Well that was quite the solo hunt… now that I’m home I figured I would take a minute and write up a quick recap of the hunt.
I drew this tag with 16 points. I felt like that was a decent amount of points, but there are people out there with way more (although I did meet another tag holder up there with 5 pts
).
That being said, I felt very fortunate to have it, and wanted to treat it like an OIL. I stay in pretty decent shape, but told myself no excuses. We had our wheat harvest going on all summer, but I would get up every day at 4am and run a few miles. I would drive the 5 hr round trip any chance I could and scout/set cameras. I was able to talk to a few previous tag holders, one in particular that’s on here but I won’t name. Ended up being a great resource during the season of judging bulls and all around encouragement. He can call me any time if he’s in a jam in the woods going forward and I’m there.
So this year the season opened on the 1st (5 days before the general opener). This was a huge advantage. I headed up and set camp on the 28th, and scouted as hard as I could. Tons of videos through the spotter. I was able to get a good idea of the caliber of bulls in the area during that time.
As a side note… I’ve never seen anything like that place! Holy elk. With all the elk also meant a ton of eyes. You could get near the smaller satellite bulls, but the herd bulls knew where to position themselves with the cows to make it a pretty difficult hunt.
Day one I had a big 7x7 I had been watching and knew where abouts they would be, and where they preferred to bed. Sure enough, he was there. I watched the winds like a hawk during scouting, so waited until the wind/rising thermals gave me an edge. I worked my way down the finger ridge and got into position. Well as if he read the script, here came his cows and then the big 7 screaming at the rear. The lead cow started to cut below me, and presented me with a 50 yard shot. All he had to do was follow them and it was game over. Well.. he started to. Slowly checking the cows in the back of the line as he made his way. He was about 100 yards away. Suddenly 3 cows decided.. hey let’s feed across the ridge and stay high. One of them got behind me and caught my wind. Game over. They all took off. He didn’t really know what happened. Just bugled and followed them as they took off.
Well this type of scenario happened several times over the next few days. Almost happened but one issue or another prevented an arrow from flying. The group changed direction, a cow took her time feeding in my way and he got too far away, cow spotted me… you name it. So. Many. Eyes.
Like I said it was quite the advantage getting 5 days to hunt before the general, but turns out that time was also high 90’s and one day 101. Brutal. Absolutely brutal. This made me slightly pick and choose how far I could hunt in the morning, because I refused to let the meat go bad on my behalf because I went too far solo. The evening were a different story as I had all night to pack meat.
Another day, I had a chance at a big six point when I snuck in onto him and his herd like a homewrecker trying to take his cows. Truth is I bugled to locate him. I tried not to over call this whole trip. I was sneaking in on him and his herd above some wallows I knew about, and a spike and Cow busted me. They took off and the herd kind of started taking off. My only choice was to bugle and rake trees, as if I was a bull coming in to take his cows in an attempt to snuff out my blown cover. It actually worked pretty good. I worked him 400 yards straight up the mountain. He would take off with his cows for about 60 yards and then stop and look back and wait for me to try to go through an opening so he could see what I was. If I was smaller, he would probably come beat me up. If I was bigger, he would probably take his cows and go to the next ridge. I had him at 60 yards… No shot. 40 yards and I could see his legs… No shot. We played this game back-and-forth with several almost opportunities. Finally, I could hear his cows take off pretty good and I figured the gig was up. I didn’t want to blow up the whole hillside as there was a couple more going off on the mountain. I sat my pack down and my bow (still knocked) and got my water. As I was sitting there, five minutes go by and I hear a stick snap behind me. I slowly turn my head and see the big bull creeping in to get one last look at me at 30 yards. I couldn’t believe it. I slowly grabbed my bow and got a range on him. 30 yards. It was a frontal shot, which can be very deadly if placed properly. How I killed my elk last year. I let the arrow fly annnnd.. hit a tiny dry limb I didn’t see. Arrow deflected. Well that’s the way she goes. So I got mad at my luck, went home to the wife, and quit hunting.
Joking… we don’t quit.
Well onto Sept 5th. It was another warm one. I knew this was my last day on the mountain solo until the woods would be filled with people. I only ventured out a mile or two in the morning, because of the heat. Although, that evening, I decided to sit an active wallow super early at 1:30 PM. This particular wallow was 3 1/2 miles away. It was super active and I knew big boys were using it. It was way way down the canyon. Straight downhill. I had a big six screaming his head off at 2 PM. I heard him work his way down the mountain straight my direction. He got closer… Closer… And eventually, I see his cows work their way through the forest 100 yards away and bail off down into the stream drainage. I figured he would come into my wallow any second. All of a sudden he goes silent and I don’t hear anything out of him for at least 10 minutes. Suddenly, he bugles again about 100 yards away. Then he bugles 150. And further and further. My wind was right. I couldn’t understand what happened. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to creep my way over there to where he was closest. Sure enough, there are two big wallows 100 yards away. I guess it was his lucky day that he chose to go to those ones. Well, it was starting to get late and I had several miles to walk back to camp. I figured I would hunt my way back to camp. As I made my way to an old logging road down in the bottom, I could hear a couple bulls bugling back-and-forth at each other from opposite sides of the drainage. As I approached slowly on the road, I noticed one of them was a pretty good six point. The one on the other side was a hammer. With cows all over, I decided to take the opportunity I was given and put a stalk on the six point in front of me.. I ranged him at 64 yards… I could only see his rack. As he was screaming his head off, I slowly approached. I made it to 60 yards and he turns and I draw back. This is a shot I have been practicing and feel comfortable at. If not, I wouldn’t even attempt it. Anyways, he steps up closer to the road where I can see his vitals. I let an arrow fly, and it flies true. Right behind the shoulder. He didn’t know what hit him and took off straight down to the stream bottom. I went over to the edge and looked down to see if I can see where he ran, and he looked up at me and then dumped over right there. 30 yards done. Unfreakenbelievable! It was one of the coolest hunting experiences I have ever had!
I knew I immediately had to get to work. I shot him at 6:30 PM and got him caped out, quartered up by 11 PM by myself. It was just hard to move him around by myself. I hung the quarters high in that stream bottom overnight and took the head and the hide and antlers straight up the mountain. I didn’t realize how heavy all that was together. Ridiculous. I didn’t make it back until the next morning. It was getting light by the time I got back to camp. I ended up jumping in my pick up and grabbing my bike and headed the hour and 20 minutes all the way around the mountain to access that gated road from below. After three trips with the bike and a total of 12 miles, I had my elk out. What an experience!
