Sneaker

Been following him all summer, got him at first light. Story to come. Update: We started hiking into our Plan A area well before light. I scouted hard all summer and this was in the bedroom of the biggest bull located, a straight 6 with one eyeguard that didn't curve up much My dad was with me to help call. During one of our pauses to stay quiet, rest, and listen, THERE IT WAS! The first bugle of the season sounds out through the dark. (Dark is relative as the moon was quite bright.) I couldn't believe our luck. As we waited in the dark, he sounded on 3 or 4 individual times, just short single sound bugles maybe 200 yards away on the hill to our right. It didn't sound like an old experienced bull. We crept over and set up on the opposite hill with dad further up and me 50 yards below him and the plan was to wait until shooting light to try and cow call him in. To my surprise, very soon after I was somewhat settled and starting to try to range find possible shooting lanes, dad starts doing a few cow calls?? I didn't feel it was light enough yet so I was pretty surprised and a little perturbed. He called a few times a few minutes apart, and then I heard a bugle response. Come to fine out, when he got to his calling spot, he could see two elk on the far hill heading the other direction and almost cresting the far hill. In an effort to stop them, he started calling. It worked, and one of the elk stopped. He said he just stopped and starred toward our hill for a long time, and then finally after maybe the third or fourth set of chirps, he just couldn't stand it, and started heading our way. I wasn't aware of any of that until all the sudden I heard crashing on the far hill. He was easy to see, by this time it was pretty light and his huge body and white antler tips were easy to see with the naked eye. I pulled up my binos, and it was my bull! It was too good to be true. He paused a couple of times on the way down to us, but he came down crashing and zig zaging through the scrub and into the perfect shooting lane as he started coming up our hill. As he was behind the final bush, I pulled back, but he saw movement and stopped and looked at me. 25 yards! His head was clear, then a step and his neck, then he started walking, and before he ran or circled or got behind a huge tree, I let it fly. Was not the best shot, the Lumenok worked super however. The shot was the only thing not perfect about the whole scenario. He was walking and turning and I should have tried to stop him. I was really down at first, but somehow I was one of the lucky few that still hit a vital spot not in the "vitals" as blood was awesome and he didn't go maybe 150 yards. I'm grateful it all came together so well. Got the cape and meat taken care of. Anyone know anyone in Kingman that would be willing to score him for me?

I now have the 2013 Elk Survey/Harvest data in my possession if anyone wants any of that info. The department has high staff turnover and vacant positions so they won't be producing a "2013" book, the next one will be labeled "2014" I'm told.

Anyone know if they are out, and where you can find them(looking for 2013 harvest numbers). 2014-2015 General regs came out with last year's Deer harvests in there, and they have December hunts obviously, so wouldn't they have the 2013 elk numbers by now too? Too late to call the office, can't find anything on line.

Those two green nocks at 88 in the heart are quite impressive. I am not near as sure a shot at that distance.

It doesn't look like the rut is kicking in, haven't heard any calling, and its supposed to be hotter than average in the Kingman area for most of the hunt. I was hoping I could at least hunt some of the good waters if the rut wasn't good, but its been raining up here for a couple hours now, with 90% chances of more tomorrow. So I guess, bring on the spot and stalk! Just worrying...

Wow

I've always followed and heard that if its a maintained road, and has a fence, you have to cross the fence first. If no fence, get off the shoulder.

Surprised nobody has heard of anyone who lost one there...

We ate them in the Philippines, pretty tasty. So if it doesn't work out, you can have some expensive bbq meat.

What would possess someone to do that to your stand? I could see "hey, I saw this stand, nobody was here, and figured I would use it, ended up shooting a decent buck. Sorry but thanks? If you find this call me..." but what that guy did was just about beyond belief... Nice end of the story though

What do you mean exactly by horn quality? Like how large are the antlers, or how dense or some other qualify you consider optimal for horns? I think it is pretty much common knowledge that there has been much more rain at better times this year for horn growth than last year, but I have a feeling you may be wanting something else? It is an above average year for horn growth for most of the state. All the ungulates I have seen the last few months in northern Arizona have looked quite plump around the belly as well. No lack of feed.

Heidi at the department says they should be out within a week, and also that she would try to have someone call me that could provide specific elk numbers.

So you are saying the results from 2013 hunts should be posted by March 2015, or that they should have been posted by March 2014? Thats a two year lag. Deer are posted much much quicker. I just want to see what the success was on my hunt last year.

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How did the first weekend go? Who tagged out?

Ton of rain. Guys are having to spot and stalk and no easy pickens at good water sources? Give them a few more hours to kill the bedded bucks they've found...

Still it looks like we don't have last year's hunt success results. Is this how it is every year? The hunts are starting in a few weeks now...

Yes, I just bought the standard price app, and there are 15 or 20 maps that you can use for free, you just go to the maps section and add them, including google earth/satellite view, google terrain, road maps, bunch of government maps, and the property map. Then you just save map sections onto your phone for areas you will be out of service in, and after that it works as a gps even without cell service.

That is a tough spot right there. I'd say turn your tag back in and get your bonus points back, but AZ doesn't do that, currently anyway. You can turn it back I think, but you lose any points you may have had. Sounds like maybe you didn't have many? My advice, broker a deal with the wife to skip the elk hunt, and go on a Dec or Jan deer hunt once the baby is a few months old. If she has that baby early when you are out of cell service, you will probably never go hunting ever again.

This is suspect A for September 12. He finished out much nicer than I thought he would.

This is in Kingman = probably around 100 miles from the nearest coues deer by my estimation, maybe even further.

One auction and one raffle tag.

My real question, when do you normally start hearing bugles? When you hear pre-rut/early calendar bugles are they only early morning or more after dark?? First year hunting bulls. Hunting 16A, low density elk area, but have found some pockets of elk and a shooter or two but i'm still trying to expand my scouting area and add some backup plans in case A and B don't work out. Wondering if I'll be able to hear anything in my scouting before the hunt starts in Sept. I've been out probably 10 times since the draw, and never heard anything. Is there a correlation between velvet drop and bulging? When do the mature bulls start dropping velvet? Thanks all

It really seems like there should be higher deer concentrations than there are, and at the same time I keep finding stuff like this on my hikes and cameras: