So I spent 3 days hunting in 673. I was able to get within shooting distance of a spike, and could have done the same with 3 more. My hunting partner was definitely in range of all 4. This was my first year bow hunting at all, and my first year of getting to really hunt elk. Its amazing how disapointing it is to get on elk, only to realize you can't harvest one! The excitement of it all was amazing though.
Anyways, off the road, down a hill about half a mile, and across a creek, my partner and I found a dead cow. She was about 150 yards into some tall reprod. Maybe 15-20' tall, skinny trees with no room between them or sun from the sky. The reason we found her was because we had heard this lost calf calling on and off, every couple of hours, for 2 days, so we decided to go after it. We got close, but no dice. We finally found the cow with our noses. Probably killed on the 1qth ish, because she was all bloated up when we found her on the 13th. When we got to her, I caught a glimpse of the calf standing right over her, but no shot in the thick stuff, so I decided to stay there for a bit to see if it would come back. Cow calls would usually get it talking, but not really bring it in at all.
I was just wondering, has anybody else come across this situation and tried this? I have heard a few folks say they have taken calves, and they are great eating, but never considered it before that situation presented itself. I imagine had we put some real time onto it we probably could have gotten it. Not sure how much of that smell I could stand though.
I also noticed tons of fresh rubs and big fresh poop in about a 30 used circle around the cow. Maybe the bull didn't realize she was dead?
Anyway, I did get a bugle from a bull at 6:00 am on the 12th. It was a lot of fun. We hunted the timber and that creek bottom pretty much the whole time. Tons if sign, and caught a glimpse of 2 other elk though I didn't see enough to know what they were. Infant wait for next year!
