2018 Elk meat pole
- Thread starter DTP
- Start date
sn.outdoors
New member
- Jun 6, 2016
- 105
Dan and I finally got to hunt together. I think it went pretty well.
"Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you." ~Mike Rowe
"Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you." ~Mike Rowe
nclonghunter
New member
- Dec 28, 2012
- 681
Congrats to all the successful hunters!! Some great bulls taken.
DTP, I think they are all heavy... :lol:
DTP, I think they are all heavy... :lol:
sn.outdoors
New member
- Jun 6, 2016
- 105
Hey, at least it was the shortest pack out, and all downhill at that.DTP said:
"Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you." ~Mike Rowe
sn.outdoors said:Hey, at least it was the shortest pack out, and all downhill at that.DTP said:nclonghunter said:Congrats to all the successful hunters!! Some great bulls taken.
DTP, I think they are all heavy...
Well CJ was nice enough to kill the biggest bull last.
Day 3 of 3 packing out bulls and he shoots the big one. :haha:
"Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you." ~Mike Rowe
Fact!
I typed the story but something happened and I lost it.
Edit*** Here's the story
This year was a tough hunt for me. I have hunted a day or two on my own, but never longer. This year was 9 days totally solo and was a learning experience. There is no one there to pick you up when things do not go your way and no one there to motivate you to go up the mtn day after day. This was tough, but I'm glad I did it and think I'm a better hunter for it. Props to the guys who do it year after year.
The tag I drew was a limited entry tag so there was very little pressure in the area that I hunted. The bulls would bugle most all of day on the private which could be frustrating at times to say the least. This bull wasn't smaller than anything I passed on, but I missed a good 6pt in the 310-320 range and had opportunities at a 360-370 6x7 that just didn't work out.
It was getting late in the hunt and I was riding the lows of the emotional roller coaster. I hadn't heard anything on the public land all morning and then spent 4 hours stalking a good bull that was bugling his head off that had come off the private. I had gotten to within 50 yards of him and his cows when the wind shifted and blew the stalk. To say I was low would be an understatement. I decided to climb back up to the top and loop over above the private on the next ridge over. I got up there not expecting much, cow called a couple times and then bugled. I got a response from down below and was trying to decide if I wanted to go down after him or not. About that time I heard a branch break and sure enough this guy was on his way up to me. He came all the way in to 20 yards and I stopped him and double lunged him. He took off and I cow called and bugled to slow him up. He ran about 100 yards and crashed just out of sight, but I could see the huge dust cloud so I was pretty sure he was down. Sure enough I got to the edge of the timber and could see him laying under a couple trees 50 yards away. It was 6:30pm so I made a few calls to organize some help for the morning from a couple buddies. I got to work on de-boning him and was ready for the hike out about 10pm with a load and the rest hanging in a tree. The whole time I was working on this guy there was another bull that had come up from the private and was going nuts, bugling and raking trees just 100-150 yards below me, it was pretty cool and kept my mind busy.
The hike out to the dirt bike was 2 miles with most of it being ridge line and the last .8 miles straight down the face. It took almost 2 hours to get to the bike and was now 11:50. I had 13-14 miles to ride out on the bike. That took approximately an hour as I was taking it slow but it didn't come easy. I ended up wrecking when the front tire hit a rock, bike went sideways and then threw me off. I went flying off with all that extra weight. The extra weight made the bike really squirrelly and being exhausted didn't help. I'm just glad I was wearing my helmet and had it buckled as it could have been really ugly otherwise. Met my buddies in town the next morning and we went out and packed out the rest of my bull. Got home, unloaded and was checking out the road rash and noticed the huge gash in my elbow that needed a few stitches to get closed up. A trip the emergency room because it had been about 18 hours since the accident, a few stitches, a Tetnis shot and some antibiotics and I was good to go.
If I had to do it again I would do a couple things different, so hopefully I can draw this tag again in the near future.
