AM Hunt
Every morning we are seeing less elk. The only bulls we saw today from a distance were 5 spikes and two small 5-pts. We saw two elk on the opposite hill side that we may go after this afternoon but for this morning we settled on doing some calling and see if anything responded. By noon, we pretty much gave up on this hill.
We watched the opposite hill for an hour and spotted two shooter bulls.
I don't know whether this is Murphy's law, my elk curse, or some combination of the two. Wes has never seen things so slow and he's bummed out about it. I, on the other hand, want to know what it's like when it's not slow? In my opinion, this hunt has been awesome. We've seen close to ten bulls over 300" and have been within 80 yards of three bulls over 330! This is during a heat wave with 90 degree days and with absolutely no indication of the elk rut. This is real hunting and sometimes the weather and animals don't cooperate.
We called twice in the morning but the bulls are not talking yet due to the heat in Colorado.
PM Hunt
For our last afternoon we strapped on the packs, brought our diaphragm calls and headed to find the two bulls we saw from the opposite hillside. The wind was terrible again but it was our last chance and we decided to just throw all the cards on the table with hope that we could pull off a last-minute miracle. The hill literally wreaked of elk. We would stop and smell elk every few hundred yards. We called along the way but it was a desperation tactic. We had little chance of getting a response. We did bump one of the bulls (the wind was bad) and the other bull was never located. We both agreed that the hunt was over and it was time to call it a day.
I like bowhunting with Wes. He's got a neat personality that I relate to. I can only describe it as laid-back intensity. He's got great woodsmanship skills and he loves bowhunting. As usual, when your guide is a bowhunter too things just click. I am eager to hunt with Wes again and have already started that conversation. Besides the trophy quality Wes has here, you can easily get a tag and not burn your Colorado preference points. This was huge for me since I've been building my points for one of the premier units. While Wes' unit is a draw unit, it never sells out. Leftover tags are always available and that's the reason I was able to hunt here - last minute.
My elk curse continues, at least for 3 weeks until I head for Montana on an unguided hunt with Rhynard Ranch. Until I get there, I'll be haunted by how close we came to several 300+ bulls and the new friends I've made with Wes, his wife Rachelle, John and Chance. This was a terrific hunt and we'll hunt here again.
