KHunter ‘21 archery elk semi-live
- Thread starter Khunter
- Start date
noharleyyet
Well-known member
Seems like there should be a photo of a bruiser bull posted by now…..
Waiting impatiently!
Duck-Slayer
Well-known member
Gonna be a good one, just got a feeling….. another reason to go with goats 
Matt
Matt
Wallydeuce
Well-known member
Enough of the love talk.
Off with the clothes!
Off with the clothes!
Crossbowguy
Well-known member
BB down photo in 3.2.1...................
noharleyyet
Well-known member
Stop it with the neck hickeys....
noharleyyet
Well-known member
KHunter ‘21 archery elk semi-live eventually...
noharleyyet
Well-known member
...always worth the wait.
Khunter
Well-known member
Well, on the road back from Oct 8-21 AZ bison hunt. Did it archery and talk about exhausting. Anyway. I will get this elk hunt wrapped up in next 5 days once I get home tonight and sleep for two days….Zero cell coverage for two weeks was, in a word, wonderful.
Here is a cool, I think, video of two bulls going at it during elk hunt. See at very end the one bull tries to gore the other one in the ribs. intense!
Still Photo of the bulls sparring:
Here is a cool, I think, video of two bulls going at it during elk hunt. See at very end the one bull tries to gore the other one in the ribs. intense!
Still Photo of the bulls sparring:
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Slm864
Well-known member
Can’t wait for the conclusion
Khunter
Well-known member
Alrighty, let's roll this thing to the conclusion this week already!
We arrived to hunt Elk i guess August 30th to pick up llamas and get training for same and actually hunted Sept 2nd opener through Sept 12th the first go. Most of that time was spent packed in with the llamas at our #1 or at least first spot we had pre scouted back in July, and that I had bowhunted back in 2017 (and lost a great bull there) to pack into.
We returned on Sept 20 and as it turned out hunted through Sept 29m one day short of the Sept 30 season end.
ABQBW arrived for the 2nd go about Sept 17th ahead of me and elected to take a cool guy we had met earlier under his wing to help him fill his smokepole tag in some of the easier car camping spots I knew and had taken ABQBW to at the end of the first go for a few days. They had great success and an agreement ABQBW got first right of refusal. That hunter killed a darn nice 5 pt that ended up dropping in a nasty, nasty spot and they got back to the truck at about 3 am that night pretty well spent from the effort climbing through a couple miles of deadfall late at night after processing a downed bull. The actual pack out was not that bad once they came to the quartered elk from a different access point the next day.
Here is that smokepole hunter's bull ABQBW put him on and helped him kill and quarter. A fine bul but not the quality we were personally after:
Again not our bull so when this bull was taken we still had our own 2 tags to fill...
We arrived to hunt Elk i guess August 30th to pick up llamas and get training for same and actually hunted Sept 2nd opener through Sept 12th the first go. Most of that time was spent packed in with the llamas at our #1 or at least first spot we had pre scouted back in July, and that I had bowhunted back in 2017 (and lost a great bull there) to pack into.
We returned on Sept 20 and as it turned out hunted through Sept 29m one day short of the Sept 30 season end.
ABQBW arrived for the 2nd go about Sept 17th ahead of me and elected to take a cool guy we had met earlier under his wing to help him fill his smokepole tag in some of the easier car camping spots I knew and had taken ABQBW to at the end of the first go for a few days. They had great success and an agreement ABQBW got first right of refusal. That hunter killed a darn nice 5 pt that ended up dropping in a nasty, nasty spot and they got back to the truck at about 3 am that night pretty well spent from the effort climbing through a couple miles of deadfall late at night after processing a downed bull. The actual pack out was not that bad once they came to the quartered elk from a different access point the next day.
Here is that smokepole hunter's bull ABQBW put him on and helped him kill and quarter. A fine bul but not the quality we were personally after:
Again not our bull so when this bull was taken we still had our own 2 tags to fill...
