To begin this post I would like to thank Manny (MJMHunter) for using up 14 days of vacation, and doing all of the calling on this hunt! heck of a Elk Hunter, and a heck of a guy. (Ok, now that I got all of the niceties out of the way on to the hunt)
My hunting partner Rich M. and myself drew tags in one of Arizona's most prestigious elk units. Some will be PO'd, but it was the first time we had put in for this unit. We spent the summer scouting the unit, glassing, and finding the hike in water tanks that might produce the bulls we were looking for. summer scouting trips showed tons of elk, and numberous bulls, but nothing of the quality either of us were hoping for.......man did that change.
The night before I was to leave for the hunt Rich M. called from camp to let me know that the bulls had just started to let it loose at night and things were starting to sound good. After a sleepless night, and checking , checking ,and re-checking all my equipment I headed North..
Day one: We headed out of camp in the rangers around 4 am. we parked in our first hunting spot and the rain began.We had 4 bugles going at one time. We set up on the best sounding one and Manny started to do what he does.... Call in elk. man can that kid talk to em.. The bull shows after 15-20 min. At first I am going to let him walk.. 320-330 bull, not what I am after.. Then the voice in my head reminds me that this is a solid bull, and an opportunity like this might not come again. The bulls walks by at 24Yards and I MISSED THE SHOT! That is correct I said I missed the shot. Now I am sure some of you are at home thinking rookie, poor equipment, does not practice enough...........on and on.All of this is probably true.......of someone else lol. I just wanted to admit the miss because it happens!!
That night we drove North and got two more bulls to bugle back. One was a 6x7 but small, and the other a toad 380 ish. The 380 was raking trees and had no idea that we were there. Rich and I started putting a stalk on closing the distance. We had him at 76 yards and still he had no idea that he was about to get it. For no reason the bull turns away from us, high scents the air and runs off!!! 5 seconds later a bear runs out of the trees and chases the bull up the hill??? If I did not see it with my own eyes I would have never believed it.. We called this bull the "Bear Bull"
Story is getting long....
For the next few days we called in 7 other bulls, and had a blast. We were on bulls that would best the 370-- 380 mark, but it was not meant to be, and we passed several average bulls.
I had to go back to work for 4 days and Rich killed his bull while I was gone. Nice bull! Again Manny called it into 34 yards with 30+ cows....
I returned for 6 more days of hunting..
Things had changed... The bulls were still talking, but were becoming pretty call shy, and would shut down an hour after sun up, and would only go for about the last 20 min of daylight. Things were getting tough.
We changed up tactics on day 11 of the hunt. We decided to hunt out of camp and hunt the bulls that were rut bugling directly out of camp, and stop chasing the bulls 20 miles away....... No brainer right??
Manny and I went back and forth on should we hunt West, or East; where we had had a ton of bulls come in the previous week, and where Rich had killed his bull... After going back and forth for 30 min I said "flip and coin". Manny said, "how about a chapstick" The cap landed West.. So off we went. We said if we end up killing a bull up there we need to call it the chapstick bull.. So I guess my bull will always be known to us as the "chapstick bull".
We got set up early afternoon and just sat and listened. We heard a sound that sounded more like a mow cow than an elk, but after three more bugles we figured out it was a bull that was horse from days of getting it done. We called him in at dark, but at 50 yards I could not see him through my peep sight, and I was not going to miss again and put up with all the shtufffff talking from all my friends. I passed on the shot but knew I was going to hunt him in the morning. We got on him the next morning in the dark. It took three different set ups to finally get him in, but Manny brought him and his cows past me at 42 yards. He was quartering towards me so the pin was placed between the shoulder and neck, angled to exit behind the far leg. whack. He ran 120 yards across a meadow and went into the trees. I knew I had made a good shot, but felt better when Rich called on my radio saying I got him in my glass and he just bedded down for good!!!
Man what a hunt. In all we had 12 called in bulls, probably looked at 50-60 more and had a blast with some great friends.
Again Thanks to Manny (MJMHUNTER) for all the hard work!!!
Whitey
