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Hey guys, got this guy last Sunday on day 10 of a tough hunt. The rut was sporadic at best with some days having almost no bugles during daylight hours. I've been getting caught up at work so haven't done a full write-up, this guy came in screaming with about 10 cows at 7:15 am when it had been quiet all morning. I had to wait at full draw for what seemed like ever for his cows to clear out from between us, but managed to make a heart shot. He only went about 30-40 yards before tipping over. I'm super exited. He's my biggest bull to date, and broke my drought. It's been a few years since I've put anything bigger than an turkey or javi on the ground.

So I cashed in on some points and decided to go to Colorado for a Mule Deer muzzy hunt. I tried my hand on the Elk hunt there a couple years ago but a early season snow storm threw me off and I left empty handed. One thing I decided this time I was going to buy a lighter rifle and to bring a pair of llamas. This past year, a friend and I pulled the trigger on some llamas, but I will have to write up a new thread on those. Fast forward to the hunt, I showed up a day later than I wanted, due to life issues. I rolled into camp at mid night and as I proceeded to park, my alarm on my truck goes off, declaring my presence to everyone in camp. I thought, great, an awesome way to start a hunt. Over the first 2 days I spent my time just day hiking and hunting with the llamas trying to adjust to the thinner air. Which i didn't do very well. The first couple days I didn't see much, other than spectacular views, does, fork bucks and tons of hunters. I was going to adjust my plan to take the llamas in deep, and spend a few days doing that. But one of the guys in camp convinced me to try another area first, but due to the access in getting there I wouldn't be able to take the llamas. At this point I was happy with a decent 3pt. The next morning we were in our glassing spot. As the sun came up, this new area proved to be better than anywhere I had been the previous days of the hunt. We located a few bucks that peaked my interest and began to see which one would give us the best play. I about had my mind set on a buck we called the miner, until he walked over a ridge and out of our lives. Soon after, one of my buddies, who seemed to be struggling behind the glass, calls out a doe on a ridge across from us that we had all seen. Shrugging it off we laughed and said, yeah we've all seen that doe. But as we all look were he is describing we see 2 awesome bucks, in the chutes below her. We waited till they both bedded. Which happened to be in one of the gnarliest places I've ever seen. But off I went. I had to decend 2k ft and then climb 3k ft to get above the bucks. Then come down 500ish ft to get into a shooting position. I was stoked. It took me almost 2 hours to get into position but I finally made it. I settled in and could see this buck was an awesome 3x4. At least 30" wide. I was positioned directly above him at 42 yards on a cliff over hang. I couldn't see the other buck, but I knew this was the one I wanted. I ranged him several times, and I knew couldn't miss at 42 yards. I kept calm but was excited. I leaned over to make the shot, I am in and squeezed, POP, the muzzy misfired. The buck looks at me and I slowly lower out of sight. I think ok, he's not leaving. I add a new primer to the rifle, wait for the buck to look away, hang over the ledge again, aim, fire, POP, another misfire..... the buck looks up again then away. At the point I can't believe this is happening. I decide to lay on my back, pull the breech and kick the load. I have never been under such reloading stress. I grab some grass and clean the breech hole. Reassemble the rifle and reload. I reprime a 3rd time, take aim, squeeze, POP, again no ignition. This time the buck gives me a hard look. He must have stared at me for 15 minutes. Now I'm panicked. I'm only carrying 5 primers, and I'm down to 2. Reprime one more time, not knowing what to do. Aim, POP! Again! At this point he knows something is up. In a panic I decided to kick the load again and add a new one. Its at this point I finally remembered that I could add powder in front of the primer in the breech hole to get a stronger ignition. As I hurried to reload and set my primer, the second buck i had forgotten about stands up, and we are both terrified, staring each other eye to eye about 20 yards apart. Now I know I'm in trouble, he then breaks running down the chute towards the other buck. I pop up to see if I still have a shot. And there they are, both standing there broadside, I take aim, squeeze, BOOM! Clean miss.... both bucks run off and out of sight. I couldn't believe it. When I got back to the truck I restocked, this time with stronger 209 primers. And shot a practice shot, dead center. That night at camp I was disappointed, but I had no one to blame but myself for missing a great shot opportunity. But we decided to head back to the same spot the next morning to see if we could turn up another buck. The next morning we hadn't been glassing 30 seconds, when my buddy says, "Got him!" Sure enough, there he was, the wide buck on the same ridge, 300 of yards from where I missed him. Today other hunters were around, so we made no delay and went after him. We figured he would bed in the same spot again, so we were gonna get close and just wait till he bedded. As we watched from a closer location, we watched as a trail hiker passed under the buck and the buck was having none of it. He bolted over the ridge and gone. We decided to climb up a separate ridge and get eyes on him again. We did a huge circle, another 3k ft climb, but it paid off. We saw him walk back over the ridge toward the chute were he was bedded the day before. This time we were already positioned above him. So we gave him some time and made our move. Once we got above the chute I began to climb down, I looked back at my buddy and told him to stand by here as I stalked lower. The wind was constantly shifting and we weren't 100% sure he was in the same bed. I crept down the side of the chute periodically looking down to see if the buck was in there. It wasn't until I got to where I missed the day before that I finally found him in the same bed as yesterday. This time facing away from me and dead asleep. This time I took my pack, rested my gun against it, peered over the edge. I ranged him 41 yards this time. I said a little prayer and took aim. Due to the swirling wind, I knew I didn't have much time to shoot. The angle was an almost straight down shot. I aimed in on his spin in-between his shoulder blades. Slowly squeezed, BOOM! Perfect shot. The bullet broke his back and straight into the boiler room. He death rolled into and down the chute, stopping inches from the edge and 1,000 ft drop. I was beyond excited and in disbelief. I turned around to yell at my buddy to start the climb down, but to my surprise he was already there. He said he got selfish and had to watch it go down. We slid down to the buck, broke him down and made our way out. 6 primers fired at a single buck. Later looking back, I practiced using blackhorn 209 with Triple 7 primers. In practice the gun went bang everytime. But at higher elevation I figure the lack of oxygen was reducing the flash of my primer. When I switched to shot shell primers it went off everytime. Inside spread was 30 7/8 and outside was 33 7/8. Gross 170.

