As another day of hunting slowly comes to an end the setting of the West bound sun brings thoughts of the evening's campfire, a place of warmth, laughter and excitement.
The dancing flames of a crackling blaze cast an almost medieval light on the faces of those who sit around the outer edge of the orange light, everyone entranced with the tail that is being unraveled....
"It was the first elk hunt of the fall and my client/hunter was from the mid Western United States, a fella named Mike. He was a tall man of slight build with thick wire framed glasses that looked like they weighed a couple of pounds.
As I worked at packing our pack horses with his personal gear and the provisions we would need for the ten day trip deep into the back country Mike sat on a near by stump and told me about himself while whittling on a stick.
He had grown up hunting whitetails and turkeys, as most outdoors man from the Midwest had, but had always dreamed of a horseback hunt for Rocky Mountain Elk in the Canadian Wilderness. Now that he was retired and seeing himself a little long in the tooth he and his wife had decided it was time for him to make his dream come true.
Now being a Big Game Guide has always come with a certain amount of pressure, the want to see every client/hunter go home with a filled tag and leaving camp happy and on their own steam, but listening to Mike seemed to add a little more pressure than usual.
With the last diamond hitch tight in place and Mike securely mounted on his horse I took the lead shank of the head pack horse in hand and climbed aboard my big paint horse, swinging him around behind the lodge and onto the horse trail.
The first few miles ride from base camp consisted of a steady but gradual climb up out of the river bottom which presented us with an amazing view of the cascading mountains to the South. Every time I cast a backwards glance to check on the pack horses and their loads I gave Mike and his horse a look as well, I couldn't help but smile to myself at the color in his cheeks and the excitement on his face. He looked as if he'd shed twenty years.
The trip into the spike camp usually took about five hours of steady riding but not wanting to sore him up to much I stopped the string close to half way in, tied my horses up and proceeded to help Mike down out of the saddle.
A stretch and a walk around seemed to limber him up a good bit and I found myself smiling at his excitement again. One of the things I always appreciated about guiding was having the opportunity to experience the thrill of such a trip through my clients eyes and Mike certainly appeared to be having the time of his life.
When I had him loaded up again I swung up on my mount and headed up the trail and into the depths of the valley that climbed before us.
For the eight years prior to Mike's hunt I had taken a good bull every season during the first hunt, thus I had named the valley "Bull Elk Creek" and I hoped this would be the ninth successful hunt.
I had built a small log lean-to a good ways up into the valley some years back, equipping the small camp with a corral set up and a food cashe. I had been into the camp several weeks prior, packing in supplies and horse feed while clearing the trail of any stuff that had fallen over the winter. With that in mind I was sure the camp would be in perfect condition when we arrived.
As we finally reached the big stand of ancient spruce trees in which I had built the camp I gave yet another backwards glance at Mike and could see that the long ride was taking it's toll on him, it was a good thing we'd reached the end of our journey.
I rounded the last bend in the trail only to see a small black bear go scampering out of the camp, a mountain marauder up to no good without doubt. As I rode into camp I was astounded at the mess the bugger had made. He had somehow climbed up into my food cashe even though I had taken the time to nail several lengths of stove pipe around the base of the cashe tree, something that usually kept bears from being able to climb the tree. In any event the little prick had pulled apart the cashe and had spread it's contents all about the camp site, destroying everything except the coffee, a package of tinfoil and a container of yellow mustard.
I unpacked the horses, stowed the saddles and tack and turned them into the corral to roll and relax while Mike and I cleaned up after our mountain hoodlum.
We could do nothing but laugh at the mess he'd left and after twenty minutes we'd gathered up the trash strewn throughout the brush and had things looking almost normal again.
Luckily I had packed in enough fresh meat, vegetables and bread which gave us enough staples for a few days stay. With any luck we'd have a bull down before our food ran out or, even better, we'd be eating a fat little black bear if chance would have another encounter. I was sure I would recognize him from the peanut butter on his face.
We had arrived in camp in the mid afternoon and by the time we'd cleaned up, made camp ready and tended to our hungry horses early evening was upon us, time for a nice quiet walk up to my favorite look out a half mile beyond our camp.
With my bugle slung across my back and Mike following closely behind we headed up the trail and into the growing shadows of the coming twilight.
Mike struggled with the short walk, laboring with his breathing to the point I asked him if he was a smoker. I hadn't seen him light a cigarette but by the sound of his breathing he must have been a heavy smoker at one time.
Through fogged glasses and a sweat covered face he told me that he had smoked for forty years and had finally quit three months before as a means of preparing for his hunt. Although his intentions were good, a three month leave from his two pack a day habit certainly didn't make much difference to his wind, especially at 6,500 ft. His poor condition quickly raised some serious concerns about our back country adventure as I had absolutely no desire to see him have a heart attack in the middle of no where.
We finally reached my look out spot and I leaned Mike's rifle near where he had dropped his weary butt at the base of a tree.
The shadows had fallen on the huge slide area across the valley from us and I elected to try a short bugle to see if I could raise any interest from the valley's resident bulls. No one had blown a bugle in the valley since the year before and I hoped there was a bull ready to take my challenge to heart.
