A group of five of us headed 12 miles into the backcountry, three elk tags in hand. We had a good line of horse tracks in the trail so we expected some company. Opening morning we headed out and quickly picked up some bugles. We located the source and made a plan to approach from above and down wind. As we were heading up the backside of the hill, we heard the distinct sound a hoochie mamma coming from a small valley between the hill we were on and the one the bull was on. As we topped the hill, we spotted a cow in a small field between the hillside and an orange hat near the bottom of our hillside. The guy appeared to be alone rocking a badlands day pack. Not sure how he was going to get an elk out, but I guess he would have dragged his horses a couple miles off trail. We were lighting the bull up with bugles and cow calls and were expecting the bull to come down into the field. Had it done so we would have waited for that guy to shot or not as it appears he had been sitting there all morning. However the bull hung up on the far hillside, which he had zero line of sight on because he was at the bottom and both hills were heavily wooded. Our bugler pushed forward and around the backside of out hillside while we got our first shorter ready if the elk popped out into an opening on the far hill. I am pretty sure the Fudd saw our caller and got pissed. He fired two shots in quick succession. Not knowing what he could or could not see, I swung my binos over to where he was. His head was down, looking at the ground dejected. He picked up his bandlands pack and turned and walked off the hill. Pretty sure he just fired in anger.