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Khunter
Well-known member
As ABQBW was pretty physically beat, from helping on the other hunter's bull when I arrived we took it a little easy first couple days back. We had chosen our next pack-in spot that would be a 7 mile and 3,000' elevation gain into the wilderness area but we truck camped with the llamas a couple days, day hunting in a couple spots we had seen some great bulls toward the end of the first go.
During the hunt intermission, and as a courtesy, I had called the outfitter I knew had a permit for the area we would pack into simply to coordinate and proactively ensure we were not going to hunt on top of their camps and not be hunted on top of as well. What I got was an earful of lame and woe "I only have 10% of the entire unit to hunt, my area is from x mtn to Y creek and only maybe 150 square miles of the 1,000 total square mile so of the unit, could you stay out of my area altogether since it is the only 150 square miles I am allow to take hunters...blah blah" The typical &^%&^$ outfitter nonsense you get from the ones who think the own the damn forest but I made the effort. The spots he suggested we hunt instead are the most heavily hunted/congested day hike-in spots the 90% of hunters without livestock hunt, and we of course spent a LOT on a monthly llama rental for the express purpose of going in deep so that was a big fat no. Anyway I had established with the outfitter that we were hiking, on foot with llamas a full 3 MILES PAST his furthest in camp and his next camp was 4 miles past us if came in on a different trail---and that would have to be space enough---as letting a guy cordon off 150 mi2 just looks as absurd as I write it here as it sounded on the phone.
Photo shows the truck camp to start the 2nd go. For this round we switched to having the llama stock rails on my truck so ABQBW could have his camper on his for when we were not packed in deep:
During the hunt intermission, and as a courtesy, I had called the outfitter I knew had a permit for the area we would pack into simply to coordinate and proactively ensure we were not going to hunt on top of their camps and not be hunted on top of as well. What I got was an earful of lame and woe "I only have 10% of the entire unit to hunt, my area is from x mtn to Y creek and only maybe 150 square miles of the 1,000 total square mile so of the unit, could you stay out of my area altogether since it is the only 150 square miles I am allow to take hunters...blah blah" The typical &^%&^$ outfitter nonsense you get from the ones who think the own the damn forest but I made the effort. The spots he suggested we hunt instead are the most heavily hunted/congested day hike-in spots the 90% of hunters without livestock hunt, and we of course spent a LOT on a monthly llama rental for the express purpose of going in deep so that was a big fat no. Anyway I had established with the outfitter that we were hiking, on foot with llamas a full 3 MILES PAST his furthest in camp and his next camp was 4 miles past us if came in on a different trail---and that would have to be space enough---as letting a guy cordon off 150 mi2 just looks as absurd as I write it here as it sounded on the phone.
Photo shows the truck camp to start the 2nd go. For this round we switched to having the llama stock rails on my truck so ABQBW could have his camper on his for when we were not packed in deep:
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Khunter
Well-known member
We had a pretty good first couple days hunting from a truck camp. One morning I was in them thick and called in 2 bulls and was chasing a couple amazing sounding bulls that just had that low and intoxicating 'growl' instead of the more typical multi-note bugle. Did not fling any arrows so it was time for to kick in phase 2 of our original plan: Hunt Deep in the wilderness and try to leave as many hunters behind as possible so we could hunt mostly or hopefully relaxed unhunted or at least lightly hunted elk as we knew that provided the chance to see elk doing what the do in the rut and hunt at our own pace and without pressure of beating the other guy in each morning. Kinda every hunter's goal when burning a lot of preference points?
It was a long uphill slog, even with llamas carrying most of the weight. 7 miles and climbing from about 9,500; to over 12,000' and landing at a preselected camp spot neither of us had seen before at 11,600'. We arrived right at dusk parched and hoping like heck the spot we were headed for had water as a guy I met on another hunt site had promised it would. Sure enough water bubbled out of the ground 200' above the waypoint I had marked on faith and the good word of a fellow hunter who had been here 4 years prior so we were good to go.
This was our home for 7 nights. The hunting was fantastic and bulls were bugling and we had a ball hunting a few mile radius out from here to engineer many close encounters with bulls big and small. Spent a lot of time simply glassing elk looking for elk we wanted to pursue versus chasing each and every bugle we heard. ABQBW was and has always been much wiser than me in that regard as I have a much stronger tendency to take off running after bugles LOL.
