Arizona late archery Elk

Jordan Budd

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Hey everyone. My last hunt of the year is here and it’s one I’ve very much been pumped about. Arizona late archery elk season in an undisclosed unit! I drew this hunt with 1 point, but still a 17% chance and it was my second choice. A unit with rough country but at least makes it glassable. Hunt starts on Friday so tomorrow is a shooting and scouting day. I’ve filmed in here before and have some buddies giving me the low down on some spots so that’s helpful. The potential for large bulls is fairly high, but with a less than average growth year I’m just looking for 300+.

I’ll update best I can, should have service about every day!

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Jordan Budd

Jordan Budd

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Already an update and it’s not even season yet. This morning we got a late start into a spot we wanted to check and found 5 bulls, all 4 pts. Feeling awesome since we’re finding elk. The fast forward to about 3 hours ago... I go unload my stuff from my truck and pull my bow out of the case, shoot at 30 yards and the arrow hits the dirt about 10 yards in front of the target... “what the hell” so I drew my bow back again and I see that my rest isn’t engaging. It’s a trophy taker smack down Pro so it’s limb driven and the spring for the prongs wasn’t working correctly. So off to the pro shop we go. A screw had come lose inside and disengaged the spring. So a huge thank you to Jeremy at the bow shop in Payson for taking the rest apart and figuring it out for me on short notice. Now it’s fixed and I’m back to dialed and confident in my system. Good lord. It was much more stressful than it seems on here! Haha. Let that be a lesson to everyone, always shoot your bow right before a hunt. I shot that bow 48 hours ago and it was shooting fine, put it in my skb hard case and drove down here. Just never know what can happen.


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sneaky

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Already an update and it’s not even season yet. This morning we got a late start into a spot we wanted to check and found 5 bulls, all 4 pts. Feeling awesome since we’re finding elk. The fast forward to about 3 hours ago... I go unload my stuff from my truck and pull my bow out of the case, shoot at 30 yards and the arrow hits the dirt about 10 yards in front of the target... “what the hell” so I drew my bow back again and I see that my rest isn’t engaging. It’s a trophy taker smack down Pro so it’s limb driven and the spring for the prongs wasn’t working correctly. So off to the pro shop we go. A screw had come lose inside and disengaged the spring. So a huge thank you to Jeremy at the bow shop in Payson for taking the rest apart and figuring it out for me on short notice. Now it’s fixed and I’m back to dialed and confident in my system. Good lord. It was much more stressful than it seems on here! Haha. Let that be a lesson to everyone, always shoot your bow right before a hunt. I shot that bow 48 hours ago and it was shooting fine, put it in my skb hard case and drove down here. Just never know what can happen.


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Might say volumes about your driving

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Jordan Budd

Jordan Budd

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HA! It just finally shook the spring loose. He said it wasn’t even sent to me correctly set. I didn’t know any different so I didn’t mess with it, shot well before and all the sudden things were not good!


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Jordan Budd

Jordan Budd

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Tonight’s update:

Tomorrow may get interesting! This morning we glassed for the big 5x6 at first light but didn’t find him. With no other elk around that area we took off to glass some other country. Saw probably 6 bulls, one awesome awesome 6 that was broke off after his third unfortunately. Then we found another bull about 2 miles out that with the sun in our face, just couldn’t get a good look at him until about 1 or so. After he stood up and we saw he was a descent 6x6 and shooter, just too far to do anything today and he wasn’t going anywhere, we headed over to where the big 5x6 was last seen. After maybe an hour my buddy goes “oh there’s a bull.... oh hellllll yeah!” I found the bull and there was the big 5x6. Good beams and an awesome frame with wow factor. We put him to bed this evening and now repacking things to go back in tomorrow. Plan is to hit the glassing knob and spot him, bed him up then I’ll take off through a nasty creek drainage and pick my way through some broken cliffs to work my way to him, while my buddy stays on the glassing knob watching him and hopefully flags me in. Could be awesome, could be not awesome but we’re finding bulls!
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Jordan Budd

Jordan Budd

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Currently about 100 yards directly above him. A while ago I was on top of a bluff and he was 60-80 yds below me and I couldn’t see him but I could hear him. Then he walked through an opening that I believe was 74 yards, corrected to 60 yards. So it’s steep AF. He walked right through it and stopped with just his butt out. Getting over here was a serious pain in the ass and it’s a safety concern in the dark. So in 45 mins I’m pulling the plug and heading back to the ranger. Fingers crossed.


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