The stories could be a mile long.....
. But for now I will stick to basics...
Bull 1) The hunting had been great from an elk talk, bull sighting standpoint. While we are realists and recognize that OTC public land with two bulls to kill, and no real knowledge of the areas is not the time to get picky per se, we had seen some hogs and plenty of nice 5 and small 6 point bulls so we felt that at least initially we could hold off a bit. Plus, we were having a ball, just enjoying crazy rut action. Unfortunatley the wind, cows and terrain had kept us from any of the better bulls for the first four days. Day five we had some weather rolling in first thing in the morning, and the wind was holding nice and steady on the ridge top, a pleasant change from the fickle currents of the past couple days. We split up for the morning and decided to make solo hunts first thing, and meet up mid morning after the wind stabilized a bit in the timber.
After spotting a large herd, I closed the mile on the backside of the ridge, after dropping and gaining 1400 feet of elevation. The terrain was open so I was hoping if the elk were sidehilling and could be spotted before they saw me a shot would present itself. Soon after a cow appeared feeding at sixty yards. My bull came up behind her, antlers swinging just below the edge of the hill. While watching them, another cow fed toward me at 30 yards, a nice, heavy 6 point was right behind her, but he was also below the crest of the hill offering no shot. The cow at 30 was mewing incessantly and I assumed (wrongly apparently) that the bigger bull was dominant and would aproach her, so I drew with her in plain sight readying for a shot, the bigger bull approached the cow quartered to hard, due to the angle I held off. Then my bull took several steps toward him and screamed a murderous challenge bugle. Expecting to see the bigger bull run him off I prepped for a shot, I was stunned to see the big bull tuck tail and run. In the meantime my bull had come up and exposed himself, slightly quartered away, and looking out over the landscape away from me, I burried the pin and let it go. I saw the arrow seemingly float through the bull and sail into the abyss on the other side. The cow that was in front of me at 30 never moved, but I could hear the bull stumbling almost immediatley. I ran up to the edge where my bull was standing and saw him tipping over. BULL DOWN!!
After several failed attempts to reach my partner on the radio ( radio failures was a curse on this trip), watching an epic bullfight and watching where the rest of the elk went, I made my way down to him.The hill was steep and loose with nothing to tie him off to, so I gingerly went to work on him boning him carefully. I apologize if the field photos aren't great, setting up the camera on the hillside and keeping the bull from moving were a delicate combination. The weather was overcast and cool, and 9 hours of packing later we had the bull back to the truck and heading to the cooler.
Bull 2)
Over the next 3 days we had several close encounters with bulls. And some great setups. I was having a blast calling and we had some good bulls we played with but couldn't quite seal the deal. After a frustrating day Sunday we were heading back towards camp in the evening, and spotted his bull feeding alone on a ridge. After the bull fed out of sight he ran to the edge of the hill to see about getting a shot, I followed behind with the packs and got setup on the back of the ridge near where the bull had just crossed over. After a couple cow calls the bull was heading my way. My partner was able to watch him from 150 yards close down to 50. And got an arrow in him. The hit was good. But blood was sparse as the bull was dead run through short vegetation. It was clear 2 lungs or heart were not involoved, and we expected liver possibly diaphrahm. With storm coming in with the dark, and several miles from camp. We decided to leave the bull overnight rather than risk pushing him or stumbling around in the dark. It was a tough decision that combined with the rain pounding on the tent made for a sleepless night. We were up early and on the trail in the dark. We arrived at daylight to the area where we had stopped trailing the night before, but had approached a couple hundred feet loweron the hill and further down the draw as we expected the bull was heading for a bedding area. We had a difference of opinion on which draw we needed to be in, so after fishing out the gps I handed it to him so he could look up the location which we had marked the night before. While he was looking at it, I pulled up my binos to scour the draw as I was convinced we were in the right one. While doing so there he was dead, a hundred fifty yards downhill. Another BULL DOWN!! The pack out on this bull was much more moderate and we were able to one trip him with heavy packs.