I had some good luck on the early archery tag. Killed this bull opening morning at around 11am. He was the main bull we heard bugling and that turned out to be his downfall. My cousin - who also had a tag - was able to get a good chunk of time off work so he was out scouting 4 days before the hunt started. He saw this bull every single day prior to the hunt. I made it up late Wednesday and scouted with him on Thursday... and again, saw this bull and his cows in the morning and in the evening. Bugling as well. We saw another 10 bulls or so in this same drainage so we figured we'd start there opening day and give them heck. We hiked into the area in the morning and we were able to chase some bugles, but they weren't as vocal as they had been the couple of days prior. We ran into a good group of elk, but they spooked and we thought we might have boogered everything up too bad for the afternoon. My dad and uncle were on a ridge glassing above us and could hear elk below them bugling every so often - even after the bigger group spooked. For some reason - even though we were pretty close - we couldn't hear the bugles. The ridge we needed to climb was pretty steep and thick with overgrowth so I wasn't thrilled about the hike to get up it, but we sucked it up and made the short, but steep, hike. We finally got up to the same elevation as the elk and spotted them about 250 yards away. I saw a group of cows and had a feeling we were on the same bull we had seen all week prior. Sure enough it was him. We watched from a distance as he ran off a couple of raghorns that were nearby. He was one of the few bulls that seemed to be ready to rut. We continued working in closer, but didn't feel like we would have the shooting lanes available if we kept stalking straight at them. We were in some thick cover. At this point, the elk had been milling around in the same small area for more than an hour. We backed out and looped around to get on top of them. For the most part, the wind cooperated. It started to swirl a bit as we got close to the elk. They were in a thick stand of aspens and the cows knew something was up. They weren't quite sure where we were though, because the vegetation was so thick. They first trotted one way and then back another way. We could see them in the aspens less than 20 yards from us. The bull let's out a bugle to corral his cows and get everyone going the same direction. At that point my cousin gave a quick cow call and the elk stopped. I side stepped to an opening to my left and could see the cows going one by one up a trail into a small shooting window. Naturally, the bull was last. My cousin ranged the cows at 65 yards and I drew back. Right when the bull stepped out and showed his vitals, I shoot. Downhill, quartering away. I hit the spine and into his cavity. He was paralyzed. I quickly moved in closer and finished him off from 20 yards. (I would love to say that my first and only shot was the arrow shown in the picture - I'll be honest with you guys, but probably not my drinking buddies ) Needless to say, I am thrilled with this bull. Good mass, lots of character. It's also pretty cool that we were able to watch him for a few days in a row and put a plan together that got it done. This early archery elk stuff is awesome. Can't wait to do it again...... in twelve years.

