slim9300
WKR
Trophyhill said:
I am cutting a pasting my text messages to David (Trophyhill) to give a brief synopsis of the hunt. This elk season started as the worst of my life for family reasons and almost never happened. I am thankful The Lord gave me the strength to move on and get into the backcountry where I belong. The mountains are truly a healer of the heart and mind.
From Sept. 21st PM: "One down and one to go. Scott and I just got out of the mountains and we are headed to town to take care of the meat. I missed a much bigger bull yesterday evening (290-300"), but I lack self-control when a bull just stands in front of me bugling.
Such is the life of an undisciplined elk hunter, but I'm never going to kill 50 bulls without shooting a few raghorns. Two years in a row the 21st has been "the day." The elk are fired up but not quite fully into the rut. We have had close encounters with a handful of mature bulls and spotted quite a few more. Headed back into the mountains in the morning to get Scott Kirkeby a bigger bull. Life is good."
From Sept. 24th PM: "Well it's been an interesting MT elk season. We are headed home on 90 now.
Scott missed (long story) a beast of a bull on the evening of the 22nd despite the weather being brutal. I will tell you the whole story some time. Anyways, around noon on the 23rd we were working though a bedding area and I spotted this bull bedded looking away. I couldn't see his antlers but I talked Scott into sneaking into 40 yards, despite reservations on his size. When he glassed the bull's antlers his reaction was not good, but with some coaxing on my part and me pulling out my phone to video the shot, he gave in.
In retrospect shooting the little guy was a good decision. The rutting activity has been very weak this year and the weather equally bad. (I was told today that the activity was great early in the season.) To top it all off, tomorrow afternoon is going to drop 2' of snow on our mountain range. Thank The Lord we got out before that! Next year Scott and I agreed to channel our inner 'trophy hunters' and hold out for mature bulls (at least for the first 3 days of the hunt). Lol. Oddly enough, two years in a row we both killed our bulls on the exact same day (21st and 23rd). "I want to give a huge shout out to Kifaru and Aron Snyder. I have never been more proud to be a part of the Kifaru team. There is no pack in the world that I would rather have on my back when I'm 8 miles deep in the mountains and need to get out half an elk plus camp. If you have thought about looking into a Kifaru pack, stop thinking and pull the trigger. You will never regret it for a second.
