At the risk of offending Phantom by piggy-backing on his thread idea, what do you do here:
Second to last evening of the season, 10 day solo hunt, your last evening to hunt because you have a long drive home tomorrow from this out-of-state hunt. A few hours earlier you spotted cow elk a ways off and chased after them because that was all you saw. They cross over to the next valley and you follow. As you cross the ridge, you see tawny hides on the valley floor headed up stream and up wind. You quickly descend to the valley floor and dog the herd, wind in your favor. Your cow calls are not answered, but you press on. At the edge of a large patch of dead fall, you finally see elk about 40-50 yards ahead, but no shot opportunities. After some slow steps and navigating the dead fall, you can see that some of the herd is now out in a large meadow and some are still picking their way through the dead fall. Still no shots. Light still fading.
As you slowly press forward you see the herd bull trotting out into the meadow where he screams insults and warnings towards the uphill side of the meadow, which is generally ahead and to your left. Two bulls respond in kind from your 9 and 11 o’clock and sound as if they are about 100 yards apart from each other. The cows soon all make their way into the meadow, but stay near the edge. The herd bull is almost constantly moving/trotting between his cows and the edge of the meadow near the other two bulls, screaming more insults and warnings. The closest he has come is about 40 yards, but no shot presentation. He spends most of his time out of range, further out in the meadow.
With about 5 minutes of shooting light left, you are now 15-20 yards from the meadow edge. The cows are nervously huddled 30-45 yards away and the herd bull is still dividing his attention between the uphill bulls and the cows. Still no shot opportunities. The cows are in range, but a pass through arrow is likely to hit a second cow. One cow could move a few steps away from the huddle and present a shot. The bull could come close enough and you might find a shooting lane through the brush and dead fall. None of that has happened so far.
Camp is two miles away (which you will be walking back to in the dark soon). You could be back here early tomorrow morning and an elk shot near here could still be packed to the truck in time for you to get home—dead axx tired, but happy.
What do you do? What call to bring a cow or the bull closer? Back out and come back tomorrow? Sit and wait for something else to develop in the next 5 minutes? Something else? How would you have done it differently up to this point?