When my buddy Jake and I drew our tags, we assumed they were rifle tags. Imagine our surprise when the tags turned out to be out first choice, early archery bull tags! That meant new strings, new arrows, lots of gym time and upcoming 3D shoots in Flagstaff! Unfortunately, the family cabin in Pinetop sold right before the 4th of July Sunrise shoot. On to the hunt. Jake and I were able to get the entire hunt off from work, and we were both pumped! First few days were a little rough, full moon, etc you know the drill. On September 13th, we followed a huge train of elk with many bugling bulls for a few miles. We never truly caught up to them, but we marked the area on the GPS and decided to beat them to the area the next day. As some of you will remember, in 2014 my grandpa passed just a couple days before opening morning. I killed my bull 4 days later, on my moms birthday, September 14th. The next morning (the 14th) Jake, his brother Tate and I headed in to the area where we followed the train of elk, with the idea of beating them to their bedding area. As we approached the area, there was another truck where we wanted to be. We backed off a couple hundred yards and changed our strategy a bit. As we walked to our ambush point, I found a spot that gave me shooting lanes above and below my position, asked Jake his opinion and he said it looked good, so I settled in. After doing a little landscaping, I settled in for the wait. After an hour or so, I hear a bugle right behind me. I grab my bow, turn around, and glass a elk behind me. As I am looking at what appears to be a spike, I see a small 5x5 below him in shooting distance. I went in to this hunt wanting anything 5x or better, as I am not a dedicated archer and the idea of tagging a 5x5 or better on our own sounded plenty fulfilling to me. After assessing that his bull met my reasonable standards I ranged him at 56 yards. As soon as I snapped on to the string, he took a step and exposed his vitals. One Slick Trick Magnum to the top 1/3 of his lungs and he was dead in 75 yards. A quick look at the phone and he was shot and dead at 7:13 Am on 9/14. 56 yards: my sons football number 7:13, my birthday 9/14: my moms birthday. The hunt was fantastic and one of my best times in the woods ever. Fourteen days in the woods is a long time, even in a comfortable trailer! elkhunt1.jfif elkhunt2.jfif elkhunt3.jfif elkhunt4.jfif elkhunt5.jfif elkhunt6.jfif

Getting kind of stoked to be chasing elk again!

Here is my 2022 NM archery mule deer. I hunted hard for 8 days, passing many bucks before I was able to sneak in on this buck and his buddy. 46 yard shot through the heart.

Spent the last few days up north chasing bugles. I’ve killed a bull before with a rifle and killed a cow with a bow so not necessarily a stranger to elk hunting but far from seasoned. Lots of failed attempts, long hours sitting trails, miles walked. In the end it came down to me and an ancient bull mixing it up one on one in the timber. Our paths so happened to cross and a single arrow put him down quickly. I believe he will easily qualify for P&Y, making him the first “book” animal I’ve ever taken. Couldn’t be happier with how everything turned out! Side note - I knew he was “old” but after getting a look at his teeth I was hoping maybe someone with more experience could chime in with an age estimate!

