Huntinaz
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- May 12, 2020
- Messages
- 254
Story time, week or so late. One of the east coast boys drew an AZ rifle bull tag this year which means I got to go elk hunting. Thanksgiving day 2020, whilst the average schmuck was stuffing his fat face with turkey in front of his mother-in-law, we were setting up elk camp. The rabble consisted of myself, my little brother Tate, Paulie, Al (hunter) and Andrew. The latter three being east coasters from upstate NY and Mass. I had a good conversation with Al on the ride to camp about realistic expectations and the possibility of broken up bulls and elk quality and numbers in the area we were hunting and we settled on somewhere along the honest 280"+ mark for the first couple days with standards dropping drastically after that.
We bought a new tent this year and got it set up and then spent the last two hours of daylight on the glassing hill so the east-coasters could get a view and a layout of the killing-field and an idea of how it was to be hunted:
We have a spot that is surrounded by largely un-glassable thick country. There is one spot on one hill where you can see a TON of country. We're the only ones that hunt it like this. It has its up-sides and down. Up-sides are our monopoly of said exact spot, there are a lot of elk in this area and a lot of elk move through it, and generally the presence of other hunters helps what we do rather than hinders it. Downsides include the lack of other glassing opportunity, it's remote and far away from other spots, and while the glassers on the hill can see a lot it is still challenging to guide hunters in even with radios. Every year we see many small bulls and several big bulls but since they are largely non-resident bulls you never know what you are going to get. It's not worth scouting before hand because by 9am the first morning the elk are all stirred up
View of camp all set up before the first morning:
Day 1 we saw more elk than we've ever seen. Around 350+ by a fairly conservative estimate. It was a dry year and patterns were different. It was cold and spitting snow until mid day which made for intermittent glassing from the guys on the hill but great still-hunting conditions for us which was nice because there is a lot of country they can't see. First light they got us on a practice stalk on a large herd of cows and raghorns. The stalk worked perfectly, we located and scouted the herd in shooting position and passed a half dozen raghorn bulls and spikes. Was a great practice run. Every time the snow stopped the guys would find more elk but never any bulls worth shooting on the first day so Al and I took a walk on the backside of an area they can't see at all. We saw about 200 elk, the highlight being an hour-long off and on parade of elk at the T in a fenceline. During this parade we had an 80 yard, 5 minute long opportunity and two okay bulls. A small 6x6 and a small 6x7. This being the first time Al had ever layed eyes on a real bull elk, he thought it was a giant! They really are impressive critters. Al really wanted to hit the 7 point mark and we had one in front of us but he just wasn't the overall caliber we were hoping for on day 1 so we passed. I told him we should definitely have more chances at bulls of this quality later in the hunt, but I do wish this opportunity had come again on day 4 or 5. Anyway, here's AL and I hunting bull elk together and also taking handsome selfies with our designer camo in the snow during a visibility/burrito break:
One thing apparent after day 1 was that there was still rut activity happening. I've never heard so much as a half-bugle on the late bull hunts but this year we heard it a lot. I didn't believe it at first. The east-coasters were all excited when we got back to camp and said they are bugling and rutting! I said no...
Me: "Bulls will bugle to stay with a herd but they aren't rutting"
Guys on the hill: "then why did we see elk sex three times today? Five times if you count spike on spike. They had me there..."
Day 2
Was full of action. Anyone listening to our radio traffic must have really enjoyed themselves between our crude banter and code-names for areas and all the action. First of all there were indeed elk everywhere. It went something like this:
Them: "Homo One, do you copy?"
Us: "This is Homo One, we copy, go ahead with your traffic"
Them: "Homo One we have elk everywhere. Stay central because you will be running soon. There is a line of elk from Double-kill to the top of the Pitchfork, there are elk in Biden Clearing coming from the Broom-handle, and hold on... at least a hundred elk are streaming into Blowjob Betty right now"
Us: "Copy that, standing by. We have two bulls bugling in the canyon ahead of us we're gonna check out"
Them: "Yes check that out. No stop, come back, there's a heard of bulls coming through Ruthless right now!"
And on and on for several hours
They even found a velvet bull:
The highlight of day 2 came mid afternoon, we were still seeing many cows and young bulls when the guys on the hill spotted a herd of 3 bulls that contained a small 6x6 and another bigger 6x6 that warranted a stalk and a closer look. We had some distance to cut so we jogged and fast-walked (this is subjective. Paulie the Gazelle, for example, would call it more of a slow saunter) to get within range. The bulls were in thick stuff and the guys could only catch glimpses but they got us to a small clearing and told us to get lanes and wait. As we crossed the clearing they said we were safe to cross we startled a bull elk about 150 yards away. It was a small rag and I told AL to get ready to shoot. The next bull was another small bull. Perfect, next bull should be the big one. Out he came and indeed he was bigger. He cleared the small opening and I said that's him. He stopped with his head mostly behind a tree. Al said do I shoot him? With the angle of the late afternoon sun and the tree I could not tell now. I could see he had a good frame and what appeared to be a heavy sword tine but could only partially see one side and it was not a good look and decided it was not worth the gamble. They finally broke and we never got a good look at them. We radioed the guys:
Us: "We busted them"
Them: "No you didn't, they are still there"
Us: "we watched them bounce"
Them: "The elk we are guiding you to are still there but they are walking south now, get one them!"
It was too thick and we never saw the elk they sent us after. They never saw the ones we bumped. This would become a recurring event for us...
Day 3
Day three was frustrating. The guys identified a certified shooter bull in the Biden Clearing first thing. We pulled two stalks on these elk, a nice 6x7 and a small 6x6. We spent almost all day within 500 yards of them but it was too thick to ever see them. It was yet another testament to how hard/fun it is to hunt these elk in this area. When we thought of the radio thing maybe 6 years ago we thought "oh yeah, this is gonna be easy." Since then we have averaged about a 25% success rates of stalks/kills. It's thick and the terrain and angles to the guys on the hill look SO different to the hunters in the stuff. We waited all day within 300-400 yards of these bedded bulls and it was too thick to move on them. When they got up we had a 50% chance of getting on them I figured. Al wanted to charge into the bedding area and I said no we need to wait them out. Sure enough at 2pm ish them got up and started feeding east. That was in the direction of the 50% kill margin and the way I had assumed they would go due to past experience. My parents had even come up on the hill after spending the day cutting wood out there and got to see the action of the main stalk. We spent the next 2 hours trying to find a lane on him and kill him without spooking them. The guys spent these hours trying to guide us onto the elk they could clearly see and we could not and trying not to swear too coarsely in front of my mom. We stalked, they fed, they bedded again. Finally at about 430 we busted them without a glimpse having spent the last half hour within 200 yards of them and they bounced. Out of our lives forever. We named him Betty, here's a picture from over 2000 yards away:
We ended the day getting into under 100 yards of a small 5x6 bull that was screaming his head off with a bunch of cows right at dark. Still couldn't believe they were bugling and while it looked like the big bulls were done with it, chasing bugles is exhilarating and we figured it'd still be easy to fill a tag any old time we wanted
We bought a new tent this year and got it set up and then spent the last two hours of daylight on the glassing hill so the east-coasters could get a view and a layout of the killing-field and an idea of how it was to be hunted:
We have a spot that is surrounded by largely un-glassable thick country. There is one spot on one hill where you can see a TON of country. We're the only ones that hunt it like this. It has its up-sides and down. Up-sides are our monopoly of said exact spot, there are a lot of elk in this area and a lot of elk move through it, and generally the presence of other hunters helps what we do rather than hinders it. Downsides include the lack of other glassing opportunity, it's remote and far away from other spots, and while the glassers on the hill can see a lot it is still challenging to guide hunters in even with radios. Every year we see many small bulls and several big bulls but since they are largely non-resident bulls you never know what you are going to get. It's not worth scouting before hand because by 9am the first morning the elk are all stirred up
View of camp all set up before the first morning:
Day 1 we saw more elk than we've ever seen. Around 350+ by a fairly conservative estimate. It was a dry year and patterns were different. It was cold and spitting snow until mid day which made for intermittent glassing from the guys on the hill but great still-hunting conditions for us which was nice because there is a lot of country they can't see. First light they got us on a practice stalk on a large herd of cows and raghorns. The stalk worked perfectly, we located and scouted the herd in shooting position and passed a half dozen raghorn bulls and spikes. Was a great practice run. Every time the snow stopped the guys would find more elk but never any bulls worth shooting on the first day so Al and I took a walk on the backside of an area they can't see at all. We saw about 200 elk, the highlight being an hour-long off and on parade of elk at the T in a fenceline. During this parade we had an 80 yard, 5 minute long opportunity and two okay bulls. A small 6x6 and a small 6x7. This being the first time Al had ever layed eyes on a real bull elk, he thought it was a giant! They really are impressive critters. Al really wanted to hit the 7 point mark and we had one in front of us but he just wasn't the overall caliber we were hoping for on day 1 so we passed. I told him we should definitely have more chances at bulls of this quality later in the hunt, but I do wish this opportunity had come again on day 4 or 5. Anyway, here's AL and I hunting bull elk together and also taking handsome selfies with our designer camo in the snow during a visibility/burrito break:
One thing apparent after day 1 was that there was still rut activity happening. I've never heard so much as a half-bugle on the late bull hunts but this year we heard it a lot. I didn't believe it at first. The east-coasters were all excited when we got back to camp and said they are bugling and rutting! I said no...
