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Kentucky elk hunt on public land

Best of Luck to you! I also drew a Bull tag for the same area, but will be hunting the first week of rifle season. I live in Louisville and have made one trip, but I'm going to make another soon.
Sounds like we have a lot of Bulls in our area.
This is my first ever Elk hunt and I I'm pumped!
 
Well I took my first scouting trip down there Friday before labor day weekend. It took me about 6.5 hours to get to the nearest town, and I didn't get there till almost midnight. I decided to drive on out to where I was gonna hunt and sleep in my truck. Welllllllll I took the wrong county road into there, cause it took me over an hour and a half to go like 5 miles down this rock crawl. I fell asleep for a few hours and got up around 6am. I drove about a quarter mile further, the hillside opened up in front of me, and there were 6 pretty good sized bulls eating and sizing each other up on the crest of the next hill. I watched them for a while and then moved on. I only had a few hours to scout and my wife wanted me to be back by that night. I found tons of tracks and sign. Looks like they love the top of the reclaimed areas, and I can see why. They are half clover on top! Anyways, here's a few blurry pictures I snapped of a couple of the bulls I saw.

elk1.JPGelk2.JPG
 
I'm sure that got the blood pumping. I've yet to see an elk in person. I can imagine that something 3-4 time the size of a big buck that screams would be quite the experience up close.
 
I'll give a full update sometime later but lets just say there are some really really large bulls in Kentucky. I had one screaming at me from 25 yards in the fog........I cow called him from probably a half mile out......then there was carbon in the air and....
 
you are lucky, go buy a lottery ticket right now... Havent done it in KY, but my wifes grandfather got one of the first TN elk tags. Those elk definitely came off the hill and down into clearings early in the morning. I have seen them visiting east TN and always noticed there was a creek near by and they almost acted like deer staging.
 
Friday night we rolled into camp, setup the tent, the cook tarp, the bucket shower. We were all snuggled into our bags by 1am. Feeling excited beyond belief I could not sleep. Not even a little bit. Around 2am a bull started bugling within a few hundred yards of the tent and kept me up until 5:30am. Soooooo, I just got up and started coffee. Turns out the bulls only bugled until first light that morning and then shut off. We saw 3 bulls that night from a few hundred yards out. We gave chase but came up empty. Sunday morning started about the same until 9am. From 9am - about dark that night it just rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. We saw some really mangy looking turkeys and a few deer but not elk. Monday morning we located a very large non typical looking bull down in a valley. He wasn't bugling and didn't spook, but just kind of walked off up a trail. So we followed his tracks in the trail/road for the next 4 hours up the side of this hill until they cut down into a big oak covered north facing hillside. The wind was in our favor so I said lets just eat lunch and then i'll sneak in there and do some cow calling. About 1pm I snuck in there, made a few cow calls and thought I heard something moving around just downwind (which had me nervous). I had a tree right in my face so I took one more step, cracked a small twig, and that big freaky looking bull bolted out of his bed about 40 yards away and went straight up an open hillside. We gave chase and he was gone. He crossed a big plateau and we ran into a guy checking oil wells that saw him cross the main road about a half mile away. The elk were fired up that evening! We heard 5 or 6 different elk bugling all around us but they seemed to be inaccessible with the wind/terrain. We almost sat on a copperhead too. (I shat myself just a little!) The next morning we snuck in from the downwind side of the plateau hoping to catch that elk from the day before moving back across to his oak covered hillside. It was thick thick fog. Like my range finder wouldn't work even at 15 yards in the fog-THICK. There were 3 elk bugling up on top when we got up there. I cow called and seemed to get a great response from one in particular. After about an hour of this I couldn't hold it anymore, I HAD TO PEE!!! So mid stream he bugles from like 60 yards away, but we can't see him at all. So I get all zipped up get an arrow knocked, let out one more very seductive cow call and he let it rip again even closer and then all the sudden he was there! 40 yards and closing! biggest dream bull I could have even imagined is coming on a line right to me! my rangefinder still won't read anything, he's facing directly at me, my had is trembling violently, he walks up to around 25-30 yards and still facing directly at me bugles like he wanted to blow my face off! I'm tucked in behind some tall weeds, moving a few steps left, then right, trying to find a good place to get a shot over my cover. I FEEL A SMALL BREEZE ON THE BACK OF MY NECK, oh S&^%!, I BETTER DRAW. I come to full draw, he lifts his head and starts sucking in my scent like he can't get enough of it, I can tell he's milliseconds from bolting out of there. Last year I shot my bull in the heart - quartering to me, he dropped dead in 30 yards, Corey Jacobson says it's a great shot, I've done this before, he's about to bolt, SCHWAAAAACKKKKKK! My buddy jumps up, YOU DRILLED HIM, he takes a few jogging steps, my entire arrow is sticking out of his shