Quiet in the elk woods.

[goosegunner]

 First let me start with a quote from my son as were walking out of the woods yesterday with our heads hanging low but big smiles on our faces. " Why is archery hunting so frustrating but yet so exciting"
 
Pretty quite where we were.

 Had 1 bull bugle right at daylight then silent while we were working in on it. Only to bugle again about a 1/2 hour after we decided to leave him be. we ended up getting within 30 but no shot was present for either of us.
 
 Then miday had a calling sequence and immediately had a 5 point come silent and pop out on the rd 88 yards had us pinned and turned and walked away.

 yesterday miday we went to a known bedding area son did a calling sequence with some raking and got a response across the canyon. We pinned his location and made our loop to get above his location. dropped in perfect and started calling, bull came in silent to about 70 yards and hung up. He started raking a bit then lost interest, gave a chuckle and walked away. Only to come back a few minutes later and walk just up hill from me at 35 yards but absolutely no shooting lane, I was at full draw twice. My son had him at 55 and the same for him no lane. This setup was where his quote from above came from.

[Sandberm]

First let me start with a quote from my son as were walking out of the woods yesterday with our heads hanging low but big smiles on our faces. " Why is archery hunting so frustrating but yet so exciting"
 
Pretty quite where we were.

 Had 1 bull bugle right at daylight then silent while we were working in on it. Only to bugle again about a 1/2 hour after we decided to leave him be. we ended up getting within 30 but no shot was present for either of us.
 
 Then miday had a calling sequence and immediately had a 5 point come silent and pop out on the rd 88 yards had us pinned and turned and walked away.

 yesterday miday we went to a known bedding area son did a calling sequence with some raking and got a response across the canyon. We pinned his location and made our loop to get above his location. dropped in perfect and started calling, bull came in silent to about 70 yards and hung up. He started raking a bit then lost interest, gave a chuckle and walked away. Only to come back a few minutes later and walk just up hill from me at 35 yards but absolutely no shooting lane, I was at full draw twice. My son had him at 55 and the same for him no lane. This setup was where his quote from above came from.

None the less, that sounds exciting. I'd consider that a good day of hunting.

[CarbonHunter]

I woke up the other morning to one bugling at the end of my driveway. Rag horn bugling a lot. When I went to work I noticed he was alone and the day before he had about a dozen cows with him when my wife snapped some photos.

Looks like the big ones are starting to get serious and putting the little boys in their place.

[Martinhunter]

Had one bugle back at me a couple times on opening morning but he was kinda skittish and kept pushing cows away as I tried moving in. Another week from now and I think he would have been up to the fight

[NOCK NOCK]

Weird season for me this year. Still very quiet, but are starting to bugle a bit......like for 1 hour and as soon as the sunrises, they are done.
Also, this AM we snuck up on a herd of 8-10, all bulls (crazy to still be in bachelor group) One decent 6x came to my very soft cow calling, 2 more in same class just stood and watched from 120yards, the rest just slowly filtered off into the heavier timber.

On another weird note, I tried 1 bugle at the 1st bull, (The cow calls originally didn't even make him raise his head from feeding) the bugle got his attention, and he started coming in to find us. After closing the gap between us from 100 to 50yds. he let out the quietest bugle I have ever heard, it was barely even able to be heard, not the normal for my 40 years of hearing them.  Just weird.