One disconcerting twist was as we were starting to unpack the llamas ABQBW spotted TWO HORSES hobbled in the trees a couple hundred yards away. They were to the right of my yellow tent in abv photos. Darn it! A little later the inhabitants of that camp showed up and hat in hand we walked over to explain we would pull out the next morning but simply needed to rest here one night and replenish on water. Nicest Amish couple one could hope to meet. First they said even if we were still hunting you are welcome but I killed my bull this afternoon (Wednesday) and so we are pulling out. He proceeded to tell us all sort of great intel on good trails through the rough downed timber that proved solid gold for hunting a several mile radius from camp. The guy had moved to Colo in 2012 and had successfully arrows 6 bulls since then. Clearly a GOOD hunter and this was his first limited draw tag. His brother killed the first week of the season as well.
They were using a borrowed draft horse and a mule. A friend had dropped them at the trailhead with predetermined fixed plan to return with horse trailer to pick them up a week later (the upcoming Sunday at noon). As we hunted the next day it occurred to me there is zero cell service and they may not have a cell phone anyway (or inreach) which proved to be the case for both. That evening after our hunt when he had spent the day packing his very nice 300" bull to his camp on the horse and mule, we stopped by to see and admire the bull and I offered "If you need me to I can text anyone anywhere you may wish via this satellite-connected inreach to coordinate an earlier pickup. He appreciated that and was quickly set to be picked up on Friday instead of Sunday saving a couple days of sitting at a trailhead waiting on a ride home. Felt great about being able to facilitate that. It made no difference in the intel he shared as he was very open already but he did emphasize quite a few more nugget about a particular trail that ultimately leads to some additional amazing meadows and other primo elk habitat we might not otherwise quite find easy access to on our own or at least not as quickly. That proved to be great info we used quite a bit. Enjoyed calling his home phone after the hunt to share our own hunt stories.
It was a long uphill slog, even with llamas carrying most of the weight. 7 miles and climbing from about 9,500; to over 12,000' and landing at a preselected camp spot neither of us had seen before at 11,600'. We arrived right at dusk parched and hoping like heck the spot we were headed for had water as a guy I met on another hunt site had promised it would. Sure enough water bubbled out of the ground 200' above the waypoint I had marked on faith and the good word of a fellow hunter who had been here 4 years prior so we were good to go.
This was our home for 7 nights. The hunting was fantastic and bulls were bugling and we had a ball hunting a few mile radius out from here to engineer many close encounters with bulls big and small. Spent a lot of time simply glassing elk looking for elk we wanted to pursue versus chasing each and every bugle we heard. ABQBW was and has always been much wiser than me in that regard as I have a much stronger tendency to take off running after bugles LOL.
One disconcerting twist was as we were starting to unpack the llamas ABQBW spotted TWO HORSES hobbled in the trees a couple hundred yards away. They were to the right of my yellow tent in abv photos. Darn it! A little later the inhabitants of that camp showed up and hat in hand we walked over to explain we would pull out the next morning but simply needed to rest here one night and replenish on water. Nicest Amish couple one could hope to meet. First they said even if we were still hunting you are welcome but I killed my bull this afternoon (Wednesday) and so we are pulling out. He proceeded to tell us all sort of great intel on good trails through the rough downed timber that proved solid gold for hunting a several mile radius from camp. The guy had moved to Colo in 2012 and had successfully arrows 6 bulls since then. Clearly a GOOD hunter and this was his first limited draw tag. His brother killed the first week of the season as well.
