Elkwhisper
Well-known member
Well my luck continues to hold out..... If you saw my last thread, you know that I spent the best part of the elk rut on my moose hunt in Canada. I had resigned myself to the fact that I might not get a chance to take a bull this year, but when the opportunity arose to meet my buddy Mike for a quick evening / following morning of elk hunting, I jumped at it.
We headed out to our hunting grounds on Tuesday evening and were into elk every minute of the evening from 3 pm till dark. They were bugling non stop. Thanks to some less than steller shooting / range estimation on my part, I ended the day with my tag in my pocket but a smile on my face. Toward dark we located a monster of a bull doing his best to keep his 40 cows together and away from several 5 and 6 point satallite bulls. Even though we were into the second week of October, the rut activity was absolutely off the hook.
The next morning we slipped into the edge of a big herd and once again they were going crazy. There were at least 10 bulls bugling their heads off right in front of us, and we had some close calls but couldn't put it all together. Just before we decided to call it a day and back into town for work, we decided to take one more look for the big boy from the night before. As luck would have it, we spotted his cows and were able to slip between them and the water hole they were headed to. It was about 11 am by this time and he was still bugling up a storm, so it was easy to keep track of him even in the thick timber. We got into positon about 100 yards away from his cows. Mike bugled once and cow called a couple times. The cows immediately started heading our way with the big boy right on their tail. I came to full draw as he reached my one and only shooting lane. He ended up stopping facing directly at me with his head behind a tree. All I could see were big antlers sticking out either side. I held at full draw for about a minute an a half until he turned to go arround the tree. When he got broadside to me, I let the arrow loose at 27 yards.
My shot felt good and I knew I had hit him, but he did jump the string. Upon reviewing the video of the shot, we saw that in the time it took the arrow to leave my bow and reach the bull, his chest had dropped a full foot and he had spun toward me. The result was a less than perfect hit with the arrow hitting dead center of the rib cage and angling back.
Shortly after the shot, I heard what I thought was the bull collapsing and then all the cows started running back toward us. We called a couple more times and the cows mingled at 90 yards in front of us for a full 5-10 minutes and then filed by single file. The bull was nowhere to be seen and we were convinced he had died up on the hill and that had confused the cows. After waiting about a half hour we circled wide and downwind of where the bull had dissapeared and sure enough there he lay. The bad news was he was still very much alive and spotted us. He stood up and we backed out. We ended up watching him stand in that same spot for over two hours. He was definitely hurting and didn't seem to be able to move very well. Problem was he was in a very open area and there was no way to close in for another shot. After about two hours he must have must have caught wind of us or something because he wandered off over the ridge. We followed, trying to keep an eye on him but he was gone. Unfortunately because the arrow hit so high, there was very little blood. We decided to back off and give him a couple of hours to die.
When we returned we split up and began our search. I covered the immediate area where we had last seen him on foot, while Mike covered more ground further out. Mike was lucky enough to stumble upon him just before dark, which ended a very long and stressful day for me.
This is a great bull, and I couldn't be more happy. I spent the rest of that night, until almost 1 am dealing with the meat, and cape and then had to leave town on business bright and early Thursday morning. I dropped the head and cape with my taxidermist, but haven't had time to put a tape to him yet. We have a guesstimation, but I would be interested to hear what some of you think he might score. I'll post the actual score when I get arround to measuring him.
Hope everyone else is having a great season!
Elkwhisper
We headed out to our hunting grounds on Tuesday evening and were into elk every minute of the evening from 3 pm till dark. They were bugling non stop. Thanks to some less than steller shooting / range estimation on my part, I ended the day with my tag in my pocket but a smile on my face. Toward dark we located a monster of a bull doing his best to keep his 40 cows together and away from several 5 and 6 point satallite bulls. Even though we were into the second week of October, the rut activity was absolutely off the hook.
The next morning we slipped into the edge of a big herd and once again they were going crazy. There were at least 10 bulls bugling their heads off right in front of us, and we had some close calls but couldn't put it all together. Just before we decided to call it a day and back into town for work, we decided to take one more look for the big boy from the night before. As luck would have it, we spotted his cows and were able to slip between them and the water hole they were headed to. It was about 11 am by this time and he was still bugling up a storm, so it was easy to keep track of him even in the thick timber. We got into positon about 100 yards away from his cows. Mike bugled once and cow called a couple times. The cows immediately started heading our way with the big boy right on their tail. I came to full draw as he reached my one and only shooting lane. He ended up stopping facing directly at me with his head behind a tree. All I could see were big antlers sticking out either side. I held at full draw for about a minute an a half until he turned to go arround the tree. When he got broadside to me, I let the arrow loose at 27 yards.
My shot felt good and I knew I had hit him, but he did jump the string. Upon reviewing the video of the shot, we saw that in the time it took the arrow to leave my bow and reach the bull, his chest had dropped a full foot and he had spun toward me. The result was a less than perfect hit with the arrow hitting dead center of the rib cage and angling back.
Shortly after the shot, I heard what I thought was the bull collapsing and then all the cows started running back toward us. We called a couple more times and the cows mingled at 90 yards in front of us for a full 5-10 minutes and then filed by single file. The bull was nowhere to be seen and we were convinced he had died up on the hill and that had confused the cows. After waiting about a half hour we circled wide and downwind of where the bull had dissapeared and sure enough there he lay. The bad news was he was still very much alive and spotted us. He stood up and we backed out. We ended up watching him stand in that same spot for over two hours. He was definitely hurting and didn't seem to be able to move very well. Problem was he was in a very open area and there was no way to close in for another shot. After about two hours he must have must have caught wind of us or something because he wandered off over the ridge. We followed, trying to keep an eye on him but he was gone. Unfortunately because the arrow hit so high, there was very little blood. We decided to back off and give him a couple of hours to die.
When we returned we split up and began our search. I covered the immediate area where we had last seen him on foot, while Mike covered more ground further out. Mike was lucky enough to stumble upon him just before dark, which ended a very long and stressful day for me.
This is a great bull, and I couldn't be more happy. I spent the rest of that night, until almost 1 am dealing with the meat, and cape and then had to leave town on business bright and early Thursday morning. I dropped the head and cape with my taxidermist, but haven't had time to put a tape to him yet. We have a guesstimation, but I would be interested to hear what some of you think he might score. I'll post the actual score when I get arround to measuring him.
Hope everyone else is having a great season!
Elkwhisper
