My Blue Mountains Muzzleloader Elk Hunt (youth)

[levid]

My Blue Mountains Muzzleloader Elk Hunt (youth)

My dad isn’t into huntin forums very much because of the problems they cause between people who use them with all of the bickering and people acting like they are better hunters then everybody else, but he agreed to let me put my story on here from this year’s elk hunt. It’s a really, really long story with lots of detail so here it is…

When I first found out that I had drawn a Dayton quality bull tag I couldn’t believe it! I had been drawn for a few other special tags in the past like a cougar tag in eastern Washington and a cow tag in Dayton before, but none of those had worked out, so this was another chance for me and I was just hoping that this time something would actually go right.

When opening day finally came around we were up and ready to go try and spot a bull to go after in our spot. When we got in to where we were going, our worst nightmare came true. The bulls had almost entirely quit bugling except for the occasional snort we would hear down in some of the deep holes and canyons we passed by on this ridge. Now not only was it so dry that it was nearly impossible to sneak on anything, but the bulls had to quit bugling as well! After we were done for the morning and the afternoon had slowly snuck up on us, we went in for another hunt that day with no luck.

On the second morning, we went in to the same spot with the hopes of having a better day. Once we got a few miles in to our spot, we got up on a little hump on the ridge and spotted a spike about 100 yards away. We watched him for a while longer and then decided to walk out on the ridge further, so that we could try to drop down into the hole where we thought that the herd would be. With how dry everything was, we were creeping our way along down the crunchy hillside being as quiet as we could possibly be with the conditions that the weather had thrown us. Every once in a while we  would hear a bull let a small bugle slip out almost as if it were on accident, but just enough to keep us headed in the right direction. All of a sudden we hear the elk bust out of the area right below us through the timber. We did manage to find 5 different wallows throughout the timber as we were trying to put the sneak on these elk, which gave us some hope for seeing another bull in that area. Sitting down for a while and simply waiting to see if another bull would come in to one of the wallows was our only other option at that point, so that is exactly what we did. Sometime about an hour later we found out the hard way how smart these bulls are when one of them circled us to get the wind right before sneaking back in to one of his wallows.

With the two close opportunities the day before, we went in to all of the wallows on the third morning of the hunt. We finally get out on the ridge above all of the wallows we had found the day before when we hear a bull down below us. I quickly find a rest on a stump while my dad sets up on the hill above me to do some cow calling to try and get the bull to walk up past where I was set up. My dad hit a couple of soft cow calls, but the bull just would not commit to coming closer where we could see him. Getting the same results as the last couple of days started getting frustrating, but that’s all part of the hunt right? We then decided to head out along the ridge even further so we could look off into some different areas. A bull ripped the loudest bugle I had ever heard right below us! Creeping slowly down the mountain, we heard him again so we tried the same strategy of cow calling with me part way down the hill. My dad hits a cow call and that bull started to come at a dead run towards us and I thought for sure that this was when it was all going to come together and work out. Just as I am thinking this in my head and waiting for this bull to come ten more yards over one more little hump, he hits the brakes! My dad tries one more soft cow call and what does the bull do? He turns around and walks the other way!
On the fourth day I was just beat from hiking so many miles the days before, but we heard a bull way down in a nasty looking hole where we hadn’t heard a bugle of any kind all week, so we decided to give it a try. About 15 minutes into heading down the dry, crunchy hillside, we saw a cow creep out of the timber and we froze in our tracks. My adrenaline was at its max as we waited, thinking that there would be a nice bull following this herd. Finally, a bull poked its way out of the timber behind the cows that were already bedded down in front of him. He was a decent 6x6 and throughout the week we had slowly lowered our expectations, so we decided I was going to take the shot if he gave me one. The wind quickly changed direction as I watched a cow get up and look right at us. She slowly got up and just like that the whole herd was gone into the deep canyon below us. We tried following them through the timber and loud crunchy leaves, but never got close enough to see them again, so we cut over deeper into the hole towards where we could hear two bulls bugling at each other across the creek bottom. As we made our way closer to them, we started to hear the cows mewing and talking away on an open hillside. I then found a good rest against the base of a tree and prepared myself to take the 150 yard shot where we thought the two bulls would come together on the opposite hillside. Once again we sat and waited for an hour, which turned into two hours and eventually three hours. A couple of cows would show themselves through the timber every now and then and each time I would get ready, thinking that the bulls would be taking up the rear, until we would hear them start screaming at each other again from the same spot as two hours before. Eventually we had to think about when it was going to get dark in the timber and how long it was going to take us to crawl out of the deep canyon we were in, so we waited a while longer and then had to throw in the towel and head back. My dad could see how worn out I was and we decided that the next day we would take it a little easier and stick to the ridgeline to glass for bulls, only going down to the bottom again if we spotted one.

As it was just starting to get light on our way back in on the fifth morning we got up on the ridge, we stuck to our plan of glassing the open hillsides across the canyon from us and no more than 20 minutes into glassing we spotted a herd with a big 400 class type bull pushing the cows along from behind. We knew that this bull was just way too far off and that there wasn’t even a chance we could get to him in time, but when we look on a different hillside a lot closer, we spot another herd. I knew we had to give it a try even though it would take a miracle to actually run into the same elk with how far off they already were. Being as quick as possible while still trying to stay quiet, we start to hear the throaty bugle of the bull we had spotted. As we are creeping up on the creek bed below us we hear the bull bugle again and then I spot him! With no rest and little time to shoot, I drop down in a sitting position and set my gun across my knees. The bull starts to let out one more bugle and BOOM! I look up and he is still standing there. I had shot right over his back! My dad always carries a muzzleloader with him too, for times like this, so he hands me his gun as fast as possible and I shoot again. BOOM! This time I made a perfect shot and the bulls knees literally shot out of under him. He then stood back up and went ten more yards before toppling over next to the creek. At this point my heart was beating so hard, I couldn’t believe that I had finally shot an elk. Not only was it my first elk, but a big bull! We waited about ten minutes and then made our way down to my bull. I still just couldn’t believe that it had all come together and I had finally filled my Dayton quality bull tag. My dad ranged him after I shot at 97 yards.

This is when all of the packing started. We had added up all of the miles we had hiked on the GPS which came out to nearly 35 miles up until I got my bull! This is why the packing was going to be so difficult with a 6 mile round trip for each quarter we would pack out, plus the head and cape. We finally got all of the meat packed out after about two and a half days and got camp packed up and ready to go. This trip will be something that I will never forget with my dad and is a story that we will be able to tell for the rest of our lives. To top it all off, as we were pulling out of camp and a little ways down the road, a cougar walked across the road right in front of our truck before he pounced back into the brush which will also be something that we can talk about along with the story of my 2012 Blue Mountains bull elk.

[bearpaw]

awesome story, beautiful animal, congrats... 


(your pics were too large, I resized them down to 600 x 800 and it all posted fine)

[stickbuck]

Congrats on an awesome bull young man!! Great story on an amazing hunt. 

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Thats awesome!!! Good job and good story!

[novice870]

That is incredible! Great job buddy!

[HighCountryHunter88]

congrats  that's awesome!

[Holg3107]

Hell of a first post!!! awesome write up as well. Keep at the forum, its not that hard to avoid the bickering and we all love a good story. Again great bull!

[gunnarnewt]

Congrats to you and your Dad on your great adventure! 

[Devinshoe]

Nice bull! Great job!

[huntnphool]

Well done young man

[bucklucky]

Awesome Bull !

[elkoholic1]

nice bull congrats!!   

[Woodchuck]

Great job, Awesome bull. Just so you know, that is the perfect way to intoduce yourself on the forum.   

[PlateauNDN]

 

[CedarPants]

By far my favorite story this year.  Congrats man