The first day of this year’s hunting season was a little deflating.
As I enthusiastically strode out at daybreak to drive to a nearby Block Management Area, images of elk and deer prancing in my head, I happened to notice that my rear tire was completely flat.
This was not a good omen for the day, or the season. And the situation would not improve anytime soon.
In the course of trying to exert enough force to loosen one of the flat tire’s lug nuts, my bad luck went to worse when one of the threaded studs broke off. That nut must have been awful tight for the metal to break before the nut budged. I’ve got to lay off of that Popeye spinach, I mused.
Luckily, there are five studs on the wheel, so going without one for the rest of the weekend didn’t concern me too much, but I was still cursing at the guy who had tightened the nut.
Jacked up
To make matters worse, I was parked on a bit of an incline on a grassy hill. The flat tire was on the uphill side, so as I jacked up the truck, the whole vehicle wanted to sidestep downhill. I could just see the truck moving and my jack crumpling under the shifted weight, leaving me with no way to get the flat tire off the truck.
So I chocked the other three wheels, repositioned the jack and got the truck high enough to barely slide the flat tire off, holding my breath the whole time. Visions of me having a leg trapped under the truck as the jack slipped kept me from getting too close to the wheel.
Luckily, my spare tire had air in it and my opening morning test of patience was eventually done, or so I thought, as the spare tire was snugged on.
Company’s coming
Upon arriving at the Block Management Area’s sign-in box I was confronted with the sight of two wall tents and two king-cab pickups. So, in theory, there could be up to eight hunters in the woods ahead of me.
There are two ways I could look at this additional hunting pressure. The optimistic view would be that the extra hunters would get the game up and moving around, providing me with a better chance of bumping into an animal. The pessimistic view was that the hunters would chase any elk and deer within the BMA boundaries into the next county.
The realistic view was that I wasn’t turning back now, so “Que sera, sera,” as Doris Day once sang. “Whatever will be, will be.” Unfortunately, her song debuted in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, a director not known for upbeat films.
Wildlife menagerie
After climbing to the top of a hill, just as the sun began to clear the jack pine trees, I heard a turkey gobble nearby, then another, then a cacophony of turkey talk. The big birds were flying down from their roost trees and gabbing as they assembled for a day of feeding. The chatter lightened my dark mood, reminding me that two years ago in the same area I had questioned my hunting partner’s veracity when he said he saw a tom running in the distance. At the time, I thought maybe he was trying too hard to spot a turkey, but maybe I was wrong.
The mild, rainy day continued on with a parade of wildlife as I climbed farther and farther up the mountain. I spooked three whitetail deer while fussing with my backpack. I saw an osprey land in a tree atop the mountain, far from any stream where it would normally fish. A grouse spooked out from underfoot, shoving my heart into my throat with its noisy launch. Mice dashed through their tunnels grooved into the dirt at my approach. A few more whitetail does with fawns — or maybe the same one bumped over and over — were the only huntable game I spotted.
Last chance
Tired and running low on water, I started downhill a couple of hours before last shooting light. With little concern for the noise I was making or trying to stay concealed, I stopped to rest next to a small gulley. Pulling my binoculars up, I gazed through the dimming evening light in hopes of spotting an animal during the time of day that’s always been most productive for me. That’s when I saw it.
About 200 yards downhill, the outline of a golden brown rump was barely discernable from the grass behind it because the colors were so similar – that tawny, light brown hue. The elk’s head was behind a large ponderosa pine tree, shielding its identity. But when the animal finally lifted its head to look around, I spotted small antlers, a raghorn bull.
Unfortunately for me, I was hunting in a cow-only area, meaning I could only shoot a cow elk. I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened to me, but it’s not. If I’m looking for does, I see bucks, and vice-versa. When I’m looking for elk I hardly see any, so naturally, when I do finally spot one it would be the wrong sex for me to punch my tag.
Last light
Hoping that the bull wasn’t alone, I frantically scanned the surrounding timber through my binoculars looking for similar shapes, colors and movement, but the light was quickly fading thanks to a cloudy sky. My eyes stung with the concentrated effort, but then I finally saw movement, and then an elk head with no antlers. A cow!
My breath hitched with the excitement. There were three elk that I could see snatches of through the trees. They were moving to my left where they would possibly step into the open if I waited. But the light was quickly draining from the sky. If I waited too long, it might be too dark to shoot.
I decided to advance, hoping to use a row of trees to shield my movement, stopping frequently to scan the trees ahead for elk. Eventually I arrived at about the same elevation where I had seen the elk, but there was no sign of them. Had they smelled me even though the wind was in my favor? Had they seen my movement or heard me? Why hadn’t I heard them if they had spooked and ran away? Was there some camouflaged bunker in the ground that they’d snuck in to at my approach?
Wapiti withdrawal
The elk had vanished. Even their musky scent was absent from the light breeze, a smell that often lingers long after elk are gone. The evening was so quiet that the only sound was the light buzz in my ears, tinnitus likely caused by exposure to too much loud music over many decades.
As the moon rose to light my path back to the truck, I vowed to be back at the same spot at sunrise the next day in hopes the elk hadn’t been scared too far from the area.
Hope must rise eternal in the hunter’s heart, because so many more days are spent searching than killing. That’s one of the hardest lessons for young hunters just starting out to understand. Those who persist are the people who find joy not just in success, but in simply being outside, eating a cold roast beef sandwich while gazing at a blue mountain vista, feeling the warming sun on their face, smelling the fragrance of sagebrush, juniper and pine on the breeze.
Those experiences will never stock a freezer or put a meal on the table, but they can fill a hunter’s soul. They have to, because sometimes that’s all we get … that and a flat tire.
