PowellSixO

I've killed a few elk with my rifle, one being a nice bull that went on the wall. I've been apart of dozens of other rifle bulls killed, and cows killed. I've been apart of several archery bulls killed, and I've even had an archery bull tag myself about 10 years ago (Scouted 35 days, hunted 14, and went home with tag soup). Hunting elk with a bow is no easy feat. I scouted 15 weekends before my hunt this year. I also spent a full week scouting the week before my hunt. I then hunted hard for 13 days. On day 13 I finally was able to achieve the hardest thing I've ever done hunting........ Kill a bull with my bow. With all the scouting I did, finding elk was never a problem. I had plan A-Z, and then some. I was in elk every day of the hunt. The big problem was me. I was always able to screw it up some how. Lol. I've never been a super patient man. Well with every day that passed, I learned that patience is a very important tool to the elk hunter. I had opportunities every day of the hunt (most of which I blew), and opportunities at bulls much bigger than the one I ultimately killed. I had a standard of a mature 6x6 bull, score not being a factor. On day 6 of the hunt, I was able to make a shot on a very nice 315ish bull. He came in quartered to me, and I fought the urge to take the shot at 30 yards. He knew something was up, turned and started walking away. At the 40 yard mark, he was perfectly quartered away, and I took the shot. I hit exactly where I wanted. He took off like a bat out of heck, ran into a tree, and pulled the arrow. After tracking him for 400 yards, the blood was gone. My heart sunk. We backed out overnight, and began the search the next morning. After crawling on our hands and knees for another 200 yards, we lost all blood. We spent 2 and a half days searching for that bull, and I never found him. My only conclusion is, that I hit him a little too far forward, and only got one lung. I hope with all my heart, that bull made it. I spent the next half a day thinking about calling the hunt, or continuing on with it. I finally decided that I would continue hunting that area in hopes of finding that bull alive, or dead, and that I would only take another shot if it was a for sure thing. Once again I was on elk every day, and had more and more encounters. I had to stop myself from a few nice opportunities, on nice 6x6 bulls. I still wasn't over hitting the first bull. Fast forward to day 13. I get up a little bit late, but get into a spot that was close to camp, and had been abandoned by the rest of the other hunters. I hear 3 bulls going crazy, and I spent 2 hours shadowing the group, keeping the wind right, and the elk close. I finally get to where I can feel the bugles in my chest, and I can see elk feet. I let out a call, and my bull came running in like it was possessed. He ran in so fast, he actually over shot me by 9 yards. He was now quartered away, and only at 9 yards. I figured this was as good as it was going to get. I settled my pin 2 inches low, knowing my arrow would hit high at that distance, and sent one right through his heart. He ran less than 40 yards, got the shaky legs, and went over. 10 seconds later a 330 bull that I'd been after, comes walking right past me at a whopping 12 yards. He stops, he bugles, he pisses, he walks over to my bull, he barks at him a few times, and then he walks off like nothing happened. Every hair on my body was standing up!!! This will go down as one of my absolute favorite hunts!! It will go down as one of the hardest hunts (physically and emotionally) I've been apart of. It is also one of the proudest hunts I've ever been on. While I passed on bigger bulls, and saw much bigger bulls, I'm super pround of the little 5x5 I was able to harvest this year. I feel horrible about the one that got away, but I learned from it. ELk are big targets, but they're tough targets, and you have to be careful about your shot. While the kill zone is big, if you don't hit it right, you're doing yourself and the elk no favors. I could have left that bit out of my story, but it happened, and I wanted to be completely honest about my trip. I have a knew respect for how tough these animals are. Anyways, enough of my jabbering. Sorry for the photos, but I was solo, so I didn't have anyone to take them for me. I even had to do a selfie. Ugggg.

Thanks. I’m always down for a hunting trip.

I shared the story on rockslide. I copied and pasted. I’m too stupid to get it to look normal. Lol

I don’t understand people. I was in my tree stand, when these guys thought it would be fun to ruin my evening hunt. I was too slow to get my phone out, but my trail cam had it covered. Rant over.

Thanks. He went 40 yards.

There are plenty of respectable people out there on side by sides, so I don’t want people to think this is a bash. There are plenty of douche bags in trucks too. But I did want to share something I learned this hunt. I was in elk every single day. If I had a caller, it would have ended very different. Doing this stuff solo is tough. But after being inside of 50 yards on a bull every day on this hunt, I got to see elk behavior like I never have before. Every morning I was up and in my spot listening to bugles an hour before the sun came up. This usually consisted of a 1-3 mile hike. And that was just to get in place to start chasing. Every morning something else would also happen. Just before light the majestic sound of bugles all around, would stop at the sound of a side by side. You can hear those things a dang mile away!! They are not elk magnets. The elk actually shut up, and move away from the sound. It’s amazing. As soon as the side by side noise would disappear, a single mew would fire everything right back up. So maybe this will help someone, or maybe no one will care, but elk respond to your rig. Loud trucks same thing. But the quiet vehicles never had quite the same response. It was cool to experience.

