Elk - A tough animal

2 weeks ago I was able to harvest a really nice bull in Wyoming with my bow. Friday went to get my meat from the butcher and he said he found my broadhead. I told him I found my broadhead after the kill in the chest cavity. He said this broadhead was buried in the front lower shoulder, just above the elbow. When I was qrtring him on the hill I noticed a hole in his shoulder with a growth around the hole and just thought it was wound from another bull in the past. I guess that was a broadhead instead. It must have been there for a year or two, he walked with no noticibale limp and when he bolted after the shot he moved just fine. Tough animals. By the way it was a Muzzy head, blades bent some from hitting the bone.

I've heard of others finding old broadheads in elk before but this was a first for me.

Steve
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That's crazy I have never heard of that! Do you have pictures of your elk?

I shot a bull that had a broadhead and part of the arrow shaft crossways through it's nose. It had healed over and the bone had regrown through the blades on the broadhead and healed on the shaft side. Found out later that the people camping next to us knew who shot the bull the year before. The guy told them he hit it in the nose and they didn't believe him. The elk was fine when harvested, just had a bump on the nose where the head was protruding. I'll try to get a picture of it posted but I'm not the best computer user!

That is way cool, for you not the guy who wounded it. Shows some history behind the bull and a neat story to tell. Congrats on the bull.

Not an elk story, but a few years ago one of my friends was rifle hunting for deer in Utah. He was able to take a nice buck on the third day of hunting. When he was cutting up his deer at home he found a broadhead and part of an arrow shaft stuck in the spine. Like the elk mentioned above the bone had grown around and through the broadhead. My friend ended up boiling and bleaching it and made a cool little display to set it on. If I can get a picture of it I will post it on here for everyone to see. Just a crazy story!

It's amazing how tough animals can be. A few years back, my cousin shot a 160+ whitetail during gun season. Later that night, we noticed something barely sticking out of his shoulder.. It ended up being a broadhead. The arrow had spun free from the head, leaving just the threads exposed. The head got less than 1.5 inches of penetration into the shoulder. The shoulder stunk, and was very infected, but the buck didnt really show any adverse effects, I'm sure by next season the shoulder would have completely healed.

One of the neighboring farms had stuck the buck about a month earlier.

gon4elk: That's pretty incredible. I have never found that, but we have shot elk with scar tissue healed around a large caliber bullet, and also bird shot in a deer.

I saw an elk with about 6" of another elk horn broke off in a hind quarter. scar tissue healed around it fine also.

gone4elk, was the broadhead in the left shoulder? If so, that may be the reason why your bulls antler on the right side grew so weird, from the injury. Neat story thanks for sharing.

Ruttin - don't remember which shoulder it was but he had a broken base (grew straight out to the side rather than up) thus the weird antler. Pic of the odd ball side. This guy had more problems than a married man, he probably came in to commit suicide.