A Call to Stillness

September 20th was the last full day of my archery elk trip during the 2024 season. We had left the Friday before, gotten to camp midday Saturday, and were now planning on packing up the morning of the 21st and making our way home. It had been a mental and physical grind.

I had a bad shot night one on a small black bear that I tracked for 3/4 of a mile and then didn’t recover. That alone weighed heavy on me for the next two days. I don’t believe the hit was lethal, but it was a situation that never should have happened. It was a chip-shot and I rushed it, forcing a quartering-to shot instead of waiting for a better opportunity. I knew better.

The rest of days one and two accounted for no elk and lots of vehicle traffic. Day three we split up into different pairs and pushed into a new area. I was caller for the day, and by early afternoon we had three bulls bugling while we worked into a saddle. None of the bulls were interested in closing the distance and it seemed like we were playing a game of keep-away. One bull would routinely sound off, I would call back, and there would be no response. I would wait a few minutes and bugle back, and then he would sound off again. Locate—locate—silence.

I finally realized I would have to get in this bull’s face and scream at him to change the tone. I pushed to the top of the knob where I had good wind and started dropping down towards the sound of his bugle. I had lost sight of the guy I was hunting with and hoped he was aware of the situation. After closing around 100 yards, the tone changed. I was now too close for comfort and the bull wasn’t putting up with it. I continued going back and forth with this bull until I saw him and one of his cows. He was bigger than I expected and I was glad there were trees in between us so he couldn’t see me shaking. After more back and forth he started to work his way up towards me and eventually broke through a small patch of trees where there was now nothing in between us. He paused, knowing the bull he was talking to should have been there.

80 yards away. No shot.

He circled back, walking away, and once there was cover between us again, I screamed at him. He whirled in seeming disbelief and made his way to a small tree which he proceeded to start thrashing for over a minute. At 108 yards away, I recorded a video on my phone and waited. He tried to leave again until I raked a tree of my own and then he was coming in to settle things. His pace quickened and I could tell he was not going to stop where he had stopped before. Enough was enough and he was coming to silence me.

As he closed distance between us, he broke within 80 yards when I heard a bow go off and saw an arrow fly. I heard a smack and the bull spun and sprinted momentarily until my cow called stopped him. I thought I saw blood on his opposite side and felt confident that my hunting partner had made a good shot. I kept screaming at the bull, trying to distract him from the shot and keep him close. I watched through my Leupold binoculars as the bull lifted his head as if he was going to bugle, yet no sound came out. Sure he was breathing his last breaths, I held mine in anticipation.

To my surprise, the bull then kept walking, turned broadside, and I saw no blood. He turned to his other side—no blood. Now I was confused. The bull fed downhill and eventually walked out of sight. I met back up with my hunting partner who did not share in my confusion. He informed me he did not have a chance to range the bull and had guessed he was closer than he was. He shot low and the smack I heard was the arrow hitting in the sage underneath the bull.

The action was still encouraging and we had high hopes for the next day.

I ended up spending the following two days in that area solo, chasing those three bulls that had bugled near the saddle. To my frustration, I always seemed to push them rather than interest them in getting any closer. The thick blowdown made it so I wasn’t able to sneak in quietly and I was losing hope. To make matters worse, on the second to last day of our trip, I bumped into a couple of people that talked about 6 other people in the area. I later saw another two people and effectively believed the spot to be blown up with no point in remaining in there. 54 miles in 6 days seemed to be all for not.

The morning of the 20th rolled around and I was discouraged, feeling like my hunt was over. Instead of fully calling it quits though, I decided to sit the pond where I had come across the black bear on the first night of the hunt. The weather had been off and on, but now there was sun in the forecast all day and I was determined to wait it out, to see if anything came to water throughout the day.

As much as I hate sitting for an entire day, I also continued to be reminded of a lesson God has been teaching me in this season: to be still and depend on Him. And when I felt like I was itching to move, I kept feeling like God was telling me to hunker down and stay put—again, to depend on Him.

Around 6:20pm I had been sitting at the pond for over 11 hours. I had just inReached my wife 30 minutes prior about how discouraged I was, and she tried to remind me that the trip wasn’t over and there was still time for success. I half-heartedly believed her and tried to find my optimism again.

Shortly after, I began to hear branches breaking to my left where the bear had come from earlier. This was definitely the easiest path to the pond, and I reached for my bow. I caught movement and my heart sank—it was a person. I pulled my binos up and confirmed it was one of the guys from my camp. He walked the perimeter of the pond until he was a few yards away from me and I waved him down. He apologized for finding me so late, but just wanted to check in. I let him know I would be here until dark and he told me he would be wandering for a while. He continued on and I nearly packed up and left right then too. But again, I was reminded to hunker down and be still.

10 minutes later, more branches were breaking and I kicked myself for not asking the guy from my camp if his son was out too. Looking to my left, I expected to see him and was shocked to see the sun glistening off of the snout of a cow elk. I could not believe it. This cow could undoubtedly smell the guy from my camp, and yet her and her calf were patiently watching and testing the wind before coming to water.

A few moments later I could see a couple other cows step into the trees at the edge of the pond and I was in disbelief that God had provided me with a possible opportunity. Then, something caught the back of my peripheral vision. I turned to see a bull standing broadside on a rise diagonal from me and behind his cows. Now my mind was really spinning. Do I shoot a cow? Or risk waiting for the bull? How many eyes would be on me by the time the bull came through? Would I blow my only chance by being greedy and waiting for the bull? After some mental deliberation, I ended up deciding to hold out for the bull. I had already accepted I was going home empty-handed.

The cows came in and started drinking in the pond right next to a rock I knew to be just 25 yards away. One was facing me directly, a couple others facing in different directions. The bull watched his cows for a brief moment longer before cutting in through some dead trees to get to the pond, no more than 15 yards from me. As he came to the water’s edge, he turned away from me and walked a few steps. While doing this, his cows pushed out of the water to give him space. Now, every eye was facing away from me and I drew my bow and got my 20 pin just above the crease behind the bull’s shoulder. He turned broadside and I let out a cow call with my voice. The bull froze and I released my arrow, watching it bury behind his shoulder. He ran 20 yards quickly and then stopped as I made more cow calls. He looked around slowly, then walked off.

I was in absolute disbelief. I inReached my wife again to let her know I had just shot a bull, inReached guys from my camp, and then waited an agonizing 30-minutes before looking for blood. My body shook from adrenaline for that entire 30-minutes until I began blood trailing with one of the guys from my camp who joined me. We quickly found little spots of blood and then my arrow—fully intact, covered in blood, but seemingly fallen back out. We continued on the blood trail until I made a comment that I expected better blood, knowing how good my shot seemed to be. Just then, we found obvious lung blood—a massive bubbly pile. We followed the blood around a corner of thick brush and jumped as we saw my bull bedded down, dead. He had barely gone 150 yards. We hugged, snapped a few pictures, and then got to work. That night we got all the meat into game bags and staged them for the next day, not wanting to risk hiking through the blowdown in the dark.

The following day we took three trips to get the meat out and loaded into the Polaris before heading back to finish breaking down camp.

This bull is special, as every one is, but I can confidently say that it was God’s provision and not my doing. In the three days prior I had done nearly 35 miles, most of it solo. I had bulls talking, pins marked, spots picked out, and nothing to show for it. And then, trusting a lesson God’s been teaching me, I sat and waited in hope of His provision. I never called, didn’t cover miles and miles, didn’t do anything special. I answered the call to stillness, and He did the rest.