As the echoing ring of my bugle faded into the valley depths I heard the hoarse grunts of a bull expressing his displeasure high in the dark timber that grew to the North of the slide area we were watching.
I looked at Mike to see if he'd heard the bull and by the distant look on his clouded face he had not. I touched him on the shoulder and whispered that a bull had made his presence known across the draw and I pointed out the dark stand of timber where the sound of the bull's grunts had come from. The look of disbelief on Mike's face quickly disappeared when from across the valley, almost exactly where my finger was pointing, erupted a long and piercing bugle that was followed by a series of hoarse grunts.
I smiled at the look on Mike's face and watched with satisfaction as his eyes lit up like light bulbs at the experience of hearing his first bull elk bugle.
I lifted my bugle to my lips and cast a short series of soft cow calls towards the bull which were answered even before I took the bugle away from my lips. The bull was obviously in full rut and by the way he had answered the cow calls he hadn't gathered his harem yet.
I continued to cast a few cow calls here and there and much to my, and Mike's pleasure, the bull continued to bugle his face off while he began his descent from his mountain hide away. The bull never made himself completely visible while he walked down the edge of the slide, never leaving the cover of the timber yet every once in awhile I would catch a glimpse of his yellow body drifting through the trees like an off colored ghost.
When it became apparent that the bull intended to continue his descent down the mountain I whispered to Mike that we would be better off moving ourselves, heading down to the valley bottom where we would have a better chance at a good shot at the bull if he presented himself.
I snatched up Mike's rifle and quickly, or as quickly as I could manage without killing him, headed down the mountain towards the creek below. In less that five hundred yards we came to a meadow's edge, a spot that gave us a great view of the slide bottom across the creek from us.
I explained to Mike that the bull would most likely keep himself concealed in the timber but with a little enticement with my cow calls he might show himself long enough to judge his rack and if he were a legal six point, hopefully we could get a poke at him.
While Mike and I had made our own descent the bull had become far more vocal, trying to locate our position as he walked down through the timber. I did not answered his call until I had Mike set up across a pile of fallen logs and was hunkered down beside him. Once I was sure Mike understood the game plan, absolutely no shooting until I gave the go ahead and I was confident in his rifle rest, I cast out a short series of soft cow calls.
The bull went pretty much nuts at the sound of my cow calls, let an incredible bugle go and came waltzing out onto the open slide like there was no tomorrow. I think I was equally as surprised as Mike at the bull's sudden entrance but my bugle wasn't shaking like his rifle barrel. Mike was so excited at the sight of the bull that his rifle barrel resembled the end of a jack hammer. I quickly touched him on the shoulder and whispered into his ear, urging him to settle down and concentrate on putting his cross hairs on the bulls ribs.
The bull certainly didn't help my hurried attempts to calm poor Mike down as he walked deliberately over to an eight foot pine sapling and proceeded to rape the poor tree with his massive 6x7 rack. If anything, the sight of the bull's aggressive behaviour made Mike's heart race even faster.
I continued to whisper in Mike's ear and finally, after what seemed like hours, his gun barrel steadied enough I felt he could make the 150 yard shot. I told Mike I was going to blast the bull with a bugle, a move I was pretty sure would snap the bull out of his tree raping frenzy and make him stand erect and when he did to drill him in the ribs.
When I let go with my challenging bugle the bull immediately lifted his head, his rack now entangled with pine limbs and bugled at the top of his lungs. I hissed in Mike's ear "SHOOT" but nothing happened, I looked over at him and he'd taken his rifle away from his cheek and was watching the bull with all the amazement and excitement I had ever seen on a man's face. "Mike, shoot him man", I again hissed in his ear and he looked at me with watering eyes and said, "I can't."
Now I've found myself confused about a thing or two in my life time but never quite the way I was right about then. "What the hell do you mean you can't?" I asked. "Is there something wrong with your rifle?"
It was then, over the sound of another one of the bull's raspy bugles that Mike said, "I don't want to kill him, I just want to watch him."
Well, I sat back on my heals in amazement, gave him a second look and smiled. "OK, man, it's your call."
It wasn't long and the bull disappeared into the timber, sounding off with a half hearted bugle as he went and it was then Mike looked over at me with tears streaming down his cheeks and said, "All my life I waited for that moment, I dreamt of what a bull would sound like and I tried hundreds of times to imagine what he would look like in my cross hairs but when it came down to it I just couldn't kill him, I want to keep dreaming about him, my bull, running around out here wild and free."
When the fall season came to an end that year and Christmas time rolled around I mailed off everyone on my client list a Christmas card and a short hello. About mid January I received a letter in the mail from Mike's wife. She told me that Mike had returned home happier than she'd seen him in years, she went on to say that she listened to the story of our adventure so many times she could tell it like she were there with us. She thanked me for helping to make Mike's dream of a Rocky Mountain Elk hunt come true and in closing told me that Mike had died suddenly during the holidays of a massive heart attack.
I've sat around a several hundred camp fires since the fall I hunted with Mike, told many a story while I stared into the flames, but every time I did I thought of him and the bull he let walk away.
Written by;
Ron Arnett
"A Man From The Wilderness"
