PERMIT HUNTS ROCK!!!!!!!!
We arrived Sunday morning about 10am to Mnt. Hunter's camp and started setting up the tent. At about 1:00 he showed up with the two packers Bo and Lilly, he had been camped up near Pear lake for the last two nights looking for elk. He said he had a bull circle his tent in the dark that bugled nearly 20 times!!!! He said it was awesome, he just did not want it to scare the horses! We talk elk for awhile then he asks if we want to go glass for elk, we say sure, we drive around to the south shore of Rimrock lake and set up the spotting scope. Yep, their they are! 5 bulls and about 12 cows, from 4 miles away!!!! This was the only place he found where we could glass the ridge top where he saw the 7 bulls on Friday!!!! We went back to camp and set the game plan. We got up at 4:00am and drove to the trailhead, GOOD, nobody there! We start hiking, and hiking, knee feels good, the weather is good, we get to the top just at daylight, we round the corner, CRAP! a horse is tied up there, we keep hiking and we hear a bull bugle down below us, but we want to be a bit further on the ridge to glass the bowl with all the bulls, Mnt. hunter is ahead of us and says he hears another bull bugle and he is going down after it. Paula and I stay on top to glass the ridge and give my knee a break, we don't see anything and just as a snow squall sets in we hear a shot come from the bowl to our right, NOT US, DANG IT! It must be the other hunter, we lose contact with Mnt. Hunter and we hunt the ridge top till 3:30pm without seeing an elk, on the way down the trail the other hunter is coming back up on his horse to get the other half of his bull, a 4x5, his first, we congratulated him and hobbled down to the trailhead, we drove back to camp and I took a 800 mg ibuprofin and a beer, Paula and I talked about the ridge and my knee and what we would do tomorrow, we both faced the fact that I would not be able to go back up there again!
Even if thats where the bulls were at! Stupid stupid knee!
Mnt. Hunter arrives at dark and he had a good day chasing that bugling bull all morning in and out of the snow storm, he finally got a scope on it but it had already got a bead on him and disappeared before he got the shot!
A decent 5 or 6 pt. he said. We lay out a plan and Mnt. Hunter says he is going to do the same hunt but start earlier. He suggests that I come in from the bottom of the drainage where he came out tonight, he says there are some good game trails and its covered in beds and sign and its close to camp, so I agree.
Mnt. Hunter has his own story to tell about Tues.
This is mine, Paula and I leave camp at 6:45am and walk to the drainage, we arrive and start hiking up and around and about 9:15 we are standing on a game trail and we are in some dark timber looking down into the steep creek drainage, when Paula whispers, "elk", I look at her and she has her binos up and is looking up the trail we are on, I step back to look and sure enough there it is, feeding and completely unaware of us and only 30 yards away, she starts counting "1,2,3,4 its a good bull, SHOOT", I step back as it turns the other way with it's head down, it clears a small tree, shoulder exposed, BANG, the .......338 win mag roars, the bull staggers but doesn't go down, it turns and is coming down to our left, BANG! again in the shoulder, NO EFFECT, again BANG! still no sign I hit it! It finally wobbles and takes a tumble 30 yards from us! We high five and go look and low and behold its a 6x6! I told Paula that I was prepared to take any bull I could find after opening the opening day low! Again, getting your butt off the road and hunting even if its only a quarter or half a mile, I your in the right terrain you will find elk.
I am extremely happy with the results of this years hunts! A great big thanks to Mnt. Hunter for his hard work scouting and packing and to WAPITIHUNTER for being on the ready at a minutes notice! They tag teamed Mnt. Hunter's bull, but that is his story!!!!!!
Finnman and Pumpkin
