Post by: MichaelJ on October 26, 2009, 06:44:26 PM
Michael
Post by: MuleySniper on October 26, 2009, 06:45:34 PM
MS
Post by: Crunchy on October 26, 2009, 06:46:35 PM
Post by: Red Dawg on October 26, 2009, 06:46:46 PM
Post by: JPhelps on October 26, 2009, 06:59:09 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 26, 2009, 07:01:59 PM
Michael
Post by: Alan K on October 26, 2009, 07:27:06 PM
Post by: agchawk on October 26, 2009, 08:04:50 PM
Post by: Ironhead on October 26, 2009, 10:41:18 PM
Post by: mossback91 on October 26, 2009, 10:42:35 PM
Post by: firecrotch on October 26, 2009, 10:44:42 PM
Post by: bucklucky on October 26, 2009, 11:55:14 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 02:38:41 AM
Here's a teaser picture... we spotted him from here sunday morning... see the main shadowed ridge running right to left just center of the picture? He was on a finger ridge about center off that one when we spotted him... put him to bed, made a stalk and put one right in the boiler maker... pics to follow tomorrow! I'm beat and headin to bed!
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull1.jpg&hash=6cdaeca1a23299d9e1ed152e327b695f1edcdc15)
Michael
Post by: PacificNWhunter on October 27, 2009, 07:38:44 AM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 10:37:27 AM
I rolled into camp, setup a chair by the fire, split some firewood and read one of them Capstick books about hunting dangerous game in Africa. Roasted a Hillshire sausage on the flames and had a drink, life was pretty good.
Friday morning I was up at 5:15 and hiking by 6... shooting light was around 645 and I just wanted to get out onto the breaks where I could do some glassing. Ran into a couple cow tag holders slow hunting the two track road and since I didn't want to screw them up I bushwacked it straight to the breaks. Found a herd of about 40 elk across the canyon with no bulls of any even decent size to speak of. Seen a couple deer, but after glassing a ton of country for about an hour I decided to hike back to camp, take a nap and hike out a different area to see if I couldn't get a closer look at that big herd.
I was hiking by 1:15 and made it the 5 miles out the ridge glassing a long the way by 4:00... too bad I was socked in with fog, rain and wind... I made it to the ridge I wanted and decided to cook a mountain house and see if I couldn't wait for the fog to lift... I got lucky and it lift for about 5 minutes and I glassed the herd from about 1500 yards away (just about right for a shot had it been opening day! lol :chuckle: :P). Once again I didn't find a decent bull. I started hiking out about 5:15 and didn't get back to the truck until well after dark.
That evening Al and his wife showed up from Lewiston. They were gonna try to fill her buck tag the next morning (Saturday). It was good to have some company around the fire and we discussed game plans for the following day...
Saturday I hiked out solo about 4 miles onto a main ridge that runs out into the breaks of the salmon river. The day was clear and I had Al's spottin scope with me. That herd of 40+ elk had moved on, why I don't know but there was a herd of muleys in that same canyon and they had a nice buck with them. All in all I spent a lot of time behind the glass covering a LOT of country and never found a shooter bull... Seen 8 elk that evening with the biggest being a little 3x4 raghorn... Things weren't looking too great for the one opening day I had to hunt this weekend... I was worried because this is the first year that they've had my late season bull tag and my hunt started the day after 70 some tag holders had already been chasing bulls for 2 weeks... Also having a 80+% success rate during that first season was not brightening my outlook any either...
That night we discussed my options and Al's wife decided she didn't want to hunt the next day... Once again me and Al would be going at it, we knew that opening day was gonna be a good one for me... We awoke at 4:30 the next morning, out the door by 5 and hiking by 5:30... We covered the 5 miles in to where we could glass in record time and started glassing. Al spotted some cows on a far ridge and we herd an elk barking down below us... not being sure what it was barking at we kept pretty alert. Pretty soon we see 4 cows bust out of the timber on a dead run down below us coming to us... "WTF is that all about???"
About 5 minutes later we hear elk crashing towards us and I stand and grab my gun and here come the same 4 cows at 10 yards... of course I'm stuck in some weird Elmer Fudd position holding my rifle and Al is sitter there on the ground trying not to laugh as one cow got a really confused look on her face but they never knew we were there... pretty cool experience and made our morning by far. After not seeing anything in the nearby canyons we hopped on an old road and walked the breaks out... We busted out a few muleys from their beds with both being decent 3 points... We sat down to glass and Al almost instantly says "There's a bull! Across the canyon..."
