Forget the business of Slams, it was simple wanderlust, a desire to experience anything untried, that placed bowhunting Roosevelt elk at the top of my wish list for so many years. I’d long contemplated driving west to hunt abundant public lands on my own, but reliable information had proven surprisingly elusive. Hiring a guide to tip the odds had remained a financial impossibility. In time I met archery hunters who lived in Roosevelt country who had experienced some amount of success. Hunt trades were discussed, several plans set into motion, but one thing or another always dashed those prospective adventures.

Roosevelt elk habitat is well interspersed with mazes of logging roads. To find scattered herds you cover as much country as possible. This is accomplishments from vehicle, making the hunt less physically demanding, but no less mentally draining.

The false starts only made me more determined to turn Roosevelt into a bowhunting obsession. I’d also adjusted to the notion that the financial end was not as hopeless as it once was, so for the first time I called a reputable booking agent for assistance. This brought Oregon’s Ken Wilson, Spoon Creek Outfitters, into my life, and gave me hope. The year before Ken had posted nearly 100-percent shooting opportunity, nearly 50-percent kill, with a good number of tagged bulls making book--all this accomplished with “civilian” shooters. I’ve guided New Mexico elk hunters for something like 23 years, taken a dozen or so archery bulls myself. I know a thing or two about elk hunting. My problem, it seemed, was solved. Only if you believe in the Easter Bunny…

A Different Breed
This much I know about Roosevelt: They are found only in the wet, dripping coastal ranges of the Pacific Northwest. This encompass habitat from extreme northwestern California (where tags are tightly controlled) through extreme western Oregon and Washington (with over-the-counter tags available) and north to British Columbia’s Vancouver Island (where the biggest bulls live but limited tags mean hunts run from $12,000 to $15,000). These challenging rainforest environments include limited visibility and (typically) non-stop rain.

On average, Roosevelt elk sport much smaller antlers than their Rocky Mountain cousins, though the very largest bulls can score in the 350s and 360s (the highest-scoring Rocky Mountains 40 to 50 inches more). And while 225 inches will get your name into archery record books, 260 inches is required to enter Rocky Mountain elk. Roosevelt make up for their smaller antlers with notably larger body mass, a combination of lush feed and mild winters often creates live weights in excess of 1,000 pounds. Tips about hunting them remain blurry, washed in half-baked myth.

Time To Hunt
It was the third week of September when I arrived at Ken’s; perfectly timed to take advantage of rutting activities. Through some forgotten oversight I arrived a day and a half early. Ken, more pointedly my appointed guide, was still occupied with other clients; which meant things weren’t going well. I wasn’t overly concerned. In fact I was more than happy to hunt on my own, unlimbering at my own pace until my guide had shaken free. After all, I was in prime elk country, pre-scouted by a Roosevelt guru. The greater apprehension arrived via the discouraging hunting report. After a couple weeks of concerted effort no one had killed an elk. It was extremely dry, half the country was closed to fire danger, many of Ken’s leased timber properties suddenly off limits. Without rain to cool things off, and just as importantly quiet the woods, we faced possibly the worst hunting in years.

In the dark morning, parked at an inconspicuous roadside pullout, Ken’s directions were explicit, but also lacked certain detail: I was to stalk the defunct logging skid, slowly and quietly, and pause occasionally to bugle into the black forest at various cuts. Eventually I was supposed to reach a reseeded area where a nice five-point had been seen.

In the dense, restricting cover of Oregon's Coastal Range plenty of calling becomes part of September bowhunting. Despite common myth, Roosevelt elk are quite vocal, it's just that heavy cover makes them more difficult to hear and for them to hear you.

Light slowly oozed into the land as I slipped down the defunct road and began to grasp what I was in for. I was quickly swallowed by dark, enveloping forest. Forest isn’t really an apt term, this was more of a jungle! I anticipated an opening where I might have planted myself to glass but the forest only grew more dense. I was readily getting a crash course in the claustrophobic pretexts of bowhunting Roosevelt elk.

Deeply cut trails showed recent sign, still-wet splashes of urine. I directed my bugling tube into darkness, cringed, and produced a squealing bugle. The cringe was involuntary, earned after years of bowhunting call-shy New Mexico bulls. Bugling, even cow calling, has become a sure way to literally blow your hunt at home, a truth that follows in most western elk states. Of course, I was only following instructions. This country is steep and densely inaccessible, but also public land well interspersed with roads.