I know the unit and decided to get there a day early to scout. By cousin had the same tag the year before and I scouted the area where he killed his bull, but the numbers of elk were not like the year before so decided to spend opening morning somewhere else. My buddy told me he knew where a nice elk hangs out and a canyon where the elk pass through in the morning.
When we got there it was foggy, and could not see past 75 yards, after a while after sitting on the canyon we start hearing shots form the private land. We decide to circle the area and see if they would scare some elk towards us. When we got back the fog had lifted and my friend realize we sat in the wrong canyon. That evening I went back to the area I had scouted and glassed from a place you could see the most of the burnt area below but only saw few elk which were too far away.
Next morning I sat a water tank, then walked a little. On the way back to the tank spooked some cows coming in to the water hole.
Finally we decided to go a third area for the afternoon hunt. We got out and started walking when my buddy saw some elk on a hill that was too far to range. We saw the bull and made our way towards them using the limited cover available. We got to a place where we ran out of cover. We ranged the bull at 325 yards. That's right at the outer limit of my .308 and me. I had bought some horndady superperformance bullets to extend the range a little bit but still would have preferred a closer shot. There was a clump of trees 75-100 yards closer which I wanted to try to reach but we finally decided trying to get there would probably spook the bull. So I found a stump and took my first shot. The bull disappeared. About 10 seconds latter two cows spooked out but the bull was had still not come out. After a while he finally came out very slowly. I took another shot and he did not react. I took two more shots, he walked slowly but did not react. I thought I was missing. So when he disappeared behind some trees we ran over to the next clump of trees about 75-100 yards closer. We saw him form there, he seemed to be standing still so I shot and he just seemed stand there. I shot again, same thing. It turned out he was down on the hill but the angle he was laying at on the hill made it look like he was standing.
It turned out I hit him 5 out of 7 shots and had one 5 inch dash across his hide which was probably one of my bullets which missed. I am fairly sure I hit him the first time and he stumbled a little which spooked out his cows. I felt I was hitting him but he just did not seem to react which messed with my confidence and made me believe I was missing. In the end it turned out well. Someone might flame me but I the believe the shots I took were ethical.
