119bowhunter
Member
Hello all,
So my buddy and I have been planning our first western hunting trip for well over a year now, after months of research, refining gear lists, looking at maps and excitement, we finally left North Carolina on September 8th and began our long drive to central Idaho. We were blessed with safe travels and arrived on September 10th a couple hours before dark. We found a place to set up camp and were planning on visiting the local ranger station the next morning, but decided to walk around a little bit that afternoon anyway. About 350 yards up the hill behind camp we spotted a mule deer and a cow elk so we were pretty excited and decided to hunt there the next morning even though it wasn't an area we had planned on hunting to begin with.
We spent a few hours the next morning hiking around and found a lot of elk sign, although most of it appeared to be very old. Around midday we decided to drive to the ranger station where we purchased some maps, and a friendly employee came out of the back of the office and actually pointed us towards a couple of basins that he has hunted and had some good luck in. Armed with this new information, we headed out and ended up setting up a spike camp that night and spent the next week hunting in that area. The first 3-4 days were amazing, we had bulls bugling all around us and saw elk every day. One afternoon we walked up to a ridge where we had been seeing elk and I spotted a decent bull in a meadow a short distance below me, I immediately took off after him with my partner a few steps behind. I slipped through a grove of aspens and made my way to the edge of the meadow, the bull was preoccupied with raking a tree and bugling his head off. My buddy ranged him at 53 yards from where he was squatted, a few yards behind me...I had been shooting for months and knew that I could hit a softball at 50 yards with my broadhead tipped arrow, but for some reason I had it in my head that he looked farther away than my partner was telling me. Instead of shooting, I attempted to sneak in a little closer and my motion was quickly detected as the bull charged out of the area. I was a bundle of nerves at that point I can assure you. At that time I wasn't too concerned as we were routinely getting close and had seen no other hunters in the area, however, after that we had a couple days of rain...and then the weekend brought in a horde of other hunters and the elk seemed to go completely silent. We were still seeing a few elk but they seemed to be in much smaller groups than they were before, and they were typically much farther away than what we had been seeing.
I was also very bummed out when I went back to the area where I had the shot opportunity, and from where I had been standing it was a 45 yard shot to where the bull had been. Funny how that works out haha
We ended up hunting a couple more days in that area, then moving to another place that seemed to have many more mule deer, but we only heard one bugle there and saw one cow in 3 days of hunting. We ended up leaving a day earlier than we had planned due to the forecast calling for snow and it would give us a day to rest once we arrived back in North Carolina rather than driving 33 hours and having to work the next day. We had a fantastic time and I feel like we definitely learned a lot. I do know that before we go back I would like to learn a little more about calling for elk as we had basically just planned on the strong, silent approach...I am also curious as to what most people think would have caused the elk to go silent after bugling so much for a few days? Would the weather have shut them down? or the extra hunting pressure? or is it possible the rut was just winding down?
Thanks for taking the time to read all this if you have made it this far, I always enjoy reading the recounts of folks trips and thought that others might feel the same!
So my buddy and I have been planning our first western hunting trip for well over a year now, after months of research, refining gear lists, looking at maps and excitement, we finally left North Carolina on September 8th and began our long drive to central Idaho. We were blessed with safe travels and arrived on September 10th a couple hours before dark. We found a place to set up camp and were planning on visiting the local ranger station the next morning, but decided to walk around a little bit that afternoon anyway. About 350 yards up the hill behind camp we spotted a mule deer and a cow elk so we were pretty excited and decided to hunt there the next morning even though it wasn't an area we had planned on hunting to begin with.
We spent a few hours the next morning hiking around and found a lot of elk sign, although most of it appeared to be very old. Around midday we decided to drive to the ranger station where we purchased some maps, and a friendly employee came out of the back of the office and actually pointed us towards a couple of basins that he has hunted and had some good luck in. Armed with this new information, we headed out and ended up setting up a spike camp that night and spent the next week hunting in that area. The first 3-4 days were amazing, we had bulls bugling all around us and saw elk every day. One afternoon we walked up to a ridge where we had been seeing elk and I spotted a decent bull in a meadow a short distance below me, I immediately took off after him with my partner a few steps behind. I slipped through a grove of aspens and made my way to the edge of the meadow, the bull was preoccupied with raking a tree and bugling his head off. My buddy ranged him at 53 yards from where he was squatted, a few yards behind me...I had been shooting for months and knew that I could hit a softball at 50 yards with my broadhead tipped arrow, but for some reason I had it in my head that he looked farther away than my partner was telling me. Instead of shooting, I attempted to sneak in a little closer and my motion was quickly detected as the bull charged out of the area. I was a bundle of nerves at that point I can assure you. At that time I wasn't too concerned as we were routinely getting close and had seen no other hunters in the area, however, after that we had a couple days of rain...and then the weekend brought in a horde of other hunters and the elk seemed to go completely silent. We were still seeing a few elk but they seemed to be in much smaller groups than they were before, and they were typically much farther away than what we had been seeing.
I was also very bummed out when I went back to the area where I had the shot opportunity, and from where I had been standing it was a 45 yard shot to where the bull had been. Funny how that works out haha
We ended up hunting a couple more days in that area, then moving to another place that seemed to have many more mule deer, but we only heard one bugle there and saw one cow in 3 days of hunting. We ended up leaving a day earlier than we had planned due to the forecast calling for snow and it would give us a day to rest once we arrived back in North Carolina rather than driving 33 hours and having to work the next day. We had a fantastic time and I feel like we definitely learned a lot. I do know that before we go back I would like to learn a little more about calling for elk as we had basically just planned on the strong, silent approach...I am also curious as to what most people think would have caused the elk to go silent after bugling so much for a few days? Would the weather have shut them down? or the extra hunting pressure? or is it possible the rut was just winding down?
Thanks for taking the time to read all this if you have made it this far, I always enjoy reading the recounts of folks trips and thought that others might feel the same!