I throw up the binos and sure enough there's our boy... all by himself happy as a clam thinking he's safe as can be. No visible from any direction except across the canyon where we were. We put the spotter on him and I could tell he was a nice bull, by far the nicest one I'd seen the past three days. I also knew from the start he wasn't the monster I had hopped for but I knew I'd be hard pressed to find a better bull in a better situation... We spotted him around 920 and put him to bed. Made our move about 1015 and dropped straight down the canyon about 1400'. There's a road in the bottom of the canyon that we crossed, then crossed the stream and unloaded all the things not essential to our packs... we moved up the dry creek bed of the canyon fighting alders and all sorts of vegetation from hell, not to mention the awesomely unstable rockslides... We stayed just uphill of the bottom trying to keep our scent off the thermals that would reach the patch of trees were he was bedded down...
We made it almost to our little finger ridge with some rock outcroppings that would provide a great rest and some cover... Bad thing was, we had the sun beating right down our eyes but we dropped our packs and slowly stalked our way to the ridge. We slowly get to the ridge and I drop my bipod out and onto the rocks... Al is working the binos and we can't see him... I'm in a prone position, rock solid rest waiting for the bull to show...
Al; "There he is, right were that little clearly comes down to a V!"
I'm having trouble finding the bedded bull in my scope when he stands up broadside!
"354 yards right to him!" says Al...
I got the bull in my scope and settle the cross hairs. He's facing to my left and just BARELY quartering away from me, only possible problem is he's standing right behind a small sapling that is not quite block his vitals... This staredown continues for probably 10 seconds (unknown to the bull, but I think he had us pegged, just was wondering how in the hell somebody found him haha) when I start to get buck fever! :chuckle:
I tell myself to calm down, make the shot, I can celebrate afterwards just don't blow it, all the time in the world... I get my breathing calmed down and my heart slowes to the speed of a sewing machine... ;) I settle crosshairs once again and realize the ball is in my court. "Al, I can take him from here" I say a second before I touch off the trigger. I see the vapor mist out my barrel through my scope as we hear the WHACK! of a solid hit!!! As the vapor cloud clears I can see the bull is stumbling hard!
Al says I just got my bull! Bust him again! I hold a little higher this time and BOOM! Bull drops like a rock! Spine shot right behind the shoulder blades! WOOHOO!!!! Bull went rolling stumbling through the tree thicket to pop out the bottom, alive but just barely and trying to still hoof his way somewhere... I settle for a third shot at 297 yards and put one in his neck for good measure, he dies 10 yards away from the 3rd shot and about 50 yards downhill from his bed... :IBCOOL: :IBCOOL: :IBCOOL: We celebrate, take a few pictures from where I made the shot and work out way over to him. By this time it's 130 in the afternoon... we get over to him to find him tangled in a mass of vegetation and pull him free and slide him down the hill to cape/quarter him out... What a HUNT!!! I had wanted all along to find a bull that was in a *censored* canyon and thought he was safe there from all the hunters and to outsmart him. I sure got my wish! We found the three bullet holes. First one was a perfect lung shot, just above the heart, he was dead on his feet with a complete pass through. Second shot was directly above the first in the spine that left a nice 1.5" hole in the spine, and the third shot was right in the neck but missed the neck bone... He had no reaction to the third shot se we think he was already dead but you can never be sure with elk! Talk about tough animals!!!
We quarter him out, I threw the cape/head/horns on my pack, grabbed a meatbag with a quarter plus meat in one hand, rifle in the other, Al had his frame with a rear quarter and grabbed the other two meatbags and we hauled the entire elk downhill about 60 yards to some trees to hang the meat... We hiked out the bottom to the road in little more than an hour. It was 6 or so and getting dark. Funny thing was (not funny at the time!) we had another 6 miles of uphill road to walk to get back to the rig! We ditched all our gear except for water and a few snacks and started hiking. Talk about a depressing walk! We're on a main road and we can't even find a ride to the top! lol We get about 1 1/2 miles from the rig when we hear a fourwheeler coming up the road!!! Flag him down and got our ride! Talk about a great feeling sitting on the back of that wheeler! We got to the rig, drove down and loaded up our gear from off the road while smoking a quality victory cigar and got back to camp around 9 or so. Slept in till 9:30 the next morning after a night of rain, picked up camp and it took us three hours to hike in, bone out the front quarters, split the three quarters between the two of us and make it back to the rig! Fun ride out to say the least!
Also got the entire elk cut up last night! We got a LOT of steaks that taste amazing and also a ton of burger meat that we need to grind up as well! Finally here's some pictures for you guys and sorry about the long story!!! Sorry about any spelling errors, I didn't proof read or use spell check! lol
From where I made the shot...
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FGetAttachment-1.jpg&hash=2ba67c7f94278996d5d8256b4082628d595bf2b8)
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull3.jpg&hash=4d27b57a1c41783d7eba3d98b4b8809df81436e6)
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull4.jpg&hash=280b3d1b1dcf406dd6f43e99432cba29471c8cb2)
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull2.jpg&hash=e4d45b7465546e5040dd02b94a3624837d321838)
These pictures are just off my phone, Al has most of the pics on his camera... Hopefully I'll get them and post some more later this week. Hope you enjoyed the story!
Michael
Post by: jackelope on October 27, 2009, 10:44:40 AM
Post by: Ray on October 27, 2009, 10:46:19 AM
Post by: PacificNWhunter on October 27, 2009, 10:47:31 AM
Post by: HUNT on October 27, 2009, 11:25:32 AM
Post by: bearpaw on October 27, 2009, 11:35:58 AM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 12:01:29 PM
Michael
Post by: Caseyd on October 27, 2009, 12:07:30 PM
By the way how'd the rodeo school go? Maybe i missed the thread on that :dunno:
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 12:32:48 PM
Michael
Post by: agchawk on October 27, 2009, 12:36:20 PM
Post by: hornhunter on October 27, 2009, 12:51:27 PM
P.S. I think your too smart to be a Bull rider :chuckle:
Post by: bowhunterforever on October 27, 2009, 01:09:33 PM
Post by: Hornseeker on October 27, 2009, 01:22:13 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 01:34:23 PM
Hardwork and preperation pays off evreytime MJ! Good work! Thanks for the great write up and story. How long before some of your "buddies" come and bitch about your shot distance? :chuckle:
P.S. I think your too smart to be a Bull rider :chuckle:
haha thanks man! Not gonna lie I hunted harder than I ever have before. I think a good part of it is due to my buddy Al, its really awesome having someone there to motivate ya and keep company around the fire and ain't afraid to bail off into some knarly country to get after it!
And I'm sure the trolls will show up eventually! I wonder if whats his name would've pulled the trigger cause he said anything over 350 he'd hold off... ;)
As far as bullriding goes, I love rodeo and I like being involved but I'm kinda like you say, little smarter than that... but its one item off my bucket list! haha
Michael
Post by: firecrotch on October 27, 2009, 02:00:03 PM
Hardwork and preperation pays off evreytime MJ! Good work! Thanks for the great write up and story. How long before some of your "buddies" come and bitch about your shot distance? :chuckle:
P.S. I think your too smart to be a Bull rider :chuckle:
haha thanks man! Not gonna lie I hunted harder than I ever have before. I think a good part of it is due to my buddy Al, its really awesome having someone there to motivate ya and keep company around the fire and ain't afraid to bail off into some knarly country to get after it!
And I'm sure the trolls will show up eventually! I wonder if whats his name would've pulled the trigger cause he said anything over 350 he'd hold off... ;)
As far as bullriding goes, I love rodeo and I like being involved but I'm kinda like you say, little smarter than that... but its one item off my bucket list! haha
Michael
dont want to get your trigger finger ripped off bull ridin. a ex bull rider in town i know has to pull the trigger with his ring finger. pretty funny to watch
Post by: Pathfinder101 on October 27, 2009, 02:09:46 PM
Post by: bucklucky on October 27, 2009, 02:14:16 PM
Post by: youngchristof on October 27, 2009, 02:19:05 PM
Post by: colockumelk on October 27, 2009, 02:55:55 PM
And yes, the shot was over 350 yards.... :chuckle: :chuckle: :chuckle:
Michael
For guys like me that's just a chip shot. But for guys like you......... :chuckle:
Post by: bowsandhose on October 27, 2009, 02:56:52 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 03:19:12 PM
And yes, the shot was over 350 yards.... :chuckle: :chuckle: :chuckle:
Michael
For guys like me that's just a chip shot. But for guys like you......... :chuckle:
I know it was a tough one! lol
Hey man, thats a good looking 5x5, real nice looking rack. At least you wont have to live off of Top Ramen this year :chuckle:
You're telling me! While cutting him up last night we threw on a lot of steaks on the grille with just some johnny salt and black pepper and they were AWESOME! Better than a lot of beef steaks I've eaten thats for sure! I'm super happy with the rack, afterall he is my first bull and I'll be chasing bulls with a bow next year anyways!
