I know it is a little late but better than nothing. My first child was born (10 weeks early) and that has taken up my time the last two months.
It was Sunday September 13th and Trevor (Brushchimp) and myself were in an area that we had been seeing elk.
It was his morning to shoot and I was set up to be the caller. I let out a locate bugle and got an instant response down in the draw. We worked our way down the road and got the wind in our favor, let out some soft cow calling and nothing, waited called again and nothing. Bugled (friendly) and nothing. Like it happens so many times he just shut up and was no where to be seen.
So we walked back out the road and bye the time we walked for 5 minutes the whole place had fogged in.
We then spooked another herd probably 100 yards off the road. We decided to take a break and wait for the fog to lift. About 1.5 hours into "guess the range of that tree" Trevor said that we hadn't walked all that way to sit. We loaded up and of we went in the "pea soup" fog.
Not more than 5 minutes from where we had been setting, I let out another location bugle and instantly got a response. It came from an area I was real familiar with. We checked the wind and drew up the game plan. This bull continued to bugle which made it nice for us to get ahead of him with out bumping him. As we creeped through the thick timber Trevor spotted a cow only 70 yards away. Rechecked the wind and i backed up upwind of Trevor hoping that the bull would try to get wind on me and end up in his lap.
Little did I know this was going to work to good. I let out an aggressive bugle followed by some estrus cow calling. Next thing I see was horns coming through the trees at 12 yards and he was only 7 yards from Trevor and neither of us have drawn (I didn't even have an arrow knocked as I was just the caller). He had came in completely silent. From my position all I could see was his horn when he stopped and was staring a hole right through the tree the whole time. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Trevor looking at the bottom of his bil on his hat. I had a feeling he was going to bust us so I decided I might as well try and nock an arrow why we were waiting.
Finally, the bull took a step and I could see Trevor drawing and thought for sure it was over. I had also drawn, and The bull stopped and the vitals were completely exposed. I let the arrow fly and watched the pocket right behind the shoulder swallow the arrow.
The bull whirled and bounded off and we had heard a crash within about 4 seconds. We decided to still wait because we lost sight of the bull and we went and looked for my arrow. Nothing. Started tracking the bull and found him piled up in an old Hemlock root wad hole. Nice 5x5 but a pain in the ass for two guys to get him out of the hole so we could began breaking him down. 1 hour later we went and looked for my arrow again. Trevor found it lodged into an old cedar log. The Guardian and Axis Nano/Slick Trick combo was still cruising after it left the elk.
Called the family and interrupted opening day of the NFL to make them pack out my bull.
Trevor didn't get to mad at me for shooting. We talked about what we would be saying if I hadn't shot and the bull made a get away. He got half of the elk, plus he got the next 8 days for me to be his personal caller.
I will try to get him on here to explain the rest of our hunt.