Me: "Bulls will bugle to stay with a herd but they aren't rutting"
Guys on the hill: "then why did we see elk sex three times today? Five times if you count spike on spike. They had me there..."
Day 2
Was full of action. Anyone listening to our radio traffic must have really enjoyed themselves between our crude banter and code-names for areas and all the action. First of all there were indeed elk everywhere. It went something like this:
Them: "Homo One, do you copy?"
Us: "This is Homo One, we copy, go ahead with your traffic"
Them: "Homo One we have elk everywhere. Stay central because you will be running soon. There is a line of elk from Double-kill to the top of the Pitchfork, there are elk in Biden Clearing coming from the Broom-handle, and hold on... at least a hundred elk are streaming into Blowjob Betty right now"
Us: "Copy that, standing by. We have two bulls bugling in the canyon ahead of us we're gonna check out"
Them: "Yes check that out. No stop, come back, there's a heard of bulls coming through Ruthless right now!"
And on and on for several hours
They even found a velvet bull:
The highlight of day 2 came mid afternoon, we were still seeing many cows and young bulls when the guys on the hill spotted a herd of 3 bulls that contained a small 6x6 and another bigger 6x6 that warranted a stalk and a closer look. We had some distance to cut so we jogged and fast-walked (this is subjective. Paulie the Gazelle, for example, would call it more of a slow saunter) to get within range. The bulls were in thick stuff and the guys could only catch glimpses but they got us to a small clearing and told us to get lanes and wait. As we crossed the clearing they said we were safe to cross we startled a bull elk about 150 yards away. It was a small rag and I told AL to get ready to shoot. The next bull was another small bull. Perfect, next bull should be the big one. Out he came and indeed he was bigger. He cleared the small opening and I said that's him. He stopped with his head mostly behind a tree. Al said do I shoot him? With the angle of the late afternoon sun and the tree I could not tell now. I could see he had a good frame and what appeared to be a heavy sword tine but could only partially see one side and it was not a good look and decided it was not worth the gamble. They finally broke and we never got a good look at them. We radioed the guys:
Us: "We busted them"
Them: "No you didn't, they are still there"
Us: "we watched them bounce"
Them: "The elk we are guiding you to are still there but they are walking south now, get one them!"
It was too thick and we never saw the elk they sent us after. They never saw the ones we bumped. This would become a recurring event for us...
Day 3
Day three was frustrating. The guys identified a certified shooter bull in the Biden Clearing first thing. We pulled two stalks on these elk, a nice 6x7 and a small 6x6. We spent almost all day within 500 yards of them but it was too thick to ever see them. It was yet another testament to how hard/fun it is to hunt these elk in this area. When we thought of the radio thing maybe 6 years ago we thought "oh yeah, this is gonna be easy." Since then we have averaged about a 25% success rates of stalks/kills. It's thick and the terrain and angles to the guys on the hill look SO different to the hunters in the stuff. We waited all day within 300-400 yards of these bedded bulls and it was too thick to move on them. When they got up we had a 50% chance of getting on them I figured. Al wanted to charge into the bedding area and I said no we need to wait them out. Sure enough at 2pm ish them got up and started feeding east. That was in the direction of the 50% kill margin and the way I had assumed they would go due to past experience. My parents had even come up on the hill after spending the day cutting wood out there and got to see the action of the main stalk. We spent the next 2 hours trying to find a lane on him and kill him without spooking them. The guys spent these hours trying to guide us onto the elk they could clearly see and we could not and trying not to swear too coarsely in front of my mom. We stalked, they fed, they bedded again. Finally at about 430 we busted them without a glimpse having spent the last half hour within 200 yards of them and they bounced. Out of our lives forever. We named him Betty, here's a picture from over 2000 yards away:
We ended the day getting into under 100 yards of a small 5x6 bull that was screaming his head off with a bunch of cows right at dark. Still couldn't believe they were bugling and while it looked like the big bulls were done with it, chasing bugles is exhilarating and we figured it'd still be easy to fill a tag any old time we wanted
Last edited:
