Wednesday morning Donnie and I got a bull bugling on a high knob overlooking a beautiful drainage. The wind was good and the morning dew made for quiet stalking, so we moved in to set up. The bull answered 3-4 times, then went completely quiet. Knowing of Dave and Dave’s luck of bringing the bulls in this area in silent, we sat there for 20-30 minutes hoping to coax him quietly down the hill. No luck. We backed out and moved around the bottom of the knob and worked out way up to the north-facing slopes where the elk would be retreating to bed down.
The area was rich with fresh sign and we knew it was a matter of time before we had an encounter. We hiked until around noon and came across a bench that had been torn apart by a rutting bull. Fresh rubs littered the hillside and several natural springs had been freshly wallowed in. We sat down and ate a Wilderness Athlete Bar for lunch and snacked on some trail mix, whispering about how good this area looked. We finished our little break and slipped back into our packs and started back up the bench. We hadn’t gone 40 yards and a bull busted out of his bed right below where we had been sitting. We continued up the bench another 150 yards and found a great area that had 3 wallows within a 40 yard radius. We decided to sit there and wait. I was asleep within 10 minutes and after a short ciesta, I was abruptly awaken by the sound of cow calls. Donnie was sitting up and pointed behind us to some thick alders. As I came to my senses, I could hear brush breaking as elk busted down the hill away from us. They had been coming in and for some reason busted us…it may have been loud snoring from a deep sleeping hunter there on the hill… 🙂
Not able to sit any longer, we got up and worked over to the edge of the canyon that dropped off sharply at the edge of the bench. We were around 3 miles up the ridge and when we got a weak response to our bugle from across the canyon, heading over there wasn’t exactly on the top of our minds. However, as we dropped into the bottom, the bull continued to answer our every call, and at 1:30PM, we figured we had come this far, we had a bull bugling in his bed and he wasn’t going anywhere, and we were down to the wire. We made the decision to go after him. We reached the ridgetop at 3:15PM and began slipping in closer. When we got to where we felt we were within 150 yards of the bull, we gave him a cow call. He immediately answered and we scrambled into our positions – Donnie set up 60 yards behind and below me and started calling.
The bull came through the shooting lane just over my left shoulder
The bull answered again, this time just 70 yards away and began raking a tree in front of me. I quickly ranged a small fir tree in a nice shooting lane 42 yards in front of me. I also had a couple lanes below me if he swung wide. The bull raked a tree for 2-3 minutes and as soon as Donnie matched him with some raking of his own, the bull turned and began walking right at me. With Donnie’s calling bringing him in on a string, he turned at 50 yards and angled straight down the hill towards my first shooting lane. I could see his long, wide rack swaying from side to side as his head went behind the fir tree. I drew and was anchored at full draw when he stepped out into my shooting lane and stopped broadside. I touched the release off and watched as my arrow hit home.
The bull only went 20 yards after the shot and stopped
The bull jumped down the hill 20 yards and stopped, head hanging low, and began coughing. After a few seconds he slowly walked 5 more yards and laid down. We backed up to the ridge and sat there for 45 minutes to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere.
As we slipped back down the hill, we could see his tan body laying motionless in the place we had last left him. He hadn’t gone anywhere and as we exchanged high fives, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Using the gutless method, we quartered the bull and hung him in game bags from a make-shift meat pole. Donnie and I loaded as much as we could carry on the trip out and made it to the truck shortly after dark.
The next morning, Dave and Dave accompanied us and we were able to bring the rest of the bull out in one trip. This is when you truly find out who your friends are!
