My hunting partner and I got it done last Sunday on a nice 4x5 out of the NE. Knew we were in for a challenge with small herds, low elk density and high predator numbers and in country we'd never been in before.
This bull cracked off to us having a cow party and throwing out some advertising bugles, and came in on a rope. I dropped back, Josh got set up next to the decoy and waited. The bull saw our cow decoy, and heard me mewing and breaking sticks/brush and panting and trotted in drooling, bugling and all sorts of excited. Josh drew when he was at 25ish yards, and the bull kept coming until Josh finally released the arrow at 11 yards while he was slightly quartering to. Arrow hit high lung, and the bull ran about 25 yards and stopped when I barked at him. Another arrow got sent and dropped him in his tracks and he never moved again.
Total time elapsed from the first bugle to him dead was under 5 minutes. Crazy how fast things happen. So glad I could be caller and put together such a great opportunity for my buddy to take advantage of. Shout out to @Elknut1 for all the great calling techniques and knowledge.
Some more takeaways:
1) Wow there needs to be more elk up there. The amount of amazing habitat without elk in it, or habitat that they just move through and don't spend much time in blows my mind. I'm reading up on the Selkirk herd management strategies and will be asking some questions of WDFW and I'll start another thread with those questions.
2) I believe we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. We kept checking country that appeared to be right and happened to find this bull all lonely and wanting company. We ended up putting about 700 miles on my truck (and I live in Spokane) and 85 boot miles between Saturday and Thursday. We continuously found poop and tracks ranging from a day old to a couple weeks... just couldn't get anything else to crack off. For those who want to hunt up there, lace up the boots and get ready to cover miles.
3) Some of those areas are truly overrun with wolves. I knew it was bad, but the amount of wolf sign, especially east of the river, is pretty nuts.
4) We saw 5 moose through the week which was pretty cool. 2 bulls, one lone cow and cow/calf pair.
5) We built our arrow set up specifically for elk, and knew it was a thumper, but wow it's nice to see it perform. After a complete passthrough, we found the arrow about 55 yards behind where it went through the bull. The arrow when farther after hitting the bull than the bull did after being hit. The set up is a 528 grain Easton Axis 5mm going 275 FPS with a 100 grain QAD Exodus up front. I don't think we'll be changing anytime soon.
Anyways wanted to give those of you hunting up north a boost knowing it can be done, and we got it done in our first year of hunting up there. Lots of lessons learned that I'll be applying for the rest of my multi season tag!
@JBMAK
