My hunting partner and I hiked in 4 miles into a wilderness area Friday night, yes in the dark because he is habitually late. After getting camp set up I went to bed with visions of elk walking through my dreams. I know its early in the season so the lack of bugles didnt worry me much. The nice thing about camping in their living room is I got to sleep in until 5:30 then have coffee. Once properly fed and awake we hiked about a 1/4 mile from camp and right at daylight saw a really nice 6x6 skylined on the ridge above us. Of course he was well above treeline so we watched for a few minutes and tried to figure out which way he would head. We dropped down to the edge of the trees and tried to get across a small bowl when the bull decided he was coming right in our direction, I hate it when you get caught out in the open. We hunkered down for a half hour by the only tree within 30 yrds and watched him tear a shrub to bits. Finally he moved behind a couple small trees so we could sneak closer. I left my son where we had been to call for us and wr got to within 100 yrds. Once again the bull suprised us and ran to within 40 before we could get set up, but stopped right behind a tree of course. My son continued to call in the background and we waited for the bull to move again, after a minute he looked back up the hill (at a couple coyotes we found out later) and started to trot off. Knowing that he was now out of range for good for my selfbow, I blew a cow call and stopped him at about 65 yrds. My buddy who still has training wheels (I almost have him converted) took a shot and missed 15 yrds wide left. So much for high tech, I will be hazing him all year over that. All of this before 7 am. Overall a great weekend even if we brought no meat home. headed back up In a couple days for a long labor day weekend. Maybe I can convince my buddy to bring the recurve I gave him.
Topic: First weekend of elk hunting (Read 119 times)
