LAST EDITED ON Oct-10-05 AT 12:56PM (MST)[p]It was a day of first's for him so to speak.
I woke him up and we stepped out onto the back porch and I cow called to a bull that was bugling, his first elk bugle.
We were headed up the hill and we stopped and as I got out I heard something jump up and run and I threw a spotlight beam at the direction of the noise (and no we weren't using the spotlight to hunt with I wanted to see how big that herd bull was)and 4 bulls ran across the road towards the elk herd. His first sighting of bull elk.
We drove up the hill and got out to walk to a vantage point and glass the area below. I look northwest through my bino's and lo and behold the bulls we jumped were headed right at us. I told Gabe to sit really still, few minutes later a 4 point bull walked 10 yards in front of us with the other bulls trailing him. When he caught our scent he stopped immediately and looked in our direction then hauled butt out of there. Gabes first close encounter with bull elk
A few minutes later we caught site of some deer moving uphill and I glassed them but didn't see antlers. Drove a little further and i saw a forked horn with the does so I told Gabe to get out and take a shot, which he did and missed and the herd was gone. First shot at a buck
Went further back into the hills and as the sunrise Gabe saw a herd of elk on the move and we stopped and I glassed a couple branch bulls, spike and cows. A big 6 point skylined himself and the herd was gone. We walked over to where I thought they had stopped as I wanted to shoot a few pictures of the bulls.(sadly I didn't have the camera when that 4 point was 10 yards away).
Rest of the day was uneventful sun rose it warmed up we went back to the bunkhouse. After an afternoon of sleep and movies I we got up and loaded gear to hunt that evening.
We checked a few place for deer but nothing, and as I rounded a corner I stopped to glass the hills ahead of and saw 3 deer standing there. But there were way to far off to shoot so we watched them to see what direction they were going to head and I tried to put a plan together to get us closer. They moved away from us so we headed down the road towards them.
A few minutes later, as we got closer I glassed uphill and there they were and I ranged them and told Gabe where to hold the crosshairs as they were 258 yards uphill. HE shot and it looked like a good hit, the deer ran a litte ways then stopped so I told Gabe to shoot again and he did. And the deer went down.We walked up to get it and it was still alive and it was then I noticed that Gabe had broken one front leg with the first shot and the other front leg with the second. So he then finished it with a shot to the neck and then the work began. His first buck.
I was sure proud of him and I think I was more excited than he was.
(P.S. we saw a total of 10 bulls in the span of 45 minutes, where were those bulls a few weeks earlier when I had my archery tag?)