Trad Bow 1979
Active Member
- Messages
- 649
It took me the 6th day of my 7 day hunt to get this guy on the ground. I missed out on a ton of opprotunities for cows, spikes etc. With that being said, I totally blew it and missed out on two really big bulls. One of them I will regret for a long time.
So I have talked to a few other hunters in the area and they seemed to have been experiencing the same thing I was and id like some input from you guys on it. First off, the rut never seemed to hit. No night time bugling. The only bugling action was from around 0700-0800 and thats it. Once in awhile you could get a few responses from throwing out a location bugle in the late morning. I also found that the big bulls would hang back about 80 yards or so and then send spikes or cows ahead to check you out. The bulls were just extremely cautious, their judgment was not clouded by the sound of cows in estrus. I had tons of close encounters with smaller bulls and cows, but the big boys would all just hang up.
I got this guy at a water hole. He caught me drawing back on him and he took off up hill. I threw out some mews and he stopped, starred at me for awhile, and came back. So I hit a little further back and higher than I intended. I saw blood dripping down his side and I thought I had gotten a liver shot. My arrow was soaked in dark blood too. So nothing was indicating a lung shot. Well we found this guy upside-down laying on his horns about 200 yards away. both entry and exit wounds had pink bubbly blood. So yea it was a lung shot, a high lung shot. But I guess I got a piece of the liver too.
So I have talked to a few other hunters in the area and they seemed to have been experiencing the same thing I was and id like some input from you guys on it. First off, the rut never seemed to hit. No night time bugling. The only bugling action was from around 0700-0800 and thats it. Once in awhile you could get a few responses from throwing out a location bugle in the late morning. I also found that the big bulls would hang back about 80 yards or so and then send spikes or cows ahead to check you out. The bulls were just extremely cautious, their judgment was not clouded by the sound of cows in estrus. I had tons of close encounters with smaller bulls and cows, but the big boys would all just hang up.
I got this guy at a water hole. He caught me drawing back on him and he took off up hill. I threw out some mews and he stopped, starred at me for awhile, and came back. So I hit a little further back and higher than I intended. I saw blood dripping down his side and I thought I had gotten a liver shot. My arrow was soaked in dark blood too. So nothing was indicating a lung shot. Well we found this guy upside-down laying on his horns about 200 yards away. both entry and exit wounds had pink bubbly blood. So yea it was a lung shot, a high lung shot. But I guess I got a piece of the liver too.
