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DAY 1

Wes had filled me in on the changes since I was here the week before last. As you recall, the elk showed up the last day of my hunt. We got in close but just couldn't pull it off. What you don't know is that one of Wes' clients canceled during our first week. He was the only hunter scheduled to hunt with Wes and when he canceled Wes had an open slot available for a unit requiring a draw. So he invited me back and I jumped on it. This time, however, we decided that we would hunt harder and that meant no live hunt, no filming everything, and pushing it more than we did our first week. Both of Wes' bowhunters tagged out last week and the elk are here now.

Wes Checks the wind, it was OK when we started

So here I am back in Colorado for another try. We did the same drill as last time by driving up the mountain and glassing. Below us we could see 400 head of elk in the alfalfa. As the sun began to approach the horizon the herd headed east toward the flats. We were disappointed. The flats are nearly impossible to hunt. It is a long, sage and mahogany covered flat where even a bedded elk can see you coming for two miles. Then we we heard a bugle on the mountain behind us. Obviously, not all the elk were below us, some of them were on our mountain right now. We drove down the mountain so we could glass back up . From that angle we saw a big bull! He was probably 320” and he was with a 290” bull and at least 3 cows. We took off for him right away but as soon as we geared up and headed after him he went quiet. We didn't want to call without a visual and then the wind switched. Just because I have been blessed with a do-over doesn't mean Wes and I will hunt stupid and run around calling. We high-tailed it out of there.

The first 100 yards was easy, the last 50 was not. Wes checks the bucks one last time before our final stalk.

We know where he is and we have a plan for the afternoon. As we drove down the road we ran into Rich Atkinson, Wes' dad. He had spotted 3 mulies and two of them looked really big. We found them too and while the wind was not perfect, Wes thought it was worth a try. We moved up to the top of the mountain and took off our shoes for the final 200 yards. The wind direction was OK, but we'd prefer a little more of a gust. We butt-crawled within 50 yards of the bucks. Things were looking good until they got up to feed. The biggest buck was a 4pt and we guessed him at 175”, the other was a 150” 4x3 with fantastic mass! We crawled down into position and waited for a shot. We were only 32 yards when an errant wind blew them off the mountain. I was so close to my first PY Mulie!

If this buck kept walking right, dead buck. Of course he turned left. .

After a short mid-day break we headed back to the mountain. We glassed extensively and saw nothing. Wes had a guess where the bulls would be but they had moved far lower during the day and unfortunately we bumped them. Crap. We worked our way to the North end of the mountain where we heard bugles on the opposite mountain. We looked down and glassed a great bull who was around 320 inches but he wasn't the bull that was bugling. It was too late to go after him and he appeared nervous. We wrapped around the mountain until we could glass the opposite slope clearly. The bull that was screaming showed himself and he was even bigger. Wes guessed him at 340. Not bad for our first day back!

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