I decided to hunt near camp again this morning as the elk haven’t had much hunting pressure from anyone but ourselves. We got back up on the high knob we started out on opening day and the bulls were fired up today! We still hunted toward all the commotion and caught a small, 250” 6 X 6 with a cow and calf heading up the mountain right past us. He stopped at 30 yards and offered me a beautiful quartering away shot….all I could think of is I wish you were two years older! We continued further down the mountain toward a decent sounding bugle. Dan and Doug stayed back to call and rake a tree and I could see the bull as he walked up to the fence line. He wasn’t anything to get excited about so we let him wander off without spooking him.
By around 7:30AM the bulls were starting to quiet down. We moved off into the dark timber and caught a couple bulls going back and forth so I decided to get in between them and bugle. As we headed up to get into position I threw out a bugle and the bigger sounding bull stomped on my call….HE’S COMING FAST! We all jumped for cover. He bugled again and is heading downwind so I threw out a half-hearted chuckle which turned him and he headed right for us. I could see him coming in and I didn’t even have time to grab my binoculars and look him over. He looked wide with good mass and had some great main beams, so I quickly decided this is a shooter. He walked in and veered to my left at 25 yards, walking along a blow down. I had a two foot window to shoot through and I quickly swung the bow ahead of him and into the lane. As soon as his shoulder cleared the opening I touched off the release and watched the arrow finds its mark, although it is a little further back than I wanted. The bull ran up the hill about 80 yards and stopped, then after a short while he slowly walked away.
Watch video of Randy’s shot below…
Doug was behind me filming the whole thing. Dan was laying at the base of a tree 10 yards off to my side and got a front row seat to all the action. After reviewing the video we all agree the shot was bit far back and decided to give him two hours before looking for him. After our two hour wait we snuck over to take a look and found his tracks in the pine needles with very little blood. We climbed up to where he was standing and found a very small puddle of blood and that was it. After 100 yards and very little blood we decided to back out. We are going to give this bull plenty of time. The arrow is still in him and we aren’t going to bump him or he will be gone forever.
We’ll update you again this evening and let you know if we’re able to find him.