Idaho, DIY, OTC, public land-2009.

we need more….

I seen the arrow hit, and knew it was a tad high…

As the bull ran past Sam, he cow called, by then I was on the cow call. At 60 yards the bull stopped and turned to look for the cows. In 2-3 seconds his rear end dropped, with the front end following a second later. That is when it hit me, he was down, 15 seconds and 60 yards after the shot. What a flood of emotions. Elation, Excitement, slight sadness that I just killed such a magnificent creature, gratitude towards those who helped me and inspired me along the way. I can’t explain, how the next 10 minutes felt for me. It was unreal. The view, after I stood up, after taking the shot.

Yahoo, good job.

Right after the cow calls, as the bull was going down, the other bull bugled twice in response to what he heard. We haven’t even been to my bull yet, and we have to decide whether or not to hunt the other bull, who is 350 yards away, and closing.

With a lot of work ahead of us, and quite a bit of mileage to cover, we decide to let him be. Our priority now, is taking a few phots, and getting this bull broke down.

Congrats WTA!

All your hard work paid off!

I’ll now let you finish your story…

Awesome! Great story! Congrats on a great shot and bull!

great job

Nice job!

Awesome read and congrats on your Bulll.

You definitely earned it!

Awesome stories and pics WTA! Looked forward to reading your updates every morning! Congrats on a well earned Bull!

The best part is the great bull at the end is just the tip of the iceberg, its all the stuff in the middle that makes him even more special..

couple pics

We have less than an hour until dark, so its time to snap some photos, and get cutting. As we are taking some pics, bull number 2 barks at us from up on the hill a couple hundred yards away…what can ya do. After seeing and hearing about the gutless method, it sounded like the way to go, so that’s what I did. Once the quarters would come off, they got laid on two dead trees about 20″ apart, making for perfect cooling. Once the quarters were off, we then went back and deboned them, and laid the boneless meat on the logs. Once that was done, I went to fleshing out the skull and upper jaw, for a European mount. Upon finishing that the meat was good and cool, so we bagged it all. We then carried the meat back towards camp a few hundred yards, away from the kill site, and hung in some trees.

I strap the skull and horns to my daypack, and Sam takes the inside loins and some rib meat, and we start back to camp by GPS, and Headlamp, its now around 11 P.M. The hike back is not overly hard just time consuming, trying to pick our way back up the mtn side, making some tight fits with the horns on my back. It’s 2:06 am, by the time we get back, and are able to crawl in the sleeping bag. After today, and the last couple of nights, sleep will come easy tonight.

Nice job I love it when a story has a good ending

Quote:

---

I am completely loaded for 16 days of hunting @88#.

---

So now what? You must have some more tags.

wow that is so crazy!!! nice elk in the pic by the way

what a great story! i felt like i was there awesome bull and great pics!! i bet that was really fun packing him back up that hill!! so how did Sam end up?! did he get any action?

Awakening shortly after daybreak, we hammer down a quick breakfast, and ready the freighter packs. After adding some water, and a few WA power bars, we beging the long descent down. One hour later, we arrive at the hanging quarters. Time to load up a rear quarter each, and head back up

The climb back was made easier today because of the daylight, but harder because of the extra weight of the elk quarters. After getting back to camp, we had a quick lunch, and short break before heading back for the last load. In the last picture, you can see I used a Kelty Cache Hauler, this is the most comfortable pack I have ever worn. In this pic, Sam is hauling out a rear quarter in a Eberlestock Blue Widow, which also seemed to be a fine pack.

We get all the meat back to camp, a little after 4 pm. The packs get set in the back of the truck, and we start down the mountain, stopping at the first area we get cell service. I make the call, to the meat locker, I had lined up. They will be waiting for us. It is 6:00 when we get there. The meat is now safe in the freezers, and it is time to head back up the mountain, and at least check a few spots for bugling bulls on the way back to camp. Although checking 3 likely areas, no bugling is heard. Once again we arrive to camp after dark, and prepare a MH by Jetboil for supper. We are very tired, and it is cloudy out yet, after the rain shower we endured hauling the second load up to camp. There will be no star gazing tonight.