Don't post a whole lot here, but lurk around a lot and thanks to all the info everyone has provided has helped me out a ton with AZ hunting. Started out hunting from treestands back in Virginia so learning western hunting has been a long work in progress for me. *Disclaimer- this is a long story of a newbie’s first elk hunt- no bulls were killed so sorry no pics but just thought I’d share my hunt experience: So got drawn early archery 6A bull with 6 points this year and had been stoked all year about this hunt. This was my first ever elk hunt in Arizona during the rut so wasn't sure what to expect. Did some scouting in July, found what seemed like a good spot to hunt loaded with elk in the northern part of the unit where I was able to hike in and get away from all the roads and Razors/SxS's and quads. Ended up having to hunt the opening weekend b/c of the way things fell with work and family obligations (wanted to do the 2nd week but oh well). Got up to the area I wanted to camp Thursday evening before the opener. Brought my bike so I could ride in quietly up this super rough road that would take my truck forever to crawl up. Day 1 Woke up at 4 got packed up and rode out to where I wanted to go and hike in off the road at least a mile and try to listen for bugles/locate elk. Well about a half mile down the road my bike chain gets caked up with mud and snaps the gear shifting thing on the back wheel in half, so much for that plan. I pull my bike off the road as a quad is coming behind me full speed and stash it behind a tree. As I am trying to see if I can fix it in the dark I start to hear bugles off in the distance. I say screw the bike and I start heading towards the bugling, still waiting on first light. After hiking in circles chasing multiple bugles for about an hour and a half I realize that these bugles are not necessarily elk, they are other hunters calling like crazy. I stop chasing the bugles and decide to hike to the area I wanted to initially get to that was far from any roads and get away from all these other hunters that won't stop bugling. I bump into about 3 other hunters on the way but finally get some distance from roads and it is quiet. I bump into a cow while still hunting, she spots me immediately and trots off in the other direction. I realize I need to slow down and that these cow elk can pick up movement extremely well. I stay out all day and don't hear any bugles once I left the area that was packed with hunters. Bumped into a spike still in velvet with two cows, the one cow stood in front of the spike, so didn't have a shot, but didn't want to shoot him anyway as he looked the size of a calf. The other cow had me pegged anyways so couldn't move from my position without getting busted. Hiked back to camp and bumped into two more cows in the evening and again, they had me immediately as soon as I got within about 80 yards and ran off. Again I am realizing how difficult it is to move in on these animals. Day 2 Not having my bike, I get up earlier and hike the extra 2 miles into my roadless area I want to hunt. On the way I bump into another spike with cows that seem to be fleeing a crazed hunter that won't stop bugling at them. This guy was literally bugling every 5 minutes and I could tell it didn't sound like a real elk. Anyways, I try to get close to the spike for a shot but get busted again just outside bow range by the cows. I continue to the roadless area. As I am walking in quietly on top of a small ridge I hear something coming below me. I get down on a knee to lower my profile as it sounds like a group of elk trotting fast towards me. I pop my head up for a split second to see if I can locate them and right away I see the head of a cow elk starting right at me, already caught my slight movement. With that, they start to bolt away, they are maybe at 50 yards. I see about 9 cow elk pass, what looks like at least a 5x5 running at the back comes by, I draw my bow quickly but it was impossible to get on a running bull elk at 50 yards, so much for that encounter. I am starting to get pretty hyped up though about seeing elk especially getting that close to a bull. I slowly still hunt the rest of the day about 3 miles through the woods back to camp. Right a sunset, I bump into a good size bull probably a 6x6 out in the open at about 120 yards with about 10 cows. I slowly try to get my pack off my back and get set up for a stalk, immediately busted by one of the cows catching my movement, they run off. I continue on my slow still hunt and it is almost dark. About ¼ mile later, I glass up another nice bull by himself at about 100 yards. I duck behind a pine tree and again take my pack off to try to get close. Then I think well, stalking hasn’t work well at this point so let me try my cow call to get him to come close to me. I hit my cow call twice and I thought they sounded like good calls but the bull didn’t and he bolted off at the sound of it. At this point I realize these elk are totally averse to any type of calling due to all the hunting pressure. I make it back to camp feeling frustrated but also stoked about all my encounters. Day 3 I get my friend who drove up to camp for the night to drive my to the roadless area well before dawn, saving me 2 miles of hiking. I hike in the dark about a half mile from the road and start hearing bulges and these sound like real deep sounding, legit bugles, not other hunters. I slowly move into the continuing bugles as the sun starts to come up. I can hear them and I know they are close so I drop my pack to prepare for a stalk, this sounds like a huge herd. I slowly move in glassing every few steps into the pines and see multiple elk but the cows see me again and they slowly move away from me. The bugles are non-stop at this point so I know where they are and can gauge what direction the herd is heading. I move fast to try to cut them off and get ahead of them. After about another half mile of hiking I am set up in a good ambush spot and I hear the bugles getting closer. I move very slow, taking a step, glassing into the pines and listening. I spot a nice bull in my binos and he looks to be about 90 yards just slowly feeding and staying in generally one spot, it is either a 5x5 or 6x6. I decide this time I am not going to get busted and will belly crawl into bow range. I slowly crawl about foot at a time with my binos, range finder, and bow dragging the ground bumping into the millions of rocks that are all over the ground in 6A. I slowly peak up and get my eyes back on the bull, a 2nd bull starts feeding near him as well about the same size. I think I am at a decent bow range so I attempt to range him but my range finder is all fogged up can’t see anything. I lose sight of the bull while trying to wipe to fog off my range finder lens. I saw screw it and I get up on one knee to try to see where he went- bam, there he is, staring straight at me