Down to the last five days. This is what I've trained for and worked so hard for. Time to get it done!!
Monday we (Matt and I) are in a new spot. And there are elk singing all over. The clouds are blowing around and low and behold the wind is swirling. We glassed several bulls, but there was no way to get on them. We then head over to a canyon that is supposed to hold some wallows. We find them, but nothing has been on them for awhile. After and uneventful day, we head back to camp. I even breifly suggest we find another spot. But luckily, Matt tells me to have some patience. He says there are a lot of elk in here, it's just a slow day.
So the next morning we haed in under the cover of darkness and hear elk screaming all around us. As we are working our way towards the wallows we hear splashing. Oh man!! We are a couple hundred yards away when we look up on the opposite hillside any see 9 bulls feeding. Now, I'm no elk expert but 9 bulls feeding together on Sept 9? Weird! One was a stud 350ish with a few 320ish and the rest three year old bulls. The big one was below the others scraeming his head off. I tell Matt to head towards him, I'll keep him bugling, snaek up to him and kill him.
Well the plan worked to perfection up until Matt was sneaking into range when his grunt tube slides across his body and thumps his bow hard! The bull looked up, started nosing around and moved up the mountain. Of course the winds were swirling!!
Matt decides to head over to another hill where we'd watched a couple bulls feed and could hear some bugling. I tell him I'm going to sit tight then work up to where the bulls were feeding that morning. he said his buddy who showed us the honey hole was gonna hook up with us later that evening and glass. We wish each other luck and move off.
I sit until mid afternoon then make my way up towards where we saw the bulls last. At around 4 a bugle comes from down the side where the bulls went, then another, much closer. In front of me a few hundred yards. The wind is marginal at best. There had been small showers moving in and out all day. But with the way the weather had been, I just had to try.
I ease on down the top of the ridge. The quakies with there gentle leaves seemingly putting me into a trance. The only thing snapping me out of it is the intermittent bugles from the bull I know is in front of me somewhere.
And suddenly, he is. Like a ghost he materializes out of the quakies not 20 yards away. How I got so close without him knowing, or me seeing him is beyond me. I slowly reach down and nock an arrow.
This bull is BIG!! The widest bull I've seen and h-e-a-v-y!! A monster 6! He is quartering to me through a couple quakies. he's feeding. He hasn't seen me. He slowly feeds and takes a couple more steps. I see his head lift with that enormous rack, how he could hold up all that bone, simply amazing! But thenI see his nostrils flare, his eyes widen, oh no... the wind hits my neck again. The bull whirls and takes my hopes, dreams and seemingly my breath with him.
I'm heart broken. I literally have to fight the tears back. All that work, undone by a puff of breeze.
That's elk hunting, but that's the part I hate! I made my way back to meet up with Matt and the boys. We head over the ridge and glass another great bull. Matt and I race down and back up to try to cut the elk off, but to no avail. It was a long walk back to camp in the cold, wet, dark that night.
Topic: A 2013 UT Elk Hunt (lots of pics) (Read 1695 times)
