Well, the archery season came and went with nothing more than close calls, and the rifle season in unit 24 is now about half way through. We are done, however, as my wife shot her bull on opening morning. We never really did find any monsters, although there are a lot of elk and a high percentage of bulls. Shooting a bull was never really in doubt, but we finally set our sights on anything over 300", and were able to achieve that goal.
It has snowed the last week of September, and for a couple days leading up to the rifle opener we had winds from 40-50 MPH all day and night. It made the hunting / scouting difficult and really kept the elk in the timber. It also made for restless nights as the camper shook violently all night long.
Not 30 minutes into the rifle opener, I hooked a tire on the ATV and broke the bead on the rim, leaving us with a completely flat tire and several miles from camp. I sent my wife over the ridge to watch a clearing while I scratched my head about how to reseat the tire with just a little 12V top off air compressor and very few tools. About 15 minutes into this 30 minute job, I heard my wife shoot over the ridge. All thoughts of fixing the ATV tire soon left, and I ran over the ridge to find her with this bull. She repeatedly said she didn't think she had to wait for my approval to shoot this guy, as we had seen few much better in several weeks of scouting and hunting. She was also quite pleased to have taken the bull without my help, or anyone else. This is her third bull over 300", although she has taken many smaller bulls and cows over the years.
Overall this is a decent unit and a quality hunt, but not really the trophy unit I had been led to believe. From what we saw, not many people were taking elk this size, and a lot of 5x5's and raghorn 6's were hitting the ground. There probably are bigger bulls in the unit somewhere, but we never saw more than a couple bigger than this one.
Bill