Edit*** Here's the story
This year was a tough hunt for me. I have hunted a day or two on my own, but never longer. This year was 9 days totally solo and was a learning experience. There is no one there to pick you up when things do not go your way and no one there to motivate you to go up the mtn day after day. This was tough, but I'm glad I did it and think I'm a better hunter for it. Props to the guys who do it year after year.
The tag I drew was a limited entry tag so there was very little pressure in the area that I hunted. The bulls would bugle most all of day on the private which could be frustrating at times to say the least. This bull wasn't smaller than anything I passed on, but I missed a good 6pt in the 310-320 range and had opportunities at a 360-370 6x7 that just didn't work out.
It was getting late in the hunt and I was riding the lows of the emotional roller coaster. I hadn't heard anything on the public land all morning and then spent 4 hours stalking a good bull that was bugling his head off that had come off the private. I had gotten to within 50 yards of him and his cows when the wind shifted and blew the stalk. To say I was low would be an understatement. I decided to climb back up to the top and loop over above the private on the next ridge over. I got up there not expecting much, cow called a couple times and then bugled. I got a response from down below and was trying to decide if I wanted to go down after him or not. About that time I heard a branch break and sure enough this guy was on his way up to me. He came all the way in to 20 yards and I stopped him and double lunged him. He took off and I cow called and bugled to slow him up. He ran about 100 yards and crashed just out of sight, but I could see the huge dust cloud so I was pretty sure he was down. Sure enough I got to the edge of the timber and could see him laying under a couple trees 50 yards away. It was 6:30pm so I made a few calls to organize some help for the morning from a couple buddies. I got to work on de-boning him and was ready for the hike out about 10pm with a load and the rest hanging in a tree. The whole time I was working on this guy there was another bull that had come up from the private and was going nuts, bugling and raking trees just 100-150 yards below me, it was pretty cool and kept my mind busy.
The hike out to the dirt bike was 2 miles with most of it being ridge line and the last .8 miles straight down the face. It took almost 2 hours to get to the bike and was now 11:50. I had 13-14 miles to ride out on the bike. That took approximately an hour as I was taking it slow but it didn't come easy. I ended up wrecking when the front tire hit a rock, bike went sideways and then threw me off. I went flying off with all that extra weight. The extra weight made the bike really squirrelly and being exhausted didn't help. I'm just glad I was wearing my helmet and had it buckled as it could have been really ugly otherwise. Met my buddies in town the next morning and we went out and packed out the rest of my bull. Got home, unloaded and was checking out the road rash and noticed the huge gash in my elbow that needed a few stitches to get closed up. A trip the emergency room because it had been about 18 hours since the accident, a few stitches, a Tetnis shot and some antibiotics and I was good to go.
If I had to do it again I would do a couple things different, so hopefully I can draw this tag again in the near future.
cohunter14
Administrator
- Jul 10, 2017
- 5,332
Well done jspencer!!
cohunter14
Administrator
- Jul 10, 2017
- 5,332
jspencer said:
Thanks for sharing the story! Congrats, again, on a great bull. Curious to know what you would do different? Is that just regarding how you would hunt the area?
cohunter14 said:
Good question.
1. I would stash water up on top before the season as the water that is up there is stagnant and nasty.
2. Camp up there as it is a climb to do day after day. 2k vertical feet in a little less than a mile.
3. Have someone hunt with me so that I have a caller. I had lots of encounters solo, but with a caller the big bulls wouldn't have been as quick to bug out when they didn't see what they were expecting to see. The small bulls would hang around for 10-15 minutes, but the big ones would only give it 10-15 seconds once they were within bow range.
The general direction of the wind was out of the north west so I hunted the small public area from the south east to the north west and kept the thermals in mind while doing that. The public was bordered on the north, south and east by private so hunting it this way worked really well and I was able to usually keep the wind in my favor. The ridge lines were horrible as the wind blew every direction so I tried to stay off of them unless I was glassing.
Bowhunter1
Member
- Aug 16, 2017
- 369
Thanks for sharing the story jspencer. Congrats on a fine bull. I too did some mountain trail riding with my TW200. The extra weight is crazy difficult. My forearms were beat from being tense.
