Id definitely recommend archery hunting. Its a completely different experience than rifle hunting. It's a lot more stalking and learning to be patient. Last year I saw a dandy mule deer about 90 yards away and all we could do was look at him. We tried to sneak in but when you're in thick thick oak brush, its impossible not to make noise. Thing busted loose and we never saw him again. Its a whole different game when you have to get the animal within 40-50 yards before you can even make a shot. Even a 50 yard shot is hella long for a bow. All of our treestands for deer this year are set up 25-30 yards away from our apples and feed.
As for elk, you have to call them in. They aren't like deer where they come back daily when you feed them. They roam around and don't usually come back to the same place. Im hoping for an early winter this year so they start getting more vocal and then we can call some bulls into us. When my dad was archery elk hunting we had a bull come about 60 yards away from us and he was just screaming at us. We would cow call and he would bugle back to us and it was the coolest thing ever to see his breath as he lifted his head up and bugled. We were hidden underneath some fallen timber and my dad decided to pass on him cause he was only 330ish. Still one of the coolest experiences of my life.
My favorite moment hunting was when I was on my bear hunt. We let the dogs loose after Kim my dad's childhood friend and guide for us saw a fresh track as we were driving down a dirt road doin 30mph. (How he saw the tracks going that fast still blows my mind.) About an hour later we had driven around a mountain trying to get in front of the bear and the dogs. We heard them chasing teh bear over the mountain and then we saw this chocolate brown bear running across the hill about 500 yards away. You'd only see him for a split second as he passed between the openings in the trees. I sat on a rock at teh base of a huge metal power line that carried power from a local coal mine to Salina Utah. The bear crossed the ravine and for a second he stopped. About 200 yards away from me and the dogs were 100ish feet behind him so I knew I only had about 4 seconds to make the shot. I was shooting between the 2 feet of the 200 foot tall power line across a gully to another ravine on the other side. I put my crosshair on the bear and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened and the bear took off again. I left the fucking safety on the gun and didn't take it off.
From then on I kept thinking that I had just fucked up my whole hunt. About a half mile down the road, the valley we were in dumped off into Wayne county and the Utah West Desert. Kim told me that if the bear goes off those cliffs, he's calling the dogs off cause we would never get the bear. We keep sprinting down towards the cliff trying to get ahead of the bear. We were running down towards the bottom of the valley and so was the bear coming in from the other side. I could hear the bear growling through the barks of the dogs. I kept sprinting and as were were about 100 yards away from the cliff all that was separating me from the bear was 50 feet and a patch of thick oak brush. I was about 20 yards in front of him and I stopped, took a massive breaths trying to slow my heart rate down since I had been sprinting for the last 1/2 mile nonstop.
There was one gap in the oakbrush before it dumped off into the desert. It was about 6-7 feet wide and with the bear running full speed I knew that I either had to make a hell of a shot or I wasn't going to get anything. I laughed because the thought of shooting a bear at full speed as he crossed through a 6 foot wide gap was pretty much impossible. But never the less I took the safety off of the gun and put the scope up to my eye. The first thing I saw as I looked through the scope was brown fur so I pulled the trigger. The recoil messes up my vision for a split second and I see a clear opening. I thought I missed the bear. But I hear Kim and my Dad yelling, "You rolled him! Holy shit what a shot!" The bear fell through the brush and down into a steep little ravine and was dead immediately. I couldn't even believe I had actually made that shot. I don't know how I put the scope directly on the bear as he came into a tiny opening but I did and I made the shot. As much as I wanted to shoot the bear with my bow, I couldn't of asked for more given the conditions. It was the shot of a lifetime and the hunt of a lifetime.
Heres some more pics.
This is the ravine where he rolled into after I shot him. The cliff is about 50 yards behind me taking the picture.
Here's me with the guide after we ragged him up on flat ground before we skinned him. Don't mind the gay jacket. It's my old jacket that I used cause I didn't want to go hunting in my Jiberish and it was about 55 degrees F.
He weighed in at 350lbs. Which may sound small but he was a spring bear so he was just out of hibernation. In the fall he would of been around 550ish. Luckly they score bears by the skull and pelt measurement. The DWR aged him at 9 years old and his skull measured 18 1/2". His pelt measured 6'6"long x 6'2"wide.