After a long day Monday we start out Tuesday morning with a good breakfast and high spirits. We are headed South this morning. As often happens hunting it is one of those mornings, no bugling anywhere we could hear, even though we covered some ground. After a quick lunch, we decide to head down and around the mountain, to look over another area. As we get farther from our camp we start seeing more and more elk camps, and human activity. We look over a couple of areas, and GPS mark an area that has promise, for tomorrow morning. As the afternoon is approaching, its time to get back to go hunting. We head into another new area. After only covering a few hundred yards, we are coming across lots of deer sign, scat and smaller tracks everywhere. I’m know wishing I would have bought that deer tag, I was thinking about. As we continue, we notice fresh horse, dog, and human tracks, reminding us of the horse string we had seen earlier in the day, about a mile down the road. With this recent activity, and lack of elk sign, we decide to head back towards camp, and listen in a few other locations. As we near the truck, we hear bells clanging. Again we meet the horse and mule string headed into the area we are departing. Again the string is empty, with the exception of one loaded mule? Sam thinks there is an outfitter setup, farther up the mountain. We hear nothing on our return trip to camp. Another Jetboil cooked MH meal ate by the light of Tikka. As I lay in my sleeping bag writing this there are two bulls SW of camp bugling, and one to the North. I wonder how my family is doing, and what is happening with the kids at school.

Wednsday morning finds us up later than would be preferred. We dress quickly and skip breakfast. The trip down the mountain gets made faster than the gear in the back of the truck would like, but we have to make time up somewhere. After parking the truck, we start getting gear ready, and know we are going to have to hump it to make up some lost time. Before Sam can even get the bow out of the case there is a deep, loud bugle, just to our West. Originally we planned on going North and trying to get the animals as they headed back up the mountain. With the wind out of the North East it should be easy to drop in behind the herd, and see what happens. We head SW, and begin to close the gap, he is bugling about every 3 minutes or so. As we approach being in a straight North-South of the bull, he bugles again, closer??? He’s now within 200 yards and closing, and again, we haven’t called yet. Then reality sets in, the herd is actually heading up towards the other mountain, and is now on the move. We are only 100 yards N of the dirt road running E/W that we drove in on. On the South side of the road, everything East of our position is wide open meadow, and to the West is about 150 yards of a thick tangled mess, which runs up to pretty fast moving river. It looks like it will be easy figuring where they will cross. We know we have to move fast to cross the road, and get down along the river to get the wind in our favor. As we sprint for the road, we get across just as he bugles about 100 yards away, about 40 yards North of the road. Immediately upon getting across the road, we hear hooves walking on rocks below us, too LATE, the front of the herd has already begun to cross and head up the mountain. It is so thick that I can’t see the elk, 4-5 yards away, that I can hear chewing on its breakfast, as it is standing there. It sounded 100% like a cow in the barn, chewing feed, just before milking time. This is 100% cool.

The “cow” I heard eating below me continues on, never blowing out of there, even though the thermals and wind have our scent heading to the elk. Sam is 10 yards in front of me with an arrow nocked. The bull hasn’t bugled in at least 6-7 minutes. Did he wind us, or does he just have the heard moving at a good enough pace that he is content? After the herd passes we give them about 15 minutes. We then continue West until we hit the river, to assure that we have the wind. We then continue South, and begin ascending, coming across more sign in this area than we will see anywhere at anytime during the entire rest of the trip. After a few hundred yards of slow manuevring, the amount of fresh sign we are seeing, makes us stop and set up to do some cold calling for awhile. It just seemed to risky to keep moving through, without trying to get something going. After 35 minutes we continue on slowly, still going through lots of fresh tracks and “stinky” stuff. About 200 yards later Sam steps on a small pine branch a little to hard, getting a cow out of her bed about 70 yards from us. After standing for a couple of minutes she slowly walks away from us. We close the distance to where we last seen her, once there we set up for another session of cold calling, figuring we were now on the edge of the bedded herd. Within a few minutes of the first calling sequence we hear a bugle, right at the edge of hearing distance. Minutes later he bugles again, it is the same bull from this morning. By now its after 9:00, and we know we should start moving to closer as long as he is bugling on his own. We take off covering ground slow, in cast there are more elk in the near vicinity. There isn’t, and by 10 A.M, there is nothing but silence. We have coverd about 3/4 mile from where we last saw the cow, and we know the bull is farther up the mountain. Rather than push the situation, we decide to back out, and come back in the morning, and get setup in the funnel that they seem to be crossing through.

