My wife killed this bull on the 2nd day of the hunt.
On the first morning of the hunt she passed on several nice bulls, one was a big 5x6 that had HUGE G1's probably like 24" or longer. She said not on the first morning. The next was a nice heavy 6x6 that had a weird beam, it grew just above the eye. It made him really wide, but he lacked in tine length. She said he is kinda ugly. We were in the middle of the herd for several hours and the bulls were bugleing and fighting like crazy. It was an awesome experience, that we both will never forget. That evening we decided to try a canyon that we knew had tons of elk in. I knew it was going to be a long hike, but I seriously underestimated how far it was...(whoops) Our plan was to stay high on the ridgeline and listen for bugles, and if one sounded big we would go after it. Well 30 minutes into the hike we herd a Growler in the bottom of the canyon, and off the top we went. We spotted the bulls cows about 150 yds away so we stopped and waited for almost an hour, and the bull never bugled again so we decided to head back up to the top of the ridge. We no longer got to the top, and we herd another bull further down the canyon near the bottom. He had the weirdest sounding bugle I have ever heard it was more like a MOAN... So down the hill we went again. This time we met the bull in the bottom, he crossed the creek at what I thought to be 250 yds. We were out in the open so I told her to move down about 50-60 yds and get a rest on a log. When she got steady I cow chirped to stop him broadside. I told her to aim at the top of his shoulder, BANG!! the bull just walked away. She reloaded, and we went to where I last seen him and we found a little blood. We followed it for about 200 yds until it got to dark on us. There wasn't much blood to follow either. We decided that we'd come back in the morning. We started hiking out on a good horse trail, but we lost that trail shortly after, and ended up in the thickest crap I have ever seen... After about an hour of crawling through the oak. I decided to cross the creek and see if the other side was and less thick. As I was about to cross it I herd a loud GROWL in the willows. I told my wife that it was a moo cow. (she knew better) so I chucked a rock in the direction of the growl, and gave a big yell of my own. I figured I scared it off, so after a minute I went to cross it again, it let out another loud GROWL... Holy crap it must be a bear or mt lion. She.../we decided to climb up the thick oak side hill and get as far away from that GROWL as possible. Anyways after some minor disagreements about which path to crawl through, we made it to the fourwheeler sometime after 10pm, and back to camp at 11. I was pretty sure that my wife was done hunting after that episode, but boy was I wrong. Next morning my wife, her brother, and me went back to where we lost the blood trail. After 2 hours of looking we gave up.I had misjudged the yardage on her shot by 50-75yds (my bad) On our way back up to the fourwheelers we herd a couple bugles. One sounded kinda strange, and my wife says thats my bull. We moved in closer and he kept (moaning) Finally we got to within 75 yds and he pegged us. My wife and the bull had a 15 min stare down with no clear shot. The bull had about 7-8 cows with him that never saw us. Finally my wife decides to get up and move left so she could get a clear shot. The bull barks and then lets out a (moan)bugle and BANG!!! the bull takes off on a 100yd death march. Ironically he piled up less that 100yds from where we lost the blood trail earlier. As we were skinning him we found that she had grazed him in the leg on her first shot the night before. Iam so proud of my wife, she never complained about the hike,and even packed out 2 heavy packs of meat. I learned 2 valuable lessons on this hunt about my wife. 1)she is tuff 2)she can shoot. Many Thanks to her brother Nolan, her dad Kenny, and my Dad Jim for all the help on this fun hunt.
On the first morning of the hunt she passed on several nice bulls, one was a big 5x6 that had HUGE G1's probably like 24" or longer. She said not on the first morning. The next was a nice heavy 6x6 that had a weird beam, it grew just above the eye. It made him really wide, but he lacked in tine length. She said he is kinda ugly. We were in the middle of the herd for several hours and the bulls were bugleing and fighting like crazy. It was an awesome experience, that we both will never forget. That evening we decided to try a canyon that we knew had tons of elk in. I knew it was going to be a long hike, but I seriously underestimated how far it was...(whoops) Our plan was to stay high on the ridgeline and listen for bugles, and if one sounded big we would go after it. Well 30 minutes into the hike we herd a Growler in the bottom of the canyon, and off the top we went. We spotted the bulls cows about 150 yds away so we stopped and waited for almost an hour, and the bull never bugled again so we decided to head back up to the top of the ridge. We no longer got to the top, and we herd another bull further down the canyon near the bottom. He had the weirdest sounding bugle I have ever heard it was more like a MOAN... So down the hill we went again. This time we met the bull in the bottom, he crossed the creek at what I thought to be 250 yds. We were out in the open so I told her to move down about 50-60 yds and get a rest on a log. When she got steady I cow chirped to stop him broadside. I told her to aim at the top of his shoulder, BANG!! the bull just walked away. She reloaded, and we went to where I last seen him and we found a little blood. We followed it for about 200 yds until it got to dark on us. There wasn't much blood to follow either. We decided that we'd come back in the morning. We started hiking out on a good horse trail, but we lost that trail shortly after, and ended up in the thickest crap I have ever seen... After about an hour of crawling through the oak. I decided to cross the creek and see if the other side was and less thick. As I was about to cross it I herd a loud GROWL in the willows. I told my wife that it was a moo cow. (she knew better) so I chucked a rock in the direction of the growl, and gave a big yell of my own. I figured I scared it off, so after a minute I went to cross it again, it let out another loud GROWL... Holy crap it must be a bear or mt lion. She.../we decided to climb up the thick oak side hill and get as far away from that GROWL as possible. Anyways after some minor disagreements about which path to crawl through, we made it to the fourwheeler sometime after 10pm, and back to camp at 11. I was pretty sure that my wife was done hunting after that episode, but boy was I wrong. Next morning my wife, her brother, and me went back to where we lost the blood trail. After 2 hours of looking we gave up.I had misjudged the yardage on her shot by 50-75yds (my bad) On our way back up to the fourwheelers we herd a couple bugles. One sounded kinda strange, and my wife says thats my bull. We moved in closer and he kept (moaning) Finally we got to within 75 yds and he pegged us. My wife and the bull had a 15 min stare down with no clear shot. The bull had about 7-8 cows with him that never saw us. Finally my wife decides to get up and move left so she could get a clear shot. The bull barks and then lets out a (moan)bugle and BANG!!! the bull takes off on a 100yd death march. Ironically he piled up less that 100yds from where we lost the blood trail earlier. As we were skinning him we found that she had grazed him in the leg on her first shot the night before. Iam so proud of my wife, she never complained about the hike,and even packed out 2 heavy packs of meat. I learned 2 valuable lessons on this hunt about my wife. 1)she is tuff 2)she can shoot. Many Thanks to her brother Nolan, her dad Kenny, and my Dad Jim for all the help on this fun hunt.
