RE: more 34 260's
Hey!!! those landmarks I took out are real obvious. We are hunting close to the bottom bull. As for cookie??? We just got back in and man!!!!
Here's how it went down.
We've been sittin at home all weekend waitin for people to start talking about the elk gettin it on and reports started rolling in. We decided to go up and check it out a 3pm. We got on the hill at 5 and instantly started hearing bugles. We first spotted a 260ish 6x6 barely and 4 cows heading over the ridge. Below us were some elk w/o a bull coming towards us and across the canyon was another bull bugling (300 6x6) with about 10 cows. I noticed there was a lot of bugling coming from over the mountain about a mile or so off and told cookie the one sounded good. I told him we were going that way and off we went with cookie constantly naging me to slow down cuz he can't keep up. Finally we got over the 2nd ridge only to find we had caught up with the cows and small 6x6 we saw feed over the saddle earlier. Cookie informed me the first bull that got in range is dead. Once we cleared the ridge all heck broke loose. A monster sounding bull in the bottom of the drainage was screaming, 3 bulls 600 yards away were screaming. 3 bulls bout 300 yards away were screaming. the 6x we thought was small was screaming at about 100 yards and several other bulls were screaming as well. Well I was concentrating on the bull 800 yards away cuz he sounded huge. Cookie kept cow calling to locate the bull in front of us. We found out if you sneak through the sage the elk get suspicious. We started barreling through the sage cow calling and walked right in the middle of a feeding herd of cows. Their bull was in front screaming at another bull and wouldn't come back to the cows and we didn't have a bugle. Meanwhile the bull across the way materialize and was a very old bull. He had 40 inch beams, was only a 5 x 6 but had butt loads of mass. His tines were all about 6 or so inches in diameter almost all the way to the tips. his fronts were only about 12 inches but the beams about 4 inches behind the g4 were probably about 12 inches around. He was massive, but ugly. Then I got a glimpse of the bull 200 yards below us when he came charging up the hill. His g-4's were about 22 inches. his whales tale, aka 5th and 6th were each about 18 inches which I have never seen in the sacs. Thats all I saw from him and he hung up at about 100 yards. Then The cows we walked into got a fright as a spotted fawn took off. We simply started cow calling and started busting through the scrub oak again. This calmed them down but was bad for us cuz we walked to within 15 yards of the freakin cows. Now the bull in front of the cows sounded close. The cows finally winded us and busted out. No problem, those cows weren't the ones the bull was with. We started bustin desperately through brush again to close the distance before we lost shooting light and got to with 50 yards. we set up and tried to cow call him in which didn't work. While we waited the bull slipped off back to his cows again. Again we just started bustin through the oaks to get a look at him. Too late, all light was lost. However, I wanted to see him so we kept going until I got to a spot where I believed I could see him with my 10x42 swarovski's. There he was about 100 yards broad side. 45 inches wide. about 20 inch 3rds and 17 - 20 inch fronts, and about 22 inch 5'ths. I couldnt see the 5th's and 6th's because freakin cookie took the nockers away. Bout that time the bull turned broad side to reveal about 50 inch beams and only 6 inch 5th's. Talk about bad luck. All we needed was about 15 more minutes of light and We'd of had a stinky on the ground. Man was that exciting. I'm leavin to go back at 3am and get back in that saddle so that the elk can walk by us on the way back to bed. Also, our friend was back on the water hole below us. He has sat that hole for 6 or so days now. After he left we could here 3 differnt bulls tearin it up down there. Oh, while we were ridge hoping earlier we saw a nice 340 to 350 bull on the ridge just 700 yards from that same water hole. He had about 7 cows with him and several rag horns dogging the herd. WHEW what an evening. I think I'm done hunting the gila after this year. We got some stinkin bulls in 34!!!!!
