Sorry for not much last night. It was cooling off but I really wanted to get him cut up quick and out of the field.
So I went back into an area that kind of got everything started with elk for me in Nebraska. I setup in the middle of a section with 4 pivots. The temp had already started dropping from 90 to mid 70’s by 7pm. Honestly I was getting a little frustrated at the lack of sightings with all the sign around the corn fields. I sat against a little plumb thicket, I called a little bit around 7:00, nothing responded or showed. About sundown or 30 minutes left of legal light I stood up and ripped the loudest bugles I could, nothing responded.
@seeth07 isnt far off, I turned around and dropped my stuff to take a whiz. Over my shoulder I see this bull come out of the corn 200 yards away. He was raking the ground and bugling right at me. I abandoned me urinating efforts immediately.
He’s still closing right to me raking the ground and bugling. At 70 yards he turns hard right and is angling away from me towards a field road. I cow called, he stopped and looked, but kept going. I’d left my bugle tube about 7 steps away in an effort to get more cover. I turned and let a weak bugle out with just cupping my hands. He turned, bugled, and bashed a small tree close to him. He was on a mission to kick my butt then. He was headed right to the opening I had. There just wasn’t much to range besides a little patch of wildflowers, they were 28, I stopped him what I guessed was 10 yards behind them.
The next part is a little learning experience that I already knew but in the moment, brain being mush I let slip.
He was stopped at ~40 yards. Quartering slightly to me. I let the arrow fly, it was dark enough I couldn’t tell exactly where it hit. He bolted about 100 yards, got wobbly then laid down. I thought it was over. About the time I though he died, he got up walked 10 yards and went back down. This repeated for the next 20 minutes before it got so dark I couldn’t see him. I was a nervous wreck, no hunter worth a damn wants to see an animal get up after a shot. I backed out and waited an hour.
My son, a friend of mine up here, and I went back in at 10pm with lights. We got in his trail and we ended up finding him the last place I seen him go down. I didn’t hug the shoulder tight enough on the shot, caught all of 1 lung, the back little bit of the other, and the liver. Not a horrible shot, but there was things I could’ve done to make it better.
My wife had just got up here so we got him all cut up, packed out and into coolers or hanging up with the cooler weather.
That’s part 1 of hopefully 4.
