We spent the first few days of October hunting an area that we know has always had a few bugling bulls that time of year, only to discover that a week of hot weather and clear nights the bulls had just stopped bugling way down from the prior week, I had been in the middle of more than a few groups of bugling bulls in Archery season so we were just hoping they would stay in the area that we were in, October 1st the first day of the hunt we had a monster 7x7 with a dozen or so cows bugle 20 times at first light and just vanish, we decided to back out of the area until the next morning only to find the next day a group of other muzzeloader hunters moved into the area and busted the whole herd out, side note there were no spikes in the bunch, we heard one distant bugle so decided to let that place cool off since it was the weekend, Sunday night we scouted another area but nothing much just a few distant bugles, Monday morning we hiked into a drainage that had dark timber with over grown clear cuts that had been strip logged about 20 years ago,lots of good cover but with open areas between the thick spots, we seen a nice bull in the area a week before the hunt started so when we heard a bugle accompanied by tree racking breaking branches and the sort I put my brother out front and made a few honestly crappy attempts at bugling but good enough because he came in looking for a fight, 40 yards the first shot hit just behind the shoulder the bull didn't go very far the second shot hit him in the neck, took most of the day to pack out the meat I didn't even realize that I had this bulls sheds from last year, so excited to share the hunt with my brother he had 16 points all I can say it was worth the wait