After some lunch, and seeing that the wind has switched directions, we decide to head back down to the “funnel” from this morning. Getting there we head in and get setup hoping that the elk will be moving through before shooting hours expire. It winds up being a long sit, not a bugle is heard, or an elk seen. Reflecting back, to this morning’s hunt, when the “cow” was eating by me, the bull was still ahead of us, and some of the elk had already moved past-behind us. I think this would have been a good time, to charge the herd, and scatter them, while hammering out a big old bugle. With the big herd bull as close as he was, I think this would have been a good technique to have used out of the playbook. Lesson learned.

Thursday morning again finds us late getting out of bed? Today’s plan of hitting the funnel early, will not work, so we dress and head South. Once we hit the top of the hill we hear the first bugle. Off we go. As we get closer we can tell he is in the canyon that parallels the FR we drove in on, and he is heading NW, straight away from us. As we loop back to camp and then head NW, he has been stationary for about 30 minutes. We close the gap to less than 400 yards, but his bugles are now getting weaker, as he ascends the mountain. Knowing with two bum knees we can’t keep up, the morning hunt is over by 10 A.M.

We decide to make a trip off the mountain for more ice and water. After a 6 hour foray, which ended up including a bunch of scouting, we were back for the evening hunt. We decide to split up. I’m going West over the peak and into the canyon we hadn’t scouted yet and Sam is heading South to a spot which I had looked over on Sunday.

After a 60 minute, 1 mile climb, I arrive at the destination. Wow the view is spectacular, and the first bugle of the night is heard from the new canyon. Another bull chimes in from down below, in the area where I killed the 5pt, earlier in the week. The first bull answers, and readily bugles on his own. I believe this first bull is the same bull from this morning, due to the loud deep bugle he has, and he appears to be headed back towards the same area as this morning. Not wanting to spook these bulls I decide to get out of there, and make the hour long trek back to camp. After arriving I fire the jetboil and start my Chicken Ala King and mashed potatoes for supper. Shortly after dark Sam arrives back to camp. Around 7 P.M. he has a bull answer his bugle. He moves to cut the distance and cow calls, the bull answers-closer. Sam sets out his Montana decoy and runs ahead 50 yards and waits. The bull bugles, now less than 200 yards. In a short time he can here the sound of hooves hitting rocks. He is coming quickly. Now he can see the bull. Sam ranges the next good sized opening, that it looks like the bull will pass through. As the bull hits the opening, Sam cow calls, and the bull stops perfectly broadside. After lining the shot up, he squeezes the trigger. CRACK as the arrow hits. The bull whirls and runs 50 yards and stops as Sam cow calls.

As you can see he killed it dead, there wasn’t much meat on this 6×6!

After a brief period of cow calling and then bugling back and forth, the bull walks off, none the worse for wear. This was a really nice 6×6, well at least it was a clean miss.

Friday morning finds us behind schedule again? I now think my partner isn’t big on getting up in the morning. Hoping that more animals have moved our way during the night hours, we begin the climb towards “Heartbreak Hill”, as Sam has now begun to call it. We cover ground and call while wearing out some boot leather this morning, but nothing wants to play. After arriving back to camp, in the late morning, I begin to do a little more fleshing off the skull of my bull. Then it gets wrapped in newspaper, and carefully duct tape a couple of plastic garbage bags around the head, hopefully this will keep the flies at bay. As the afternoon passes we again head for Heartbreak Hill. This time we have to cross the canyon, and get to the West side of it, to get the wind in our favor. Sam wants to just sit and cold call this evening, for me this is a very hard thing to do. I get to sit and wait for whitetails, in Wisconsin for countless hours each fall. When I travel West, I really like to take the game to the animals. So yes, I chewed off every nail I had, waiting for something to happen this night. Finally with just minutes of shooting light left, we hear a bull straight North of us about 400 yards chuckle. We don’t have time to get to him before dark, so we elect to go straight East, and skirt this bull, trying to get back to camp without spooking him. After a mile trip out of the way, we make it back to camp, well after dark. I bet you can’t guess what was for supper that night, Mountain House yet again.