broadside, I nervously range him through my foggy rangefinder, it reads 62 yards. I feel like that is an easy shot for me as I had been practicing out to 80 yards all summer. I draw my bow and put my 60 yard pin just behind his shoulder, middle of the body height-wise and release thinking it was a solid shot. Too my horror, and seemed like in slow motion, the arrow sails high about 1 inch over his back. I couldn’t believe I blew the shot, 60 yards was automatic for me on my practice range, what the heck? Was my range finder off? Did I accidentally range a tree behind him? I’ll never know. So anyways the bulls run off along with the rest of the heard I can hear them moving off in the distance, not at a run though, just a medium paced walk. They are still bugling like crazy (this is about 830 am at this point). I sit there distraught about my missed shot and ponder whether I should walk back to my pack I dropped about a mile away at this point. I still hear crazy amounts of bugling in the distance and so I decide I will continue to chase this heard. I move fast again to try to cut them off once again. I get to a relatively open area and spot two lead bulls coming in towards me with the rest of the heard behind them. I drop to my belly and slowly crawl up to a large deadfall for cover. The bulls are slowly moving in and I decide this is my 2nd chance. I am ready to draw and I range them, 80 yards. I decide to let them move in close before I shoot. All of a sudden they stop and turn direction and walk into some thicker pines out of range. What the heck again? They couldn’t see me, wind shift maybe? The herd continues to move slowly and I parallel them about 200 yards away attempting to move faster and catch up to cut them off yet again. At this point I can see the full size of this heard as they cross an open area, there is a continuous stream of cows and bulls moving at a walking pace and they just keep going and going, there must have been close to 150 elk in this heard, maybe 20-30 bulls. I try again and again to get close enough into bow range but can’t seem to get in closer than 100 yards without being spotted and the herd moving off. I do this for almost two more miles and can’t ever get close enough for a shot. I am now about 3.5 miles from my pack with no water at it is like 11am. I decide I need to regroup, get water and rest as I am getting very reckless and sloppy trying to stalk in on these elk. I start the long walk back to my pack and thunderstorms start to roll in. It starts pouring rain and visibility drops (don’t have any rain gear either as that was left in my pack also). The rain seemed to make the elk go even more wild as I hear bulges going crazy again and I keep bumping into elk off in the distance. I try again once more to get close to a bull with about 5 cows in the pouring rain. I move in slowly thinking the rain will hide any noise and movement but busted by a cow again, they move off just out of bow range again. I continue to run into elk and hear bugles until the rain stops after about an hour. I finally make it back to my pack in shock of the amount of elk I just encountered. I take a break and still hunt the rest of the evening, running into a spike with two cows but again, can’t get close enough for a bow shot. Day 4 Have to leave this day due to work and family constraints, was thinking about not hunting and just packing up and going home. I decide I have to give this hunt my all so I wake up early and decide to hunt a half day and check out an area north of camp that looked good on the satellite imagery. Right at first light about ¼ mile from camp I have a two cows move in towards me, I have them at 40 yards and I stay still, they never see me, no bulls follow though. I move into a small canyon thick with pines very slowly. (I have learned that if I think I am moving slow, I need to move even slower). I take 2-3 steps, listen, and glass, repeat. I start to hear bugling off in the distance. I move in very slow as the bugles get louder and I make out some antlers off in the distance through my glass. It is a nice bull either 5x5 or 6x6 moving towards my position. I very slowly crouch down to hide my silhouette behind a large rock in front of me. The bull must have caught my slight movement and stops, staring right at me for about 5 minutes. I think he is at about 60 yards away at this point but I don’t want to risk ranging him as he would pick up on that extra movement. After staying motionless for a few more minutes, he decides to turn broadside to me and begins to walk off down the canyon. I decide this is my only shot at this bull so I draw my bow, no time to range him. He stops and stares at me broadside giving me a perfect shot opportunity. I feel like this bull is at 60 yards so I again level the 60 yard pin right where it needs to go and let the arrow fly knowing that there is no way I can miss a second time. To my shock and horror once again, the arrow flies about an inch over his back and he trots off over to the other side of the canyon. He stops back to stare at me some more at about 150 yards. I collapse on the ground in disappointment and disbelief that I have missed two shots on bull elk that took 6 years of applying to get this tag. The bull casually moves over the top of the ridge and I figure why not try an move quickly to get in front of him again. I give him some space and circle up to the top of the ridge he went over. As I crest the ridge I spot a cow elk moving right towards me. I freeze and lean against a pine, she doesn’t notice me. Before I know it, I have 8 cow elk surrounding me feeding on top of this ridge, one decides to bed down. I stand motionless for about 20 minutes while they are within 20 yards of me. One of the cows gets a little suspicious of me and starts staring at me. Just them I see another elk moving in behind some brush, I see antlers and velvet hanging off, another bull! He was at about 40 yards but no shot because of brush in the way and one of the cows staring right at me. I can’t believe I am this close to a bull within 25 minutes of just missing that other one. I get nervous and my legs start shaking from standing still for so long. No matter how hard I try and can’t get my legs to stop shaking and the cow elk picks up on the movement, alerting the rest to my presence and they quickly walk off the ridge down to the canyon below. Hunted the rest of the morning then had to pack up and head back down to the desert for work. I couldn’t believe the amount of elk I encountered on this hunt and it was a blast. I also am so pissed at myself for missing two shots that I felt like I should have been automatic at based on all the practice I did before the hunt. Thankful for a great experience up in the pines that was the best hunt I’ve ever had, but also the worst hunt ever with those two misses. Hoping to get back up there again before the season ends!

