Opening morning I head to where I scouted in the off season and saw animals only to get screwed by a couple rookie hunters as I was stalking the herd which I ended up finding out it had a legal bull with them. As the day goes by I find out that a bull was shot about 30 yards from where my brother was setup at a clearcut
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Next day I head back up to see if my herd is back and of course all I see is the rookie hunters which I had a talkin to about how they screwed me opening morning. Good guys just need to learn to hunt before heading out. Now on to Monday our whole group of 5 head up to try and find a cow for my buddies dad who is 65 so he can get his cow tag filled before all of us youngsters have to head home on tuesday. Well we all are on our stands until about 9 am with nothing moving in the area. I get on the radio and tell the group we should all pack it up and head down 5 miles to our spot where we can push through some woods as a group and get the elk up off their beds and out in the open. We head up and the push begins . With three of us pushing in the woods two in the clear cut our plan begins to unfold. About an hour into the push my brother hears some noises of moving elk and see a legal bull, he pulls up, shoots and off he goes. After following a trail for a bit he sees no blood and no dead elk. We are thinking he hit a branch.
!!! We continue searching for his bull to get off another shot. About 40 minutes in I start to hear noises from behind me, I drop to to ground and get ready for action. I see 3 cows heading my direction and they end up 20 ft from me feeding and never knew I was there. Off in the distance there is more cows passing by. After no action for 10 mins I then hear more noise coming my way and this one is BIG and appears to be a bull but he veers off and heads up hill giving me no chance at a shot. I decide to head up after him slowly as he is not spooked at all when I hear noise from behind me now. I slowly turn around to see a bigger bull heading my was at about 75 yds through some downed branches. He takes two leaps over a log and then is in clear view and stares at me. I pull up my 300 wby and BOOOOM, he freezes as a branch blows up right in front of him, I reload and torch off another round and BOOOOOOM down he goes and at 130 pm the work begins.
We are in a horrible location for pulling out an elk but its possible non the less. Truck is miles away as it is a closed gate situation and 8 hours later and 5 sore dudes we get the elk back to the truck at 9pm. With my deer tag filled and now my elk it has been a successful hunting season and now has come to an end. Great times with the best hunting partners.
