Well folks, my first, only, and LAST limited Entry hunting experience is now over. What a ride...
My brother Bruce and I both drew the Wasatch Archery Elk here in Utah last year, but we opted to turn the tags back in due to my impending heart surgery. They gave the tags back to us for this year and with me now fully (well almost) recovered we were once again off to the races. The summer was spent scouting, hanging tree stands and studying trail cam pics. We had three really good spots dialed in and had high hopes. Opening weekend through the first two weeks was nothing more than a hot, dusty, miserable time spent dodging sheep, sheep dogs, and spike/cow hunters. No dice. I passed on four small bulls and my poor brother just sat in a tree and swatted fies. The elk were clearly watering elsewhere...
Week three started with my brother finally getting a kitchen pass for the whole week so I decided to concentrate all my efforts on the remaining 14 days, the first five of which would be spent hunting with Bruce. It was a full moon so we opted to get in our trees early and sit the mid day hours since they were more likely to be active then. It paid off big time! At about two in the afternoon my brother was getting twitchy and texted me saying he was going to switch wallows because two elk had smelled him on his left side when they tried to come in. I told him to sit tight and be patient because eventually something would come in on his up-wind side and he'd get a chance. Well he didn't listen to me and climbed down anyway. As he was headed over to the other wallow a bull bugled below him and up wind. He hurried back into his stand, sat down, and tooted one time on his trusty Hoochie Mama cow call. The bull answered and was on the way! The first thing to show up was a cow. She was walking up through the timber where Bruce had just been and suddenly hit his scent trail. She was nervous but holding her ground. Then the bull came up behind her, stopped, and bugled right at Bruce not 75 yards away. Bruce started to get really shaky and had to close his eyes and calm himself. Right about then that cow decided she smelled a rat and turned to leave. Bruce's heart sank as he watched the bull turn to go with her. But, as luck would have it he stopped, turned around, and came trotting back toward the wallow. I guess he was more thirsty than he was horny... The bull crossed the canyon, trotted down the steep bank and dove into the wallow head first and began to drink giving Bruce a perfect broadside shot. Zip! He sent an arrow right though his chest and out the other side. Compete pass through with a 50 pound recurve! The bull jumped out of the wallow and ran up on the hill and stood there looking around. Bruce was so badly shaken now he couldn't even get another arrow out of his quiver. But he managed to pull it together and get another wooden missile on the string. Just then the bull bolted. Bruce just swung up and ripped another one at him in desperation. He didn't need the second arrow, but it hit the bull anyway, right through both buttcheeks! He must have cut something big because the bull only dragged himself another 20 yards with his front legs and collapsed. Game over! The first arrow had done the trick passing through both lungs. He didn't know it at the time but that bull was dead on his feet.
Bruce's first arrow buried in the mud at the wallow after doing it's job.
The happy bowhunter.
"I still cant believe I pulled it off!"
By the time I got there he'd skinned and halfway quartered the bull. He started taking meat to the truck and I kept skinning and butchering. He took five trips in all with the meat and I fallowed him down the hill with the head on the last trip out just at dark. What a day!!!
The happy proud Big Brother.
We got my brothers meat out and down to the meat locker that next morning. After he'd secured everything back in town he grabbed his GWP Lou and his shotgun and came back up. He had some work to do that next weekend but he spent the next two days with me grouse hunting and scouting new areas. The rest of that week turned really hot, dry and miserable again and I had very little luck in my "go to" stand. It was getting hit, but the big bulls were still very nocturnal. I had chances at some little bulls but the big ones were staying away. After three FULL DAYS on stand I'd had enough and decided to go check out a new spot that a friend had told us about. Let me just say this. Three fourteen hour days sitting in one spot and seeing absolutely NOTHING but birds, squirrels, and a couple rag-horns will test ones resolve to kill an elk... Anyway, I sneaked in there late the next afternoon and found the new wallow. It was getting hit quite heavy and I decided to just sit down under a tree and see what happened. A small rag-horn came in and a few minutes later a nice little five point showed up. I was tempted to shoot the five, but kept it together and just enjoyed watching him play in the water not ten yards from me.
I still had faith that a nice bull would show up so I sat my original stand two more days but again, nothing showed up. The weather was calling for a heavy rain storm that next day so I headed to town to wash my cloths and get some more grub. On the way back in I ran into my friend John Anderson and he offered to hunt with me in the morning and see if we couldn't call something up. Up until then I hadn't heard much bugling action at all but the storm had them talking a little and we got up the next morning to give it a shot. We worked down a ridge with a good cross breeze blowing and got three separate bulls to talk but none of em wanted to play. John was gearing up to hunt with a friend on the rifle hunt so he had to go back and make preparations.
