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LAST EDITED ON Dec-03-06 AT 01:51PM (MST)[p]First of all, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped out with suggestions on my hunt area. You know who you are, and my son and I couldn't have had nearly as much fun and success without some good starting points. Any return advice I can give is certainly yours for the asking. My pictures are too big to upload right now, so if I could email them to someone to re-size we'd get them on here. Thanks in advance.
Secondly, we learned there are NO "secret hotspots" in an Arizona elk unit; especially one with big bulls in it!
Running the hunts around Williams in 7W, 8, and 10 had the town full to overflowing. With 400+ tags and 1-2 people helping for every tag holder, there were lots of people in my unit. I had decided I wanted at least a big mature 320-330 class bull, or was prepared to eat the tag. We decided the way to do that was leave the crowds behind, and leave the spikes and raghorns to them.......
We found that anything in the Wilderness or big canyons was worth working for. Places with names like Buzzard, Desperation, Devil or Hell were a great place to start eliminating the road hunters. Ran into an outfitter on horseback about 3-4 miles from the truck, and he looked at us like we were crazy! My son and I have been boning and backpacking these things out on our backs for a long time, and find that's our way of earning a trophy. We glassed a lot, saw some great bulls in really bad places and some bad bulls in the really good places. The day before the season, we found monster bulls across Sycamore in 6B, and know of several 370-390 bulls taken there and in the absolute bottom of Hades, on our side; it has to be warmer that far down! We are talking days of retrieval for a lot of friends, or knowing someone with mules!
I guess we take all of our water up here in Idaho for granted. I have never seen so many broken points and beams on elk as I did on this trip, and have to believe the drought effects must have something to do with bone density and strength. Some were broken half way up, others had swords snapped in two, or points totally gone. I was pretty picky, and walked away from a lot of real toads which anyone would love to harvest, if they had been clean and unbroken. The unusual heat the first few days (about 55-60 degrees) had things scattered around in weird places, but it continued to get better for locating bulls as it got colder.
We saw elk, both mule and coues deer (3 big bucks), bears, antelope, bobcats and foxes. Actually got to watch as a huge bear that ran down into a herd of 4 cow/calf elk; 4 went into a thicket and only 3 came out. The bear stayed in there also, and we have to believe he was successful. I never would have believed it. Found some great sheds down in those wintering areas also.
The open canyons and rocky ridges are made for fantastic glassing, but with that comes a necessity for sometimes long-range shooting. We used the laser rangefinders a lot, but on Day 5 it was trapped inside my shirt under the pack straps when we jumped the bull I was looking for. I made a classic rookie mistake and shot over a nice bull not once, but TWICE!!!!! Just looked farther than he really was, and I held above him. Always tell anyone I am taking to hold on hair for the first shot, and ignored my own advice. He was gone in an instant, and cost us half the morning going around the canyon to make sure he had departed unscathed.
The last morning it was 2 degrees when we left the truck. I had a feeling that the sunshine would bring them out earlier to feed and soak up some heat, and I was right. 0730 found us in place and glassing. Found a 280" 6x6, a 300" 6x5, and the big-bodied bull I harvested in a basin below the cliffs about a mile from the truck. They were in that heavy manzanita, which we learned the hard way throughout the trip, is very thick/sharp and about 14 feet tall! He had a great right side with perfect points, which is what I wanted, and looked to be about 320-330 class. His body was huge also. Try as we might, the way he was feeding kept his head behind the bushes, but we had a hard time picking up the left. Finally got a clear look, and realized he was non-typical on that side, and had a long beam coming back along his side. That really sealed his fate, as both my son and I love to take the weird ones. We have strange deer, antelope, and even goofy ones from Africa between us. It was my wife who coined the phrase "retard buck/bull" a long time ago, as both the animal is weird for growing it, and I'm retarded for wanting to take him. A dead rest, good shooting, and 7 Mag. Barnes 160 grain TSX's did the trick and we were taking hero pics. The good side is 45" beam and 12-18" points, while the goofy side is a 40" beam with 3 points. We found upon caping that he had actually broken his skull while fighting at some time, and the left pedicle came down over his eye. There is even a little unicorn point coming up in the center of his skull from the re-grown bone. He's 50 inches wide now, and if the left side had been normal, it would have made him about 60 inches wide! Think what you want, it is one of the coolest trophies I have seen or taken.
Half a day and a lot of vertical steps later, it was all in the truck and we were heading to town for hot showers, and cold toddies. Dinner was a celebration, and we went to bed early for the trip home. Left Arizona with no regrets, some new friends, and a real desire to get drawn again and return. It was a great time spent with my son, and now he thinks that your elk are something to look forward to himself. Couldn't ask for a better end to a hunt!
