Luck for the undeserving - Nevada bull

[Bluffgruff]

I'm not a good elk hunter.

I'm a converted eastern whitetail hunter, and I wasn't any good at that either.
I'm good at pronghorn hunting, for what that's worth.

4 years ago, I killed my first elk not part of a multiperson firing squad, a calf. It was delicious.

The next year I tripped over a bull in a Colorado unit without a reputation and killed a monster with a muzzleloader. It's still at the taxidermist. I had nothing to do with it - my buddy on the opposite ridge called him by me while calling to a different bull.

So this year, what do I end up with?

A top 5 Nevada elk unit bull tag.

 

[Wallydeuce]

Well hell, you might as well kill a big one then. *sigh*

Go get em!

 

[Bluffgruff]

I can't even figure out how to hunt the whole season. I have 6 or maybe 7 days out of a 14 day season. I make contact with a couple hunttalkers who are quite helpful, as well as the biologist. I have thanked these HTers, individually, but thanks again guys!

I should have had better plans, since this was my first choice tag, but all I have is GoHunt's trophy quality numbers and a pair of legs well conditioned after a season of hunting all over the west.

I will say my first idea was "go where no one can drive," and the biologist validated this idea 100%. By the day I left for the hunt, another tagholder, a HTer, I had talked to had filled his tag and offered all of his information without any strings attached, another HTer who I messaged out of the blue had given me more information than I deserved as well. I get on the road at 645, hoping I can make it to the unit with enough time to shoot my rifle and glass the evening.

I was succesful here. I was able to find a place to shoot a few times and get one bull in the spotter before dark.

 

[Bluffgruff]

The mental aspect of having a high-end tag is tough. Lots of us apply for these tags without being prepared for having that tag in our pocket.

With this in mind, having killed exactly 2 bulls before this hunt, I didn't really "know" what I wanted from this hunt. Finally, on the drive there, I had decided that I wanted to have fun. I wanted to find a good bull because that would be fun, I wanted to see a lot of elk because that would be fun, and I wanted to go with my e-scouting plan because being right is fun.

Turns out I was only partially right, but making the adjustments needed was fun too!

I started out day 2 from the highest point I could drive to.



I left camp late, thinking I would just cruise up 1000 feet and start glassing, but I was wrong. My legs were jello, my lungs were burning, and I was soaked with sweat. I found a large amount of elk sign, but that ended up being a red herring. I was 90 minutes late to my glassing knob.

It isn't a total loss.

Bull #1 is a raghorn on a south facing slope, also a red herring. I keep an eye on him until he beds on a bench with a spring, combing over similar terrain all over that basin, I find a doe and fawn mule deer. At this point I'm just bummed out, so I switch to the other side of the ridge, nothing. Back on the original side, I expand my search and catch a tiny bit of movement up-canyon and in the valley floor, 3 hours after sunrise.

Bulls.

 

[Hammsolo]

Keep us updated. Stop all this over thinking and just have fun.

 

[Bluffgruff]

I had asked the biologist, "With the drought and heat, should I be looking at water and north facing slopes?" And he had verbally shrugged. I was mentally combing back over the rest of our conversation and didn't really find anything else concrete to tell me if what I was seeing was typical. I had video of the bulls, and a few minutes of watching them through the spotter. And one of the 4 was a complete 6x6, so I packed up and did a much better job covering those next 2 miles and 1000 feet up than the first effort earlier in the morning.



The screen grabs are blurry. Sorry. But I wanted a closer look anyway.

I had a vantage that should have been directly over where I expected the bulls to bed.

But do you remember how I said I wasn't a good elk hunter? I submit into evidence that I never saw any of those 4 bulls again.

While mixing disappointment with a roast beef sandwich and an apple I bought from a guy at a gas station in southern Colorado 2 weeks before, I unexpectedly fulfilled a life goal of seeing Pinus longaeva in person. Call me a nerd, it's a compliment. I've stood next to the Grizzly giant, and stared up at a 300ft tall coastal redwood, but having lunch leaning up against a Great Basin Bristlecone pine felt much more like an accomplishment.



After the mental boost from that encounter of the arboreal kind, I poked around the ridgeline, finding an excellent glassing point and proceeded to not see anything for 2 hours.

While eating an orange, kicked back against some deciduous tree I can't identify with my forestry merit badge, I see a yellow spot 800 yards away with my naked eye. Binos on the tripod, it's obviously a bull. I'm still hoping for the complete 6x6 from the morning, but it's a 5x5 in the spotter. A good one, especially for Colorado, but I'm not in Colorado anymore.



I could kill this bull, and I love a successful hunt, but I haven't had enough fun yet. I watch him for over an hour, so close to range. Why is he so low? He had to have just crawled out of a live timber patch in the bottom of the canyon. Then his canyon mate shows up right at dark. I can barely see antlers in the fading light, mostly because he's missing most of them, but check out that right G2!



At dark I scurry the 4 miles back to camp, completely exhausted. Why am I getting destroyed by Nevada when Colorado miles just seem to roll by? Whatever, I don't dwell on it, but I know plan A of climbing the tops is now over. I sleep in the backseat of my truck out in the desert. What a terrible idea.

 

[Bluffgruff]

Before I dive into the next day, "Another Caucasian, Gary."

 

[Bluffgruff]

I drive back to cell service and grill my elk hunting friends about what everything means before I get a fitful night's rest. Is it because I'm twice as long as the backseat is wide? Or is it the mexican chicken with rice and beans?

Either way, I decide to glass several large canyons from the desert in the morning. I see 7 cows in the desert a few miles from my glassing spot. I make it just in time to get to my spot and pull out the binos before sunrise.

Aaaaand nothing.



I'm sitting there in my plaid pajamas, glassing (and freezing) my butt off, and there are no yellow splotches on these hills or in these canyons.

I figure my glassing is just feculent because I haven't had my coffee.
Usually I would pull out my handgrinder and mobile pour-over from Black Rifle Coffee Company, but I'm a little bit in a hurry to get back on the glass, so I boil my water on the reliable MSR whisperlite and go Stardust style.
Just as I sit back down, I can see a tree in a saddle 3.5 miles away flicker. Trees flicker? Noooo. I keep staring, and it's at least one elk walking in front of it into a canyon I can't see from here. I grab the spotter, and it/they are gone. I talk it over via Inreach with a buddy, and decide to try the canyon the elk walked into. I get lunch together, change into my non-plaid clothes, and drive to the trailhead.

I was warned that all the trails were obliterated in flashflooding last decade, but I thought there would be routes. 100 yards of road now give way to catastrophic erosion, huge boulders, and a deep gorge inside an already deep canyon. There's a water pipe from a spring out into a tank in the desert. The pipe is now suspended on the gorge wall in places.



When I get far enough back, I start climbing out of the wash, up towards a rocky point I had picked out to glass from. The hillside I'm walking on is covered in elk and deer tracks and green grass. I get to the rock outcropping and have a seat. Within 30 minutes, I find a big wad of cows bedded up high. Things are looking up. The cows were walking downhill by 1pm, 28 of them, and one 3x3 raghorn.

My optimism gives way to my roast beef sandwich, again, as I'm seeing nothing else. Also, I have jettisoned my puffy pants, my raingear, and my down hooded jacket in favor of a single lighter down jacket, and I'm freezing. I'm shivering so bad I'm doing squats in full view of the 29 elk I know about, and while doing so, I see 2 little yellow dots cross-canyon at 650 yards. Yeah. If they care at all, they aren't showing it.



This gives me a little boost thermoregulatorily, or something.

Now critters are coming out of the woodwork. 2 bulls (large 6x5 and a medium 5x5) pop up at 800 yards and then proceed to get into a serious shoving match complete with bugles and dust flying.


About 15 deer including a couple middling 4x4s



Another 5x5 and 11 cows in a far branch of the canyon.

Then things get really interesting as 3 5x5s and a 6x6 ease out of the canyon bottom at 650 yards.



6x6 looks good, but after reviewing Jay Scott's elk scoring methods every night for a week, I snap back to reality: this 6x6 is not very big or old, but still really cool to see an unbroken bull, finally. He isn't what I'm looking for, so I watch and video him for about 30 minutes.

The walk back is going to suck, so I bail out down the hill to the bottom, following my tracks by headlamp. I only fall once bad, slipping on some ice and ending up in full turtle on my pack. Gun seems okay, I'm totally fine, so I roll over and stand up, continuing my walk in the dark.

I discuss my day with my most trusted advisor, who said I made a good choice passing that bull.

I have an elk tenderloin from last year that I brought on this trip to be a motivator, and it turns out A+.

 

[Bluffgruff]

In the last 3 minutes, I have decided on a half-Caucasian and to finish this tonight, or it might be next week, and that's not fair to anyone else who bothers to read threads.

 

[Bluffgruff]

It's cold. 20 degrees or something. I have been sleeping in the bed of the truck the last 2 nights. It's also 405am, and I HATE waking up in the morning. At this point, I don't really know how this hunt will end because, as mentioned before, I am bad at elk hunting, but I have this low level of burning confidence this morning. Probably because I watched 3 of Randy's posse whack elk on video while trying to get to sleep the night before, on general tags, no less.
So I whisper, "Tag of a lifetime, get up! You POS."

The next hour+ is a blur, but I got my honey nut cheerios and my coffee, and next thing I know, I'm late again. I'm 2 miles from my glassing point and I don't even need my headlamp. The gravel in the creek, a different creek from the night before, is loud, loose, deep. It takes double the effort it should to take one step up this 10 degree grade. After a mile, it's legal shooting light, and I'm in the redzone, soaked in sweat and optimism. This is perfect elk country all around, springs, PJ, rubs on every other tree, and green, green grass.