So, now Ive got just three days left. That other wallow was starting to look better every day so on Wednesday the 12th I walked a climbing stand in there at 3:00 and jacked up into the only tree around that wallow that wasn't dead from beetle kill. The wind was swirling and really unpredictable. I sat there worried that I would get smelled if it didn't calm down and become a little more "directional". Well, my worst fears were soon confirmed when I heard a cow bark up on the ridge and the stampede that ensued a second later confirmed one thing. I stink... So I went back to camp that night feeling really stupid and beaten. Only two more days left and my only two choices were that stand, or my original stand where I'd been seeing zilch for the past two weeks. I had no choice, I had to let this new place air out and rest for at least one day before I went back in there and tried it again. I got up early the 13th and went running and gunning with no results. NOTHING was talking in my neck of the woods. That afternoon found me back in my Original stand and once again, yup you guessed it, NOTHING, ZILCH, NADA!!! I moped back to camp that night feeling like it was over. The next morning I tried getting them to play the run and gun game but no dice. I had ONE more chance. I knew there was a big bull using that other wallow because I had trail cam pics of him doing it and I'd heard him bugle every night on the ridge above it. It was now time to play dirty pool. The camera had taken his picture the week before every night right at 6:30. My plan was to wait till evening, and take a chance by slipping in there right before he came in, and hope that the wind didn't screw me over. I waited till about five and when the wind was right I tip toed down into the timber and slipped in on the down wind side of the wallow just ten yards away like I'd done the first night I found it and sat on the ground. I dug a little spot out for my butt and a flat spot out for my feet and only took a bottle of water, my phone, and some snot rags. The wind was being good and breezing steadily down the canyon. It felt good. Right at 6:30 I heard him bugle way up behind the ridge. Five minutes later he bugled again on the ridge. One minute after that he bugled half way down the canyon not 200 yards from me. My stomach got tight and my palms started sweating ice cubes. I knew he was coming! Not thirty seconds later he showed up in the pines at the head of the little draw I was in and made his way down the steep bank to the wallow. He splashed right in facing me and went to tanking up on water. He drank for a minute or so then plopped down right in the middle and started to role around and get as wet and sloppy as he could. This was cool. I had a big bull ten yards from me wallowing and he didn't have a clue I was there. But it was about to get even more cool... After he'd wallowed for five minutes he stood up facing me and shook like a dog. Water and mud went everywhere! Then he looked me right in the eye, tilted his head back slightly and screamed his head off! Then he through in a series of grunts and chuckles at the end to ice the cake. It about blew my hat off! I could smell his breath! If I'd not gotten a shot at him it would have all been worth it just for that one moment. But, it wasn't his night... He finally turned and put his head down in the mud and began pawing the water with his front leg. His head was totally obscured by the clay bank in the wallow and I had a perfect broadside shot at ten yards. This was it, I slowly stood up, eased my bow over the bush in front of me and put one right behind this leg. He leaped out of the wallow and stood on the bank not 15 yards away and looked around like "what the hell was that"... I looked at the arrow hanging out of his chest and thought well, he's dead... But hey, if you really wanna know what that was, here ya go. So I snapped another arrow on the string and just aimed for my first arrow. Whack! This one buried to the fletching and stuck in his off leg not two inches under the first one. OK I thought, Now you're REALLY dead! He must have thought that too cuz he took off outa there like a cut cat! I've seen quarter horses chasing calves at the National Finals Rodeo that had nothing on the speed that bull left outa there with! Holy cow! Ive never seen a bull elk run that fast in my life! Well, I texted my brother and John as soon as I was calm enough to work the keys on my phone and the recovery/skinning/quartering process was under way. We got him skint and quartered by about 11:00 and then Shane brought up his wild brumbies the next morning to pack out the meat. Tom, my dohnut eatin cop friend also showed up and he turned out to be quite the little pack mule himself! He was afraid to tie the head and cape on a horse for fear we'd hurt the horse so he bench pressed that whole thing up onto his shoulders and headed down the mountain with it. Never underestimate a fat kid!!!
Where have we seen this before! Snuffer, there is no substitute!
The scene of the crash. Elk HATE when this happens to them...
A great big
HUGE special thanks goes out to all the people who were instrumental in my brother and I's success. You guys all know who you are and we REALLY appreciate everything you did for us! We love you guys!!!
Topic: First Hour Bull/Last Hour Bull (Read 849 times)