I forgot to mention, the toad was not a road to be driven anymore. It’s a roadless area, that’s well marked. But some people don’t care.

No plate. And yes they knew I was there. Unfortunately some people suck. Good news is, I still had a ton of elk come into that water hole. Just none big enough. Some that I regret not shooting. Any ways, I called in a little 5x5 on day 13 and decided to fill my tag. So the hunt was still a success. Not the 330 I was after, but better than tag soup. I did get my arrow in the big bull, but did not kill him. I looked for 2 full days and no sign of him.

Look through them before you do, and do it in the field. They have a flattening effect that I absolutely hated. Money was not a concern, and the SLC to me was better for my eyes. I wanted to like the el's, but I couldn't. I have the 15's for my tripod, and the 10's for my tripod and chest carry. Best glass there is. You can look through them from sun up to sun down with zero eye strain.

Not working for me either. I tried a few times this morning.

Tough hunt. There's a reason it only takes 3-4 points to draw, and has a low success rate. It used to be an awesome deer unit. But with 1000+ deer tags, they put a real hurting on the unit. I'm convinced AZGFD is determined to kill every deer and elk out of 7. Horrible management of unit 7 (7e more than west). With that said, you can find some toads in 7. One of the top 10 bucks I've ever seen in AZ, was in 7. I've seen them up high in the peaks, and down where the trees run out into the grass flats. Hunt hard, and be ready to shoot if the opportunity presents itself. Don't get discouraged, and stick with it. It might be a day or two between buck sightings. Good luck on your hunt.

Don't any of you @ssholes touch my tree stand. Or else!

I am not a fan of the el binos. The flattening effect is just weird to me. I prefer the slc!!! That’s my personal opinion of course. The image is spectacular in both as expected. But like I said, the flattening effect of the el is just weird to me. A 10x42 and a 15x56 are all I need. I don’t even run a spotter anymore.

My family and I went up past Woods Canyon Lake last week, for 4 days. It was crazy how busy it was. I've been up there multiple weekends for the last few month too, shed hunting. The amount of campers, and squatters is insane. We stopped at an old camp site (that some dipsh!ts left) and picked up 2 HUGE bags of trash. My kids hated doing it, but I'm trying to teach them respect for our public lands. I always leave the forest a better place than I find it. If I can teach that to my kids, I've done a good thing as a father.

Are you going to be living there? If so I'd suggest buying a Goodman Split System, putting the ductwork and everything associated with it in, and just doing it right (I bet you could do the whole thing yourself for $4k or less). While mini splits are cheap, and easy to install, my experience with them is that they just don't last. They're like a more complicated window unit. Plus with your floor plan, if you only install one evap, you're going to sacrifice comfort in either the bedroom or living room (depending on where you install the evap).

Watch camofire.com. It may take a week or two before they have any for sale, but when they do you can find good cams for dirt cheap. I bought 8 the other day for 300 bucks.

https://www.brunoshooters.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=savage_action

So I did a stupid thing, and dry fired this bow. It bent a cam, and cracked a limb. So I sent it to one of the best Bow repair shops in the country (Johns Custom Archery). Some will recognize him as Breathn on some of the archery forums. Not only does he repair bows, but he also known for the best strings on the market, and his incredible tuning abilities. So long story short, I sent this bow to Johns Custom archery, and he completely rebuilt the bow. He put on all new limbs, new cams, new bearings, new ripcord micro max rest, new strings, new string backstop, new peep, new d-loop, tuned the bow, and he even upgraded it with a roller cable slide. The bow is setup at a 29" draw, and 65 lb draw weight (but can be raised to 70, or lowered to 60 with a hex wrench). I personally have only fired the bow maybe 20 shots since the repairs, so it is essentially brand new minus the riser. The bow does not have a sight on it, but will come with a lightly used Quivalizer arrow quiver (https://optionarchery.com/products/quivalizer), new ripcord micro max rest, and a used Scott Rino XT release. I spent $450 bucks repairing the bow through Johns Custom Archery, not including shipping. I'm asking $300 firm, shipped anywhere in the lower 48. I can do $275 face to face, if you can meet near Show Low, Az. Edit: Please text for faster response. 435-668-9597 This is a great shooting bow. Here is a review of the bow (http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/pse/evo-7/review/).

Sold to AZ Ranger, pending funds. Thanks.

I’m looking for a 250 2 stroke dirt bike. Looking for something in the 3000 dollar range. I have a one year old Swarovski Ats hd 65 spotting scope with the 20-50 wide angle eye piece, that I’d like to use as partial trade towards bike with cash on top from me. Basically new with original box. It’s probably a long shot, but thought I’d test the waters. Interested in cr250, yz250, rm250, or kx250. Text me at 435-668-9597 if interested in any possible deals. Thanks for looking.

Spotter is gone. Thanks for looking.

I would also consider a 450 fours stroke.

Flatline or nothing.

4a early archery bull for this guy. Just down the road a bit. Pretty stoked!!