Michael
Post by: andrew_12gauge on October 27, 2009, 04:09:27 PM
Post by: mtndew on October 27, 2009, 06:45:21 PM
Post by: nw_bowhunter on October 27, 2009, 07:13:01 PM
Post by: carpsniperg2 on October 27, 2009, 07:20:02 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 27, 2009, 07:34:30 PM
way to go michael I knew you were gonna end up with a bull, may not be the monster you were lookin for but its still a nice bull and like you said theres always next year, hopefully ill have a bull down in 39 this sunday
Thanks andrew! It was a huge lift off my shoulders to tag this bull and the way I did it really enforced in my mind how much hardwork can pay off when hunting... Finally feel this year that I'm figuring out the whole hunting thing! Youngest of 4 kids and the first one in the family to hunt makes it tough to learn everything by yourself but I finally feel like I'm gettin there...
Best of luck to you on your hunt! We seen quite a few muleys and they are definitely startin to rut... I'm sure you'll have some luck on a bull this weekend!
354 yards is a fairly long poke. All three shots into him. Good job! That is a good looking bull. Congratulations!
Thanks! I am really confident in my shooting ability given a good rest (I was rock solid on the bipod) and enough time to get my breathing under control... still quite the rush though and to see him stumble HARD after that first shot and to hear that WHACK is something I'll never forget! He was quite majestic standing there proud as hell wondering what the heck snuck into HIS canyon and disrupted his midday nap!
Michael
Post by: Redmist on October 28, 2009, 09:39:18 AM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 28, 2009, 10:19:04 AM
Michael
Post by: mossback91 on October 28, 2009, 10:50:17 AM
Post by: rosscrazyelk on October 28, 2009, 11:58:44 AM
Post by: Skinner on October 29, 2009, 01:33:07 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on October 29, 2009, 10:16:46 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 30, 2009, 07:45:05 PM
SuperMan!
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull11.jpg&hash=bbf36b728f564daa4c0058daea96c32860c89ae7)
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull10.jpg&hash=f496552d606069bf4c8be634dd455c2655bf1897)
You can see where I made the shot from... above the two pine trees on the ridge on the left of the picture... The skylined ridge in the far background is where we spotted him from.
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull8.jpg&hash=e12c1c9c287513f24b78350c69bc4a9519245752)
Here's my favorite picture... just cause he looks BIG! haha
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull7.jpg&hash=900d6d030ce1b9dececfcae372a7e3221ef4f7d9)
Last picture
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull9.jpg&hash=e93702020ed15b5f98e113aa3850451752fdfadc)
Looked on google earth, we had a 14 mile round trip that day... we dropped 2K feet after we spotted him, and climbed another 1K feet up the other side to get to him... all in 2.2 miles... ;)
Michael
Post by: tlbradford on October 30, 2009, 08:07:44 PM
Post by: Grizzly95 on October 30, 2009, 08:38:18 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on October 31, 2009, 01:05:10 PM
Michael
Post by: Hunting Cowboy on October 31, 2009, 08:52:05 PM
Post by: Bigbuckhunter_1996 on November 01, 2009, 09:43:22 AM
Post by: MichaelJ on November 01, 2009, 03:55:16 PM
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv458%2FMoparKid69%2FWahaBull12.jpg&hash=25970eee4376cff341554b8d4f28e63d0af6f331)
Michael
Post by: MichaelJ on November 01, 2009, 04:09:42 PM
Michael
Post by: Watimberghost on November 02, 2009, 03:49:00 PM
Post by: GoldTip on November 02, 2009, 04:00:52 PM
Post by: jjhunter on November 02, 2009, 06:59:01 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on November 02, 2009, 08:14:48 PM
yeah JJ its been pretty tough. I've studied more this semester and am taking the fewest amount of credits I've ever had and its been rediculous! Spend an average of 20 hrs a week in the library (where I'm at right now taking a break lol) on top of classes... Sure been nice to have steaks in the fridge this week though! Can't wait for thanksgiving!
Michael
Post by: alecvg on November 02, 2009, 09:36:20 PM
Post by: BoomWhop on November 02, 2009, 09:39:42 PM
Post by: MichaelJ on November 02, 2009, 10:00:17 PM
BTW, BuckLucky I think you could've hauled the cape/head/horns out on this one! haha
Michael