Again, if I could e-mail to someone, we'll get the pics on.
Secondly, we learned there are NO "secret hotspots" in an Arizona elk unit; especially one with big bulls in it!
Running the hunts around Williams in 7W, 8, and 10 had the town full to overflowing. With 400+ tags and 1-2 people helping for every tag holder, there were lots of people in my unit. I had decided I wanted at least a big mature 320-330 class bull, or was prepared to eat the tag. We decided the way to do that was leave the crowds behind, and leave the spikes and raghorns to them.......We found that anything in the Wilderness or big canyons was worth working for. Places with names like Buzzard, Desperation, Devil or Hell were a great place to start eliminating the road hunters. Ran into an outfitter on horseback about 3-4 miles from the truck, and he looked at us like we were crazy! My son and I have been boning and backpacking these things out on our backs for a long time, and find that's our way of earning a trophy. We glassed a lot, saw some great bulls in really bad places and some bad bulls in the really good places. The day before the season, we found monster bulls across Sycamore in 6B, and know of several 370-390 bulls taken there and in the absolute bottom of Hades, on our side; it has to be warmer that far down!
We are talking days of retrieval for a lot of friends, or knowing someone with mules!I guess we take all of our water up here in Idaho for granted. I have never seen so many broken points and beams on elk as I did on this trip, and have to believe the drought effects must have something to do with bone density and strength. Some were broken half way up, others had swords snapped in two, or points totally gone. I was pretty picky, and walked away from a lot of real toads which anyone would love to harvest, if they had been clean and unbroken. The unusual heat the first few days (about 55-60 degrees) had things scattered around in weird places, but it continued to get better for locating bulls as it got colder.
We saw elk, both mule and coues deer (3 big bucks), bears, antelope, bobcats and foxes. Actually got to watch as a huge bear that ran down into a herd of 4 cow/calf elk; 4 went into a thicket and only 3 came out. The bear stayed in there also, and we have to believe he was successful. I never would have believed it. Found some great sheds down in those wintering areas also.
The open canyons and rocky ridges are made for fantastic glassing, but with that comes a necessity for sometimes long-range shooting. We used the laser rangefinders a lot, but on Day 5 it was trapped inside my shirt under the pack straps when we jumped the bull I was looking for. I made a classic rookie mistake and shot over a nice bull not once, but TWICE!!!!! Just looked farther than he really was, and I held above him. Always tell anyone I am taking to hold on hair for the first shot, and ignored my own advice. He was gone in an instant, and cost us half the morning going around the canyon to make sure he had departed unscathed.
The last morning it was 2 degrees when we left the truck. I had a feeling that the sunshine would bring them out earlier to feed and soak up some heat, and I was right. 0730 found us in place and glassing. Found a 280" 6x6, a 300" 6x5, and the big-bodied bull I harvested in a basin below the cliffs about a mile from the truck. They were in that heavy manzanita, which we learned the hard way throughout the trip, is very thick/sharp and about 14 feet tall! He had a great right side with perfect points, which is what I wanted, and looked to be about 320-330 class. His body was huge also. Try as we might, the way he was feeding kept his head behind the bushes, but we had a hard time picking up the left. Finally got a clear look, and realized he was non-typical on that side, and had a long beam coming back along his side. That really sealed his fate, as both my son and I love to take the weird ones. We have strange deer, antelope, and even goofy ones from Africa between us. It was my wife who coined the phrase "retard buck/bull" a long time ago, as both the animal is weird for growing it, and I'm retarded for wanting to take him. A dead rest, good shooting, and 7 Mag. Barnes 160 grain TSX's did the trick and we were taking hero pics. The good side is 45" beam and 12-18" points, while the goofy side is a 40" beam with 3 points. We found upon caping that he had actually broken his skull while fighting at some time, and the left pedicle came down over his eye. There is even a little unicorn point coming up in the center of his skull from the re-grown bone. He's 50 inches wide now, and if the left side had been normal, it would have made him about 60 inches wide! Think what you want, it is one of the coolest trophies I have seen or taken.
Half a day and a lot of vertical steps later, it was all in the truck and we were heading to town for hot showers, and cold toddies. Dinner was a celebration, and we went to bed early for the trip home. Left Arizona with no regrets, some new friends, and a real desire to get drawn again and return. It was a great time spent with my son, and now he thinks that your elk are something to look forward to himself. Couldn't ask for a better end to a hunt!
Again, if I could e-mail to someone, we'll get the pics on.