They were using a borrowed draft horse and a mule. A friend had dropped them at the trailhead with predetermined fixed plan to return with horse trailer to pick them up a week later (the upcoming Sunday at noon). As we hunted the next day it occurred to me there is zero cell service and they may not have a cell phone anyway (or inreach) which proved to be the case for both. That evening after our hunt when he had spent the day packing his very nice 300" bull to his camp on the horse and mule, we stopped by to see and admire the bull and I offered "If you need me to I can text anyone anywhere you may wish via this satellite-connected inreach to coordinate an earlier pickup. He appreciated that and was quickly set to be picked up on Friday instead of Sunday saving a couple days of sitting at a trailhead waiting on a ride home. Felt great about being able to facilitate that. It made no difference in the intel he shared as he was very open already but he did emphasize quite a few more nugget about a particular trail that ultimately leads to some additional amazing meadows and other primo elk habitat we might not otherwise quite find easy access to on our own or at least not as quickly. That proved to be great info we used quite a bit. Enjoyed calling his home phone after the hunt to share our own hunt stories.
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Khunter
Well-known member
So on to the actual hunting during our 7 night pack in to the new spot:
As we were setting up our camp I noticed two Moose scent pits 25 yards from our tents. Sure enough That night we had a bull moose grunt his way into camp and hang out for a little bit. Terrible photo and ABQBW got some very good nighttime video from 20-30 yards but he is Mt. Goat hunting this week and his elk hunt videos failed to download to our google drive properly. Hopefully I can add in his video in a week or so.
First morning out, we immediately encountered elk just above camp. They were above tree line and we did not see a truly big bull in the group so headed in deeper to start exploring our new hunt area. There were bulls bugling in several directions and some not too far away. We chased around that day glassing as much as possible with some minor chasing after specific bugles with 300-800 yards of us along the way. We were excited to be in the new spot that immediately showed the promise we hoped it would and were especially relieved the only other hunter within a few miles was done hunting! Day one here mostly amounted to learning the area.
One thing we noted and seemed to marvel at over and over again during the week was "Damn, I have never seen the ground so completely torn up by elk." ALMOST LITERALLY EVERY STEP WE TOOK ANYWHERE NEAR TIMBER THROUGHOUT THE WEEK THE GROUND LOOKED LIKE A HUGE HERD OF CATTLE HAD DESTROYED IT, YET THERE HAD BEEN ZERO CATTLE IN THERE. Fresh elk turds and tracks everywhere, rubs galore, and tons of elk. We knew we had hit the jackpot and surely it was just a matter of time for all the right ingredients to come together to put a bull on the ground is what was on my mind early on. Our plan was to stay 6 nights with option to extend perhaps a couple days.
A nice long-beamed and narrow bull we saw a few times. Note the smaller 5-6 points. Gosh, was that weaker back on good fronts ever prevalent everywhere we went during the month in this unit. We started the hunt pretty set on trying to not settle for a 300-320" bull hoping to hold out for 330" or better, which we knew full well was a tall order based on my 2 prior hunts in the unit back in 2017 and 2018 on reissue tags, 4 buddies who had hunted it and by the word of pretty much all of the 20+ prior hunters we had spoken to over the summer.
As we were setting up our camp I noticed two Moose scent pits 25 yards from our tents. Sure enough That night we had a bull moose grunt his way into camp and hang out for a little bit. Terrible photo and ABQBW got some very good nighttime video from 20-30 yards but he is Mt. Goat hunting this week and his elk hunt videos failed to download to our google drive properly. Hopefully I can add in his video in a week or so.
First morning out, we immediately encountered elk just above camp. They were above tree line and we did not see a truly big bull in the group so headed in deeper to start exploring our new hunt area. There were bulls bugling in several directions and some not too far away. We chased around that day glassing as much as possible with some minor chasing after specific bugles with 300-800 yards of us along the way. We were excited to be in the new spot that immediately showed the promise we hoped it would and were especially relieved the only other hunter within a few miles was done hunting! Day one here mostly amounted to learning the area.
One thing we noted and seemed to marvel at over and over again during the week was "Damn, I have never seen the ground so completely torn up by elk." ALMOST LITERALLY EVERY STEP WE TOOK ANYWHERE NEAR TIMBER THROUGHOUT THE WEEK THE GROUND LOOKED LIKE A HUGE HERD OF CATTLE HAD DESTROYED IT, YET THERE HAD BEEN ZERO CATTLE IN THERE. Fresh elk turds and tracks everywhere, rubs galore, and tons of elk. We knew we had hit the jackpot and surely it was just a matter of time for all the right ingredients to come together to put a bull on the ground is what was on my mind early on. Our plan was to stay 6 nights with option to extend perhaps a couple days.
A nice long-beamed and narrow bull we saw a few times. Note the smaller 5-6 points. Gosh, was that weaker back on good fronts ever prevalent everywhere we went during the month in this unit. We started the hunt pretty set on trying to not settle for a 300-320" bull hoping to hold out for 330" or better, which we knew full well was a tall order based on my 2 prior hunts in the unit back in 2017 and 2018 on reissue tags, 4 buddies who had hunted it and by the word of pretty much all of the 20+ prior hunters we had spoken to over the summer.
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Khunter
Well-known member
We had a ton of action the following days. Calling in various bulls and passing a number of them at close range.
Here is a video of one bull I called in to 10 yards maybe a touch less. It took some aggressive calling, essentially screaming bugles at him and on top of his own bugles when he hung up at 90 yards to get him to fully commit. Guess he was 150-90 yards of me for 10-20 minutes before I finally used the correct formula of calls to pull him in. Cool close encounter for a couple minutes...this vid is just a snippet of him bugling to me from 10-12 yards away of a much longer video.
Still photo of same bull:
Here is a video of one bull I called in to 10 yards maybe a touch less. It took some aggressive calling, essentially screaming bugles at him and on top of his own bugles when he hung up at 90 yards to get him to fully commit. Guess he was 150-90 yards of me for 10-20 minutes before I finally used the correct formula of calls to pull him in. Cool close encounter for a couple minutes...this vid is just a snippet of him bugling to me from 10-12 yards away of a much longer video.
Still photo of same bull:
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Wallydeuce
Well-known member
Well done Kirby! Looks and reads like you're having a great time. I'm hanging on every word.
Khunter
Well-known member
Had great action and encounters with bulls each day. The kind of action you are thrilled to have maybe once or twice in a season on a more 'normal' OTC type hunt, we were seeing most every day and sometimes a few times per day.
Early one morning this youngster (video and still photo) came trotting in as I was trying to coax a different bull from opposite direction.
After calling in this bull above, and hunting solo as ABQBW hunted some other areas and focused on trying to glass up some prize winners to hunt, I headed in deeper to my target area for the day and called in a 320ish bull to 70 yards. That 320 bull had me pondering whether I would fling an arrow or not but ultimately that bull never presented a shot opportunity. Most days I was hiking 3-7 miles or so. Covering ground when I was not hearing any bugling and it seemed in most cases I could dig up a bull to start talking or I hiked into a drainage where I could now hear the ones who were already talking and try to create a close-in opportunity.
We had what I guess is a pretty standard routine going that was working well. Up at 4:30 to 4:45. quick coffee and oatmeal or mountain house breakfast. check the llamas water bucket and move them if they needed a fresh area to graze. Hit the trail by 5:30 or so, hunt all day till dark, hike about 1.5 to 2.5 miles back to camp after shooting light, mountain house dinner, maybe a sip of whiskey maybe not, purify another batch of water, prep next day breakfast and lunch, go to bed 9:30 to 10:30 thereabouts. and repeat.
All this was taking place at 11'400 to 12,200 feet. We camped on the edge of a burn area from some years ago and hunted that and a lot of standing timber loaded with beetle kill and deadfall. The terrain was not too rough except for a couple elements. 1) A LOT of deadfall to cross in most timbered areas and 2) access to some of the best elk action involved climbing down a couple steep and deep drainage that of course meant climbing back out of. We also hunted quite a bit in easier to access areas so it was not always a tough slog and elk were in all these areas. What kept us venturing into new areas and the tougher terrain despite having elk much closer to camp was the quest for 'big' versus just 'any' bulls. And the big bulls were few and far between it seemed.
