I know it's been discussed in all kinds of hunting circles, media and here probably.
You've backpacked in 3 miles and 2000ft up on top of a ridge and set up camp. This scenario plays out on the opposite side of the face you came up. No trails on the side where this situation takes place.
What do you do:
You're on a ridge at 8,000ft with a timbered face dropping to a creek 2000ft below, small benches, steep down to the creek and timbered, not thick but timbered with brush intermixed. It's evening, an hour and a half to sunset. You hear a bugle what sounds like 4-500 yards below you so you start dropping vert to cut the distance. You go 2-300 yards and call to try to get a better pinpoint and the bull bugles back but sounds about the same distance below you as he had been when you were on the top. This process repeats another time and clearly the bull is working downhill away from you, responsive but going away. The wind in this area stays pretty solid up-hill until right at dusk so your wind is solid for a while longer.
What do you do after this pattern plays out once or twice? Keep going all the way to the bottom and run the risk of finally getting down there to have the wind switch or do you do something else? Or just let him go and hope he's coming back in the morning?
You've backpacked in 3 miles and 2000ft up on top of a ridge and set up camp. This scenario plays out on the opposite side of the face you came up. No trails on the side where this situation takes place.
What do you do:
You're on a ridge at 8,000ft with a timbered face dropping to a creek 2000ft below, small benches, steep down to the creek and timbered, not thick but timbered with brush intermixed. It's evening, an hour and a half to sunset. You hear a bugle what sounds like 4-500 yards below you so you start dropping vert to cut the distance. You go 2-300 yards and call to try to get a better pinpoint and the bull bugles back but sounds about the same distance below you as he had been when you were on the top. This process repeats another time and clearly the bull is working downhill away from you, responsive but going away. The wind in this area stays pretty solid up-hill until right at dusk so your wind is solid for a while longer.
What do you do after this pattern plays out once or twice? Keep going all the way to the bottom and run the risk of finally getting down there to have the wind switch or do you do something else? Or just let him go and hope he's coming back in the morning?