back and forth, knocking needles off the nearest tree and snorted again, steam briefly surrounding his wet muzzle. He cocked his head and stared at me like a bird dog puppy staring at a pheasant high up in a tree. I began to draw back on my bowstring, feeling none of its sixty pound draw weight. The bull stood still, staring me down.
In a moment I won’t soon forget, I prematurely tipped the trigger of my release and burped the arrow off its rest. It fell harmlessly to the ground, two feet from the base of the pine I was hiding behind. The bull stared at the arrow, his eyes wide and indignant with cartoon–like fervor. I too couldn’t take my eyes off the arrow, its sharp point resting peacefully just beneath the soft pine needles. In a strange mirrored ballet, the bull elk and I lifted our eyes from the offending arrow and stared at each other. He seemed to be looking right through the pine branches and into my eyes. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t move. I was completely caught off guard by the intensity of the moment. This moment captured the raw essence of the ‘predator/prey’ relationship. I had my chance and it was gone. I failed and we both knew it.
Slowly and deliberately, I reached out to retrieve my arrow. As soon as my fingers wrapped around its fletching, the bull let loose a whine and another steamy snort. Then, in one mighty lunge, he cleared the fallen pine and thundered out of the fir–lined alley. In an instant he had run 50 yards and by the time I nocked my arrow the forest was silent again. I stood to see if I could follow his retreat, but immediately fell back to my knees, gasping for air. A black curtain closed in on my vision and I knelt, head down, in a pose of utter exhaustion. When I had recovered adequately, I sat up cross–legged on the loose pine needles. After a few minutes I had recovered enough to realize that I couldn’t remember breathing since the bull had snorted at me from 18 yards away. I had learned the first of many lessons from that encounter...just breathe.
I moved to Connecticut two years ago to go to school and have missed the last two hunting seasons in Colorado. My dream hunt is a return to Colorado to hunt trophy elk near Brown’s Park National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, now that I’m no longer a Colorado resident, this kind of hunt will most likely never happen because it’s so tough to draw a tag and the cost of doing a trip like this (the right way) is just too expensive for a student.”