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Bowhunts Deliver Unexpected Encounters

By Patrick DurkinNovember 10, 2015

SODA SPRINGS, Idaho – A friend often claims he catches most of his muskies while rowing from one hotspot to another.

Likewise, my most memorable wildlife encounters often occur while I’m hunting other wildlife or tending to business back in camp.

This cow moose and its calf walked down for a late-afternoon dip and drink on a hot afternoon in Idaho.

This cow moose and its calf walked down for a late-afternoon dip and drink on a hot afternoon in Idaho.

For example, during my annual bowhunt for elk a few weeks ago, I was confined to my tent one afternoon to finish some work on my laptop computer. About 3 p.m., I swapped the tent’s sweltering interior for the shade beneath its doorway awning outside. Roughly an hour later, I heard branches breaking about 100 yards away on the brushy mountainside.

Looking up, I noticed two large forms moving my way at the edge of the woods. Thinking they might be elk, I unzipped the tent’s door and reached inside for my bow. Seconds later, when the animals walked into an opening and turned downhill, I laid the bow back down, grabbed my camera, and rezipped the door.

It was a cow moose with its calf. The cow stared from across the valley. I couldn’t tell if it was focused on me or studying our campsite, but she and her calf soon headed downhill toward the inlet where we moored our small boats. The weather was hot and dry that day, so I assumed the moose wanted to drink and cool off.

Sure enough, for the next 10 minutes they walked around the shallows, slurping water and occasionally sinking in to their briskets. Other than looking up occasionally to monitor our campsite, the moose seemed unconcerned about our presence. Eventually they returned to the woods’ edge and vanished where they first appeared.

A few nights later I returned to camp after a day on the mountain, and found my friend Mark Endris waiting by the lantern with his video camera. “Look at the visitor we had this afternoon,” he said, and hit the camera’s “Play” button.

Endris had been reading inside his tent when he heard something on the nearby hillside, kicking and sliding on slick rocks. He thought it must be me returning early to camp, but when he looked out his door he saw a mule deer doe strolling past my tent 15 yards away. The doe snooped around camp several minutes while Endris videotaped and photographed it from inside his tent. The doe eventually continued down the valley and returned to the mountainside woods.

This mule deer doe walked through Patrick Durkin’s elk camp in Idaho during the middle of the day.

This mule deer doe walked through Patrick Durkin’s elk camp in Idaho during the middle of the day.

We dismissed these visits as flukes because we’ve been fishing and bowhunting this spot the past 10 Septembers without one daytime campsite visit by mammals larger than red squirrels. But then the following Tuesday afternoon I heard someone stomping their boots outside my tent as I worked once more from inside my tent. Rain had been falling all day, and I knew Endris had walked down the valley minutes before to check on our boats. I assumed he was back, and trying to shed mud from his calf-high boots.

“How much water was in my cedar boat?” I shouted out, but he didn’t answer. Seconds later, I heard scuffling sounds and rocks sliding down the hillside nearby. I suddenly realized it wasn’t Endris. By the time I poked my head out the door to look, the animal had vanished into the woods. I assume it was Endris’ mule deer from the previous week, but will never know for certain.

A red squirrel peers around the edge of a lodgepole pine in Idaho.

A red squirrel peers around the edge of a lodgepole pine in Idaho.

Meanwhile, try as I might to concentrate on bowhunting elk, I couldn’t help but notice several birds of prey while up the mountain. One evening I spotted an eagle and osprey cruising the nearby river valley, sometimes silently and other times squawking regularly while perched or cruising. I never could decide if the eagle was a golden or an immature bald, but judging by its size I’d bet it was the latter.

Another evening I watched a barred owl perched in an aspen overlooking a mountaintop meadow. I liked that it was there to hunt mice while I was there to hunt elk, so I tried to make things more interesting by thinking: “OK, owl. Let’s see who spots their prey first.”

I lost. Minutes after issuing my silent challenge, the owl swooped down from the aspen with talons extended, nailed something in the grass, and then readjusted itself several times on the ground before flapping back up to its perch. Although I watched intently with my 10X binoculars, I never could identify what it caught.

The next night I was about 200 yards down the ridgeline from that meadow, hoping to intercept elk that sometimes follow that route to the meadow at dusk. As daylight faded, I heard two birds squawking back and forth from the aspen tops. I figured they were owls but couldn’t confirm it until one of them landed in an aspen about 50 yards away.

This barred owl kept a close eye on Patrick Durkin as he bowhunted elk in Idaho.

This barred owl kept a close eye on Patrick Durkin as he bowhunted elk in Idaho.

I couldn’t make out yellow eyes on the owl with my binoculars, and didn’t think it was large enough to be a great gray. The owl soon spotted my movements, dropped from its perch and swooped silently toward me for a closer look. I pulled out my iPhone as I sat there atop a log, and recorded a video as it squawked and jerked its head back and forth to inspect me from about 15 yards.

When it grew bored and flew off to a tree about 30 yards away, I cranked up the volume and played the video. The owl answered each time it heard itself on my iPhone. I found this so amusing that I replayed the recording a couple of more times. The owl played along, but flew off before the short video completed its third encore.

Just as I started to pocket my phone, I heard little claws digging into the lodgepole pine behind me. I looked up to see a red squirrel staring at me from about 3 feet away, its small head peering out from behind the trunk.

He seemed skeptical a barred owl would be calling and squawking from the log where I sat, and couldn’t resist confirming his suspicions.

Some day such bold assumptions might get him killed.

Patrick Durkin
President at Wisconsin Outdoor Communicators Association
Patrick Durkin is a lifelong bowhunter and full-time freelance outdoor writer/editor who lives in Waupaca, Wisconsin. He has covered hunting, fishing and outdoor issues since 1983. His work appears regularly in national hunting publications, and his weekly outdoors column has appeared regularly in over 20 Wisconsin newspapers since 1984.
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