Dave wrote.....
I have been putting in for AZ with my buddy Matt for about 10 years. My brother Mike and my brother in law Beau Snyder have also been putting in but for a year or two less. As luck would have it we all drew in the same year and in the same unit. What’s even more ironic is that Matt and I drew our first choice unit and Beau and my brother drew their second choice. Needless to say we were all very excited to have drawn at all and to be able to all go down together was something we really looked forward to.
Matt opted to take an early scouting trip in June and then the four of us went back in August to learn the unit. A customer in Flagstaff (Victor) got us in touch with a couple key people that gave us a huge head start ( Oscar and Jay ). The season is open for archery for just two weeks and Beau, Matt and I planned to be there for as long as it took. My brother Mike cut his trip a little short on each end due to other hunting trips he had planned. We left Montana on the 9th, drove straight through to AZ, and hunted the opening on September 11th.
In addition to the four of us, my dad also came along and was a huge support. We had a 14 x 16 wall tent set up with sleeping tents outside of that which made for a really comfortable camp. My Dad mainly stayed at camp, cooking meals, washing and drying clothes and as it turned out helped pack a ton of meat out! He was not far from a small town where he could get in and socialize some with the locals. I should also add that he spent much of his day keeping the mouse population down. They were thick down there. He played such an important role, making it possible for all of us to spend more time hunting elk. Thanks Dad!
There were several different terrains we hunted in and it was amazing how quickly they changed in short proximities. Thick forests of spruce and fir made up the high elevation landscape. If you drove 5 miles to the south, losing about 2,000 ft of elevation, it was much drier with juniper and oaks. Five miles in the opposite direction you were in wide open ponderosa forests. The elk seemed to like all of them but there were pockets where there were definitely more elk. We were hunting at about 8-9,000 feet elevation. It took about a week to get used to that. Because their monsoon season was late we had some spectacular lightning and thunder storms almost every day. At 9,000 feet you are pretty much right in the storm so it made for some pretty wet afternoons. Temperatures got up to around 70 during the day but cooled to about 40 at night. The nights were the biggest starry nights I have ever seen. We saw all sorts of other wildlife, including Black Bear, Mule deer, Cous Whitetail Deer, Wolves (better draw the tag before there gets to be too many) Coyotes, Bobcat, Turkeys, Mountain Lion and lots of other small animals.
The elk were not in full rut while we were there but we still had exceptional hunting hearing bugling everyday and seeing great bulls almost every day. We chased bugles in the morning and sat tree stands or blinds in the evenings when the elk were quieter. We all had close calls on the ground but for some reason or another that didn’t work out. We ended up killing each of the bulls in the evening from tree stands over waterholes. I enjoyed my time in the stand watching the elk. Watching an elk wallow is quite an experience. The bulls act like little kids in a pool splashing, rolling and kicking around in the mud and water. They really get into it. When they drink it sounds like a kid slurping up the last of a milkshake with a straw.
As I stated, my brother Mike hunted eight days and did not take an elk. He did have a great hunt with a lot of close calls. Matt shot his bull on the fourth day. It was a perfect quartering away shot through the top of the heart, 50 yard recovery. Beaus’s and mine were almost mirror images of each other on the 11th day of the hunt, each sitting waterholes on opposite sides of a ridge. Beaus’ bull came in following a cow and gave him a 25yard broadside shot placed right in the pocket, about a 50 yard recovery. My bull bugled his way in following three cows and turned broadside at about 15 yards in the middle of the water hole. Double lung hit, about 50 yd recovery.
The only down side to the trip was that I didn’t have my wife Beth there. Trying to catch up on a few more points! Good luck to you all this season.
Dave
Topic: Dave Windauer's Arizona Bull (Read 3930 times)