An aside as I think about how much harder we were working in terms of miles, altitude and elevation gain/loss on this hunt versus so many prior hunts...I am more fit and at the lowest weight I have been since about 20 years ago and was glad to have focused on coming into the season in pretty great shape (for me) and not having much belly fat at all. Not Cam Hanes "keep hammerin' shape", but physically fit with lots of hiking miles all spring and summer behind me. Fortunate that my wife and my favorite activity is hiking with our dogs most days and weekends here in Colorado as I am not a gym work out guy and not a jogger. Back in 2017 and in 2018 when I hunted this unit on reissue tags, I obtained the tag just a few days before the season and both times was in pretty poor shape. Poor cardio condition and carrying extra weight around the middle really limited my ability to make the most of those last-minute tags when mentally and physically I was expecting to hunt low pinyon juniper country instead of up at tree line. Knowing since January we were putting in for this unit and were guaranteed to draw I made a commitment to myself to not show up out of shape and ill prepared and I mostly achieved the physical conditioning prep I planned for so was able to keep my energy up all week.
We had a changing matrix of hunting together and splitting up, some days meeting up out in the field mid day to call for each other. With no cell coverage, inreach sure was awesome for keeping tabs on each other and to coordinate.
Early one morning this youngster (video and still photo) came trotting in as I was trying to coax a different bull from opposite direction.
After calling in this bull above, and hunting solo as ABQBW hunted some other areas and focused on trying to glass up some prize winners to hunt, I headed in deeper to my target area for the day and called in a 320ish bull to 70 yards. That 320 bull had me pondering whether I would fling an arrow or not but ultimately that bull never presented a shot opportunity. Most days I was hiking 3-7 miles or so. Covering ground when I was not hearing any bugling and it seemed in most cases I could dig up a bull to start talking or I hiked into a drainage where I could now hear the ones who were already talking and try to create a close-in opportunity.
We had what I guess is a pretty standard routine going that was working well. Up at 4:30 to 4:45. quick coffee and oatmeal or mountain house breakfast. check the llamas water bucket and move them if they needed a fresh area to graze. Hit the trail by 5:30 or so, hunt all day till dark, hike about 1.5 to 2.5 miles back to camp after shooting light, mountain house dinner, maybe a sip of whiskey maybe not, purify another batch of water, prep next day breakfast and lunch, go to bed 9:30 to 10:30 thereabouts. and repeat.
All this was taking place at 11'400 to 12,200 feet. We camped on the edge of a burn area from some years ago and hunted that and a lot of standing timber loaded with beetle kill and deadfall. The terrain was not too rough except for a couple elements. 1) A LOT of deadfall to cross in most timbered areas and 2) access to some of the best elk action involved climbing down a couple steep and deep drainage that of course meant climbing back out of. We also hunted quite a bit in easier to access areas so it was not always a tough slog and elk were in all these areas. What kept us venturing into new areas and the tougher terrain despite having elk much closer to camp was the quest for 'big' versus just 'any' bulls. And the big bulls were few and far between it seemed.
An aside as I think about how much harder we were working in terms of miles, altitude and elevation gain/loss on this hunt versus so many prior hunts...I am more fit and at the lowest weight I have been since about 20 years ago and was glad to have focused on coming into the season in pretty great shape (for me) and not having much belly fat at all. Not Cam Hanes "keep hammerin' shape", but physically fit with lots of hiking miles all spring and summer behind me. Fortunate that my wife and my favorite activity is hiking with our dogs most days and weekends here in Colorado as I am not a gym work out guy and not a jogger. Back in 2017 and in 2018 when I hunted this unit on reissue tags, I obtained the tag just a few days before the season and both times was in pretty poor shape. Poor cardio condition and carrying extra weight around the middle really limited my ability to make the most of those last-minute tags when mentally and physically I was expecting to hunt low pinyon juniper country instead of up at tree line. Knowing since January we were putting in for this unit and were guaranteed to draw I made a commitment to myself to not show up out of shape and ill prepared and I mostly achieved the physical conditioning prep I planned for so was able to keep my energy up all week.
We had a changing matrix of hunting together and splitting up, some days meeting up out in the field mid day to call for each other. With no cell coverage, inreach sure was awesome for keeping tabs on each other and to coordinate.
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