AM Hunt
We spent the first hour glassing several elk
This morning was an absolute blast. What a difference from yesterday's foggy morning! We spotted elk leaving from the alfalfa fields and one of them was bigger than the bull we were looking at yesterday. We glassed them about an hour before we headed up. We were able to drive to the top of the ridge and then walk the last 800 yards. This saved us hours of hiking. From there we slowly crept to the area we had last seen the bull.
We found a huge bull feeding at the top of this ridge
We were quiet and careful. So careful, in fact, that three elk came out of the trees behind us and never saw us. I had turned around and spotted them before they spotted us. We let them move behind a hill and out of sight.
This bull was about a 280" bull. We bumped him out of his bed.
As we continued forward, we bumped into a nice bull bedded down in the shade. He was about 280" (makes the book) and a perfectly symmetrical 6x6. He didn't spook too bad and I was able to get some video of him but the footage is lousy. We continued down to where we thought the trophy bull was and noticed that several small, but nice bulls were heading toward us. We didn't have time to field judge them. Chance grabbed the video camera and I set up for the ambush. After 15 minutes of no elk, we assumed they had bedded. We quietly stalked down the hill and in no time at all, Chance spotted a rump. They were bedded. We spent time looking them over and decided that none of them were shooters. Before long, more bulls showed up and they picked up the bedded bulls we had been glassing. I now had six bulls heading my way. We got a good look at all six. They ranged from 200-290 PY inches. We both agreed, none of these were shooters this early in the trip. (Spare me the "don't pass up on Monday what you would shoot on Friday" stuff please.) They headed up the hill and walked into us. The lead bull was the smallest, but the second bull was respectable. The third bull (not on camera) was very tempting. As it turned out, I wouldn't have had a shot anyway since the raghorn walked past us, caught our wind, then spooked the other bulls.
This little raghorn walked in front of me at 20 yards then posed for photos.
A much bigger bull waited in the shadows. There were 4 more behind him
We saw two more bulls before heading back for lunch. This morning was an absolute blast and I realized how much I missed Elk hunting.
PM Hunt
This afternoon was very slow. We started out looking for the big herd, then we headed West to see if they may have gone there. By the looks of the tracks, it appears this is where they are. We couldn't find them but we did see a few bulls in the high 200 range and the big bull we were looking for today came out at dusk. The weather seems to be turning. It was very windy and cooler this evening with some lightning off in the distance.
