Tag soup for me this year, but thought I'd post the additional trailcam pics for those like me that like to see elk on the hoof. Got back from the hunt last night. We were base camped three miles from our vehicles. The trailcam is about another four miles in.
First morning's plans were all interupted when a bull started talking about 400 yards from our tent at 5:00 a.m. He was very responsive to our cow calls and from what we could tell came within about 200 yards of our camp. My friend headed out after him and got within about 100 yards while I continued to cow call and rattle some shed antlers from the camp. We talked back and fourth with him for about an hour in the dark. Unfortunately, he clammed up completely the moment it became legal shooting light; friend never was able to locate him in the timber.
So after a late start we headed off to the trailcam to see what visited during the previous week. Here are the pictures:
I would've fed that last one a Powerbelt Platinum 338 if I'd been fortunate to cross paths with him.
Moved the trailcam to another water hole that was about a third of the way up a 10,495 foot peak where I took a nice 6X7 last year, but nothing showed up for two days so I moved it back to this same water hole around 3:00 p.m. on the third day, set up a decoy and cow elk urine wafers.
Nothing came in that night, and I intended to be back there the next morning at first light.
The next morning, while my friend was busy bagging a nice 5X5, I made the unfortunate decision to instead hike to top of one of the three canyons that fed this water hole that I hadn't hunted yet. My reasoning was that since all the previous pictures were taken in the evening, I thought I might be able to catch the bulls in their beds by still hunting from the top down. Wish I had stuck with my original plan. As was I didn't see any elk and I didn't get back to the water hole until about 2:00 p.m. When I checked it, here's what wandered in during the morning hours (I think this first pic is a side view of the back head of a bear standing on a dead log that was directly below the trailcam, but if anyone can tell me for sure what this is I'd really like to know):
Shortly after that, this boy showed up:
I've studied the last two photos where the bull is standing in the trees the top right hand corner and figured he might have been worth the seven mile pack out, but I'll never know for sure. I'm still kicking myself for not sticking with my original plan that morning.
Nothing showed up the rest of that evening. I got back to camp at about 8:15 to find that my buddy had already quartered and packed his 5x5 the four miles back to his truck, and was already back at camp waiting for me. Dude is amazing.
Last morning, I woke up to about an inch of snow. Found and followed a big track until I could no longer follow because the snow melted. The 30 and 40 mile wind gusts pretty much wiped out the rest of day.
However, I'm really happy for my buddy, and I'm already making new strategies for the same area next year. Hope we can successfully draw.
My you all have better success than I did.