Well we are back after a week in the Rimrock unit with bull tags. We had a great hunt but didn't end up getting anything. We hunted hard for 7 days and had a few close calls but just couldn't put it all together. The weather was in the 80's and 90's and with the full moon they were just not moving much during the day. The full moon was so bright you could see for miles. It lit up our wall tent inside like we had a lantern going.
We ran into bulls 5 of the 7 days but couldn't connect. We found a couple decent areas that we were able to hike into and rarely saw anybody else. The bulls seem to bugle the most in the evenings, sometimes as early as 2:00 pm. They were hanging out in the thick woods on about a 45 degree slope for most of the day. They were bedding on small benches high up in the woods and seemed to only leave during the middle of the night. It was very hot and dry in the woods and extremely hard to keep quiet. We also had trouble getting the bulls within 50-75 yards most of the time. They just would not come in no matter what we tried. I just think they were just not in full rut as most of the bulls did not even have any cows. What seemed to work best was to bugle to locate them and then go to them. Sometimes they would come in closer but it was so thick that it was hard to even see them. We had to keep on following them and be aggressive. We made quite a bit of noise but they seemed to hang around as we went after them calling back and forth. We would keep on getting glimpses of them as they were going through the woods but just could not get them to come to us.
All in all it was a great hunt and we had a blast. There is nothing like being that close to a screaming bull that seems to make the woods shake around you. We were beat by the end of the trip as we really put our all into this one. The weather and terrain were draining but it was well worth it.
I want to thank everyone for their help and tips and pointers and some areas to hunt. It was greatly appreciated. The elk just didn't seem to be grouped up too much yet so it was tough. We tried some of the areas more open but the elk were just not out during the day plus the jeeps were really running some of those ridges. We ended up finding some new areas away from people and roads and we feel it worked out well.
Thanks again.
