Steeliedrew
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- May 18, 2014
- Messages
- 238
was fortunate this year to pick up a rather good OTC tag out of state along with a good buddy. With a good bull to cow ratio the anticipation was through the roof as the season approached. We’d meet 800 miles from home for what would turn out to be the most action packed Elk hunt of my short, 10 year quest of chasing bugling bulls. The plan was to hunt for 8 days until one or two tags were filled or we had at least left it all on the mountain.
We were pleasantly surprised to arrive at a trailhead and have it to ourselves. Arriving mid day we decided to head out for a sound check. that evening, perched on top of a ridge, and bugling across a canyon, we couldn’t let out a bugle or cow mew without it being answered by one or more bulls. We had arrived. We spent the next 3 or 4 days locating bull after bull. We were running into the same issue time and time again though. We’d call, they’d answer, we’d get in close, call again, and the next bugle would be further away.
At one point we were on that same ridge from the first night. It was a couple hours before dark and were getting some bulls worked up across the canyon that we figured we could make a play on in the morning. After 10 minutes or so of back and forth with those bulls, one we weren’t yet aware of came up hill towards us and screamed at us. Long story short we got set up in the timber and watched as this bull closed the distance silently. He was a nice 6 point and carefully picked his way through the timber until he got to the Hang-up spot. This would have been great if we had the time to have one of us get into range of the hang-up spot prior to him getting there but it all happened too fast. I dropped back and began raking and calling in effort to pull him closer to my buddy but he stood his ground and eventually just casually walked back to where he came from and continued bugling. We were out of daylight and another action packed day of elk hunting was in the books.
About mid trip the action had slowed a bit. We figured probably because our stink and bugles had filled the area so much the bulls had grown tired of us. So we packed up and moved spots which was a couple hour drive. That night we were a little worried we had made a bad move because there was a number of camps in the area. The next morning, a few miles from camp we got one fired up and we pushed down through the brush until we had him raking a tree at 20 yards but there was no shot and while trying to make something happen, a cow we had not seen busted out between us and the bull and that was that.
A day later we hiked to a new ridge and were bummed to find an outfitter camp in a saddle that we were really interested in. Not wanting to step on their toes we devised a hunt we could do on the way back into the bottom. Less than a mile from that outfitter camp we walk into a benchy aspen patch and find multiple wallows. I rip a bugle and instantly get a response from two bulls just below us. Their bugles just kept getting further away but they kept responding so we literally ran at them calling back and forth all the while. They ended up taking us back up near where we had just come down the ridge earlier. Before we knew it we had what sounded like 4 or 5 different bulls just cranking back and forth all within 100 yards. We couldn’t put eyes on any of them due to the timber, brush, and topography. My buddy crept towards one of the bugles and tried to go right at him using an Ultimate predator decoy and although curious, that bull just kept pushing down the mountain. He would stop and look, run down the mountain some more and stop and look, until my buddy had lost about 400ft elevation and came back up. Try as we might, we could not get one of them to close the distance and they eventually smelled us we think as they went quiet. No arrows were sent that day.
To be continued…
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We were pleasantly surprised to arrive at a trailhead and have it to ourselves. Arriving mid day we decided to head out for a sound check. that evening, perched on top of a ridge, and bugling across a canyon, we couldn’t let out a bugle or cow mew without it being answered by one or more bulls. We had arrived. We spent the next 3 or 4 days locating bull after bull. We were running into the same issue time and time again though. We’d call, they’d answer, we’d get in close, call again, and the next bugle would be further away.
At one point we were on that same ridge from the first night. It was a couple hours before dark and were getting some bulls worked up across the canyon that we figured we could make a play on in the morning. After 10 minutes or so of back and forth with those bulls, one we weren’t yet aware of came up hill towards us and screamed at us. Long story short we got set up in the timber and watched as this bull closed the distance silently. He was a nice 6 point and carefully picked his way through the timber until he got to the Hang-up spot. This would have been great if we had the time to have one of us get into range of the hang-up spot prior to him getting there but it all happened too fast. I dropped back and began raking and calling in effort to pull him closer to my buddy but he stood his ground and eventually just casually walked back to where he came from and continued bugling. We were out of daylight and another action packed day of elk hunting was in the books.
About mid trip the action had slowed a bit. We figured probably because our stink and bugles had filled the area so much the bulls had grown tired of us. So we packed up and moved spots which was a couple hour drive. That night we were a little worried we had made a bad move because there was a number of camps in the area. The next morning, a few miles from camp we got one fired up and we pushed down through the brush until we had him raking a tree at 20 yards but there was no shot and while trying to make something happen, a cow we had not seen busted out between us and the bull and that was that.
A day later we hiked to a new ridge and were bummed to find an outfitter camp in a saddle that we were really interested in. Not wanting to step on their toes we devised a hunt we could do on the way back into the bottom. Less than a mile from that outfitter camp we walk into a benchy aspen patch and find multiple wallows. I rip a bugle and instantly get a response from two bulls just below us. Their bugles just kept getting further away but they kept responding so we literally ran at them calling back and forth all the while. They ended up taking us back up near where we had just come down the ridge earlier. Before we knew it we had what sounded like 4 or 5 different bulls just cranking back and forth all within 100 yards. We couldn’t put eyes on any of them due to the timber, brush, and topography. My buddy crept towards one of the bugles and tried to go right at him using an Ultimate predator decoy and although curious, that bull just kept pushing down the mountain. He would stop and look, run down the mountain some more and stop and look, until my buddy had lost about 400ft elevation and came back up. Try as we might, we could not get one of them to close the distance and they eventually smelled us we think as they went quiet. No arrows were sent that day.
To be continued…
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