Coming around a corner, I pull my binos up and there is an obvious elk a ½ mile away. I start to creep up 30 more yards, but remember that I suck at elk hunting and drop back, get out my spotter, and get a look before I move too close and screw it all up.
I have video of this, I said out loud, "I'd be happy with that bull.



I catch another bull nearby, but he looks broken.
They are 700 yards away. I scurry across the 30 yard wide creek bottom and get into mosaic burned PJ and creep towards a rock where I should be able to get a shot. I find 2 more bulls in the process, and they're 150 yards closer, a bit of a worry because I suck at elk hunting and don't know how skittish they'll be.
I get to the rock, really a 10-foot wide saddle, and get my spotter out. The two new bulls are a small 5x5 and a heavy broken bull, not interested, even though they are inside 300 yards. The two other bulls are the original unbroken 6x6, and a broken previous 6x6 with almost 20" fronts. The unbroken 6x6 has me excited, but I stop and run him through my "potential for disappointment" calculator, and he passes. I have to move to get enough elevation on my pack for the shot, 11 degrees up. I range, re-range, calculate my TBR, (I use a protractor app and my phone calculator because I'm too cheap to buy a new rangefinder), recheck the spotting scope to ensure I'm on the right bull, and recheck my bubble level on my scope everytime anything changes.

The bull is at 419 yards, I'm dialed for 400, I check my scope-mounted bubble level, and take 2 or 3 more breaths.

I have my phone skope on my spotter because I want to be able to see where I miss... and squeeze the trigger.

DOOOOOOOWWWWNNNN goes the bull!!!



But I know that's not really the best reaction.

He rolls to a stop 20 yards down the hill out of frame, with his head up. So 30 seconds later, I put another one down the tube, through his chest, but 10 seconds later he's up and walking, and I'm really starting to worry. 3rd shot as he's walking left, and I'm back on the spotter, and there is blood on him, and he lies down, and finally puts his head down for the last time as I'm getting 3 more rounds ready, just in case.



But no need, he's down. Really down. On top of 2 burned trees.

As for skittish elk, the other 3 bulls hang around for many minutes, even after I pack up everything and start walking down the hill in full view, full sun, less than 1/4 mile away.

I get there and the bull has grown. He's getting pretty close to the size of the "monster" I had lucked into a few years ago.




I'm overwhelmed by his size.
I'm alone. My buddies don't have the flexibility that I have to hunt whenever.

Six hours of solo cutting later, I have 6 bags of meat, a bag of hide (full for a rug), and a head.



I'm planning my escape. I toss the primo cuts, the neckmeat, brisket, and serratus anterior, all into my pack and heft it to my knee without weighing it. I'm on my way down, it's only 1.6 miles, I got this.
Bag is really heavy, I'm thinking 90-95bs. I get my luggage scale out at the truck and it's 120lbs.

The next day, knowing my limits, I haul 118, 111, and 83lbs down the hill in 8 hours.



As I'm waddling in to the truck the last trip, I realize what a special experience this is, even as bad as I am at elk hunting, I was successful and I had FUN!

I cooked a little chunk of "ribeye" last night and shared it with a guy who doesn't eat game, and he said, "I haven't had this good of a steak in a long time," and then my Nevada elk hunting experience was complete.

I get to savor this for at least 7 more years until I can do it again, but the flavor will last a lifetime.

 

[EastTNHunter]

Loved the story, Bluffgruff! But I have to disagree on one point… you keep calling yourself a bad elk hunter, but I think that what you did proved the opposite. You did research, put in work, made more adjustments, and put in more work. That’s a good elk hunter in my book!

 

[Pagosa]

Great hunt and great bull. Congratulations on your hunt and a great trophy. I’d say you don’t suck at elk hunting but should be the one giving out advice. Enjoy your trophy and some great eating

 

[MarvB]

Great write up and great bull, congrats bluff!

 

[LukeDuke]

Congrats. Thanks is for sharing.

 

[rmyoung1]

That was awesome. Thanks for sharing!

 

[mdhunter]

Nevada is a special place. Great thread, thanks for sharing!

 

[OntarioHunter]

That's a nice one!

 

[Perlodid]

I usually judge these trip reports by seeing how much they make me want to go elk hunting again. By that metric, this is a fantastic story. I enjoyed the honesty and self-deprecation in these posts, most of my best hunting memories start with "get up you POS" as well. Congrats on the bull and the NV adventure. Hope to make it there someday.

 

[ashersdad]

Very well written and a beautiful bull. Congrats!

 

[huntin24/7]

Thanks for the great read. Congrats on a really nice bull!