Day 2 – Saturday September 12, 2009
Man it is good to be back in elk country. We went for a drive last night and managed to heard a bull bugling down in a draw after dark, so our plan for this morning was to drop down an old logging road and see if we could call him across the draw to our side for a shot. Coincidently, this was in the exact same draw where Donnie missed that really nice 6X6 last fall…he had a score to settle with that bull.
This is the bull Donnie missed last fall...in the exact same place as the bull we called in this morning...
We sprayed down with Scent Killer before heading down the logging road to bugle from the ridge. We got to our vantage point above an old clear-cut and I let out a couple cow calls, followed by a location bugle. The bull answered, but it sounded like he was a long ways off, possibly on the other side of the draw. We stood there for a minute contemplating what to do as the wind was pulling pretty strongly down into the draw, towards the bull. Approaching him wouldn’t be easy. Nor would it be necessary. The bull bugled again…much closer. In fact, he was standing at the edge of the clear-cut 80 yards away looking up the hill at us. He must have been in the creek bottom and sounded a lot farther away than he really was.
Click below to see video of our approach…
Donnie was somewhat set-up below the cut-bank of the logging road, but the bull had a lock on us. He bugled a couple times, but wasn’t going to budge out into the open any farther without some visual confirmation. With the wind angling down his direction, we could only sit tight and watch as he turned and bugled his way back down into the canyon. As he turned to leave, I glanced over out of the corner of my eye and saw a spike bull standing in the middle of the logging road, staring intently at the weird object crouched down on the edge of the road making elk sounds…he hung around plenty long enough for a shot, but with Donnie’s vision blocked by the weeds on the side of the road, he couldn’t get a range on the bull and didn’t shoot. I think he was still thinking about settling a score with a really nice 6X6 still bugling just down the draw.
See video of the 6X6 and spike below:
Thinking it would be best to give the 6X6 time to settle down before pushing him, we hiked back to the truck and drove down to another drainage we’d had bulls bugling in before. It was thick and steep, but the short hike this morning gave me a little confidence to venture farther off the trail. We got to a good vantage point overlooking the canyon and let out a bugle. It was immediately answered from down in the bottom, some 500 yards below. With the wind still pulling straight down towards the bull, we side-hilled around to the adjacent ridge and began a slow approach towards the bull. We could hear cows, and his bugle wasn’t overly strong, but we figured we’d give him a try regardless. We got to the bottom and level with the bull, then began moving in on him, bugling every so often to keep track of his location. When we got to 300 yards, we went silent and slipped in to within 100 yards. I was explaining to Donnie and Dave that we needed to get set-up when the bull bugled. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to challenge him, I cut him off immediately. Donnie and Dave scrambled to get set up as the bull came charging up the hillside. He stopped at 20 yards with thick brush obstructing any chance for a clear shot. Donnie captured some video of him before he whirled and crashed off (see below).
The hike out of the canyon was horrible. I went 10 yards and had to stop for 4-5 minutes to catch my breath. Donnie and Dave were great and stayed there with me, encouraging me the whole way, but it was painful and embarrassing. Just 1 month ago I had completed 2 triathlons in a 36 hour period. Now it was taking me 45 minutes to climb a hill that should have taken 8-10.
Not quite ready to call it quits for the day, we drove to one last canyon at the end of the road and bugled. It was 12 noon and we immediately got a fired-up response from a big-sounding bull. He was 500 yards up and across the draw and we had the wind in our favor. We spent the next hour and a half in a screaming match with this big bull, but never got a good look at him. He was smart. Every time we tried moving in on him, he would circle around to keep the wind in his favor. I pulled every trick I could think of, but in the end, he wouldn’t let his guard down and we couldn’t get close to him. It was awesome to have a good bugling match though!
Watch video of the bugling match below.
We decided to back out and go over a couple ridges to eat lunch and take a nap before slipping back in to challenge the big bull again on the evening hunt. We were hopeful he would be coming across the draw to our side to feed this evening, and we would be there and ready for him!
As I laid down for a nap, my heart started pounding again. At this point we were 2 hours from any form of civilization. My heart rate was over 100 just sitting there…there was no way I was going to be able to sleep. I tried getting my mind off it but it was useless. I must have over-done it this morning and this is the result. I toughed it out for about 3 hours until we were ready to go back in after the big bull. However, when we got to the ridge, he gave us a couple weak bugles before making his way over the top of the ridge across from us. He was feeding out away from us and there was no way I was going to be able to go up after him. Disappointed, and maybe a little frustrated, we turned to the best therapy…comedy… 🙂
Click below to see us goofing off…
The good news is we are back in elk country and had a phenomenal day calling elk. I still need a couple good days to get my confidence back up to venture far from the roads, but we’re getting into elk where we’re (I’m) able to go, so it’s all good. Tomorrow is Sunday, so we’ll be taking the day off from hunting…hopefully the extra rest will be what I need and we’ll be ready to hit it harder on Monday! We have 6 days of hunting left to kill at least 2 bulls…3 would be a definite bonus! We won’t get greedy though…one at a time.