KHunter AZ archery Elk 2019

Congrats on drawing a great tag. Best of luck to you.
 
elk very active mornings.

hiked in 2 mi opening morning yesterday and lots of bugling fired up. Got in front of one group and hunt partner shot a nice 6 pt bull (in brisket). range estimate was off. they were gonna walk by till cows caught our wind and knotted up broadside deciding what to do.at 45 to me and 52 to partner. I told him earlier 1st shot was his.
we could not find bull after a day of tracking and blood petered out. sure looked nonlethal.

area wildfire makes for great sunsets.



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Crack a nice one! Time in... looking forward to this adventure... Where do we need to send a re-supply of donuts?
 
opening evening was slow. but driving in a rough 2 track to access west side of a no motorized area, at 4 pm we drive by an unnamed tank right on road. then ad pass by see 15 elk with a nice bull were a hundred yards from us dripping into the tank from hill behind it.

Of course they reversed course. did not see anyone in the brush blind on berm thankfully.

Moved along another 4 miles and bailed out. heavily hunted area with vehicles parked to access the several tanks for evening.

We orbited the area with a few tanks and stayed clear of tanks. saw a rag and spike at close range and a rag a spike and a cow.7AEED312-BDDB-4176-A186-7DDEBE7177A2.jpeg at l Only a few distant bugles very late.
 
2nd morning was great. hike in 2 miles to near where hunted 1st morning. The elk were again lighting it up in several groups. We let the wind and quality of bugles guide us. Wind was terrible for the bull
that sounded best.

End up dogging a herd of 30 or so for a mile and a half through sparse to denser Ponderosa. We were at 100-300 yards most of the time and bugling was consistent. Herd was strung out 500 yards and despite their “relatively” slow pace, it was tough to get in on the better sounding bull closer to the front. We never saw him but did see a 5 and a 5x6 closer to mid herd and lots of cows and spikes multiple times.

Too good to be true or to
last in a heavily hunted area...even this walk in only area so as the herd was seeming to settle down to bed here comes 3 guys in the wide open and we see the elk seeing them in a rush coming to the bugling to blow it all up. So much for our plan to stay close and arrow the herd bull du jour when opportunity presents itself.

At this time 2:45 pm AZ time hanging out in general area for evening hunt 3.5 miles from camp and less than half a mile from the road we drove in last night. go figure. anyway we are in for an evening hunt and a long hike to camp after dark. normal elk hunting conditions of course...


We also saw a spike and 3 cows and a calf trotting by at 200 yards that were not oart of the big herd. The spike had fresh blood streaming down shoulder. I guess some hunters are truly after first edible elk they can find in this hard to draw unit. Looked like a scapula hit given he was trotting along fine. never fun to see.

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Very slow evening. Good napping in the ponderosa today but a let down with oy a spike seen and no bugles.

We are having a ball and have the entire season. Rut just warming up and the star players (beeg burls) still on the sideline for a few days more?
 
ha. to capture that crazy high dangerous stand I had to turn my phone sideways and use the panoramic photo option. As hunt partner was moving it twisted him up.
 
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