This years hunt began August 24th for me as I headed over east to set up elk camp. Having had left knee replacement in May, I felt fortunate to even be able to hunt this year. But I figured I'd do a little hiking and quite a bit of treestand hunting...by treestand hunting I mean sitting over a certain wallow that I killed a 6pt bull at in 2014.
The wallow got hit for the first time this year on August 29th at 5:48pm by a really nice 6pt bull...unfortunately, I wasn't in the stand that evening. :doh: But that gave me hope that more bulls would eventually come in to this community wallow.
Four days in a row of sitting this particular stand I had a big bear come in, a spike bull, cow and calf, two cows and a calf. But no more bulls until the 6th. Some mornings the hunting seemed to play second fiddle to the sunrise.
...not to be outdone, the sunsets were equally impressive!
As time went on I began finding sign of the rut heating up, but very little bugling was heard in all the usual haunts.
I decided to take a break from the stand on the 6th and 7th, and both days a nice 5pt bull came in and worked the wallow! But on Sept 8th I settled into the stand at 3:15pm. At 5:00 the air current was drifting down off the hill and wallow, which is perfect for this location. I heard a stick break over my right shoulder, and as I watched to see what had caused the noise I spotted legs of an elk approaching. As the elk strolled up to the tiny creek to drink his fill I could see it was a bull! He drank for several minutes less then 15 yards of my stand while I stood and composed myself for a possible shot. Once I noticed the air moving from left to right and I held my breath, the bull kept drinking and the wind corrected itself. Finally the bull crossed the creek and stopped to survey the wallow, then he walked up toward the wallow into the open at 8-9 yards. The bull stopped and lowered his head to sniff the mud. I drew and released, the arrow instantly appeared in the lung area as the broadhead penetrated a rib on the far side. The bull exploded in a circle around my stand and charged downhill about 30 yards, but suddenly stopped...I was watching as he stood for several seconds and simply fell over. I soon heard the air come out of him and knew it was over! I waited a couple moments to compose myself and climbed down...then slowly walked down to the bull and paid my respects to the creature.
A couple quick pics with the phone, then I went back to camp to get my pack frame and see if my friend Dave had arrived at camp..
Dave had arrived at 4pm, so he went back with me and helped with the photos, butchering, and packing out the meat.
Topic: A month in the elk mountains! (Read 1433 times)