I have some new hornady brass. I agree with above, it’s soft as heck. Fine for light loads I suppose. If hornady spent evem 10 cents of every marketing dollar towards making decent components they’d have some really good stuff!

Gonna make a nice looking rug

Stop letting them out of the kitchen.

I won’t be able to hit the desert until the weekend quail season opens. It’s killing me to not go out there but the hot weather has kept me from wanting to get after it recently and the next two weekends we have stuff going on family wise. Oh well, those deer aren’t going no where.

69 shots is artillery not precision shooting.

The secret to getting so close is failing miserably a bunch of times...lol Realistically I drew a decent tag, spent a ton of time looking over a number of goats. Found a couple of really good bucks and decided that I would make a play on them with the longbow, knowing I could switch to a rifle in a few weeks and shoot a grande, so there was no pressure to fill the tag. Failed on a few stalks and while doing so, turned this buck up, which would have been a no brainer even with a gun in a few weeks. Had I known this buck existed I would have brought the compound or held off completely until the rifle opener. Really it just worked out that was the only thing I could hunt him with at the moment in time... I botched a bunch of stalks on him during the day and eventually I caught him dogging a doe that I know was headed to water. I caught them traveling in a wash and ambushed him in a brushy spot about 35 yards out, which is about as far as I feel comfortable shooting. Shot was a little forward, but managed to get enough penetration to get the job done... There's a long winded play by play on another site, but that's the short of it. Ironically enough the largest I've ever taken with any weapon... I knew he was big but stunned when I walked up on him...

I sat the same trail a majority of the time, my dad and some family friend have killed lots of elk on that trail and I killed my cow there last year. The day I killed my bull I had sat the trail for like 8 hours and I said “f this” and went to chase bugles. Worked out

Ok, I guess I should have looked it up. I apologize for stirring a hornets nest, certainly was not my intent. I would ask that everyone calm down. This is a great site with great people. There's enough anger in the world already. Please, everyone take a deep breath and relax.

Right on dude. If you didn’t get excited it wouldn’t be much fun.

Yeah, so have a rangefinder, I think what happened on the first shot was it was all fogged up and I must have had bull fever and shakily ranged something behind him because I just got done practicing at the range behind my house and I am dead on still at 62 yards so sights didn't get bumped. Looking at the target on the range, I am thinking the first shot I was off using the rangefinder, then the 2nd shot I missed I totally misjudged the range thinking he was 60 yards, I think now he was probably more like 45-50 yards and I didn't take time to range him with the range finder. So on the 2nd bull I should have taken ta quick second to verify my range with the rangefinder and prob would have had him. Very frustrating, mad at myself. I guess the worst part of it is I feel like its gonna be another 6-8 years before I can draw this tag again unless I get real lucky. Trying to stay positive and be thankful for the nonstop encounters with elk I had.

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like my first elk hunt. Haha. It’s definitely a learning curve trying to avoid all the cow elk eyes! Just when you think you have them all spotted, a lone cow will appear outta nowhere, staring at you. Just keep at it. One thing I would suggest and it’s just a personal opinion, but practice shooting with your pack on. I noticed in your writeup you mentioned taking your pack off during every stalk. You even mentioned in Day 2 getting busted doing this. One less movement to worry about by keeping it on. Hopefully another tag is in your future. Good luck!

Screw work.

I have had great luck with kuiu for my boy. Here is my system for buying that makes it affordable. I buy full outfit on my birthday code for my boy at 15% discount plus free shipping. Then every two years when he has grown out of it I buy again on same discount. I sell used gear for 20% discount off retail so I only pay 5% plus whatever increase is over 2 years. This keeps him in great gear for years at minimal cost after initial investment.

Here's my disappointing story...My wife and i were hunting Coues about 10 miles this side of the Arizona/Mexico border. We saw one camp off about a 1/2 mile away as we headed toward our camp spot a day before the season. Opening morning we heard a series of shots the next canyon over. We had a great observation point to just sit and glass early opening morning so we kept our eyes peeled in that direction. Fifteen minutes or so later here comes a buck at a dead run down the mountain from us. I shot, and he ran another 50 yards and collapsed. It only took us 10 minutes to get to him. Within 30 minutes there was a group of 3 hunters coming toward us. One claimed he had shot it first and it died in front of us. I was pretty adamant about it was MY one and only bullet that made the hole in its chest. I even went as far as pointing where the blood trail started. They finally went on their way, but first asked if they could "HELP" carry the buck the 400 (+-) yards down to the nearest Jeep trail. I declined and told them we got it handled. It was going to be cold enough to skin, put a deer bag on and hang the deer in a mesquite tree without worrying about spoiling that night. I thought it was over and done with UNTIL about 9:00 that night I see headlights coming toward our camp. We were WELL off the beaten path. They pulled up to the hanging deer and put their high beams on it and got out and started spinning it around, looking for another bullet hole. I could smell the Tequila before I was within 10 feet of them. I did not want to walk out with my rifle when I saw what they were doing, but I DID strap on my .45 auto under my coat, just in case., I decided if they wanted the buck I would rather give it to them rather then have some serious sh** go down. After they did their "examination" and found no other bullet holes, they went on their way. We got out of there at first light.

Those were guides.

Love slick tricks. I'll be looking to run another one through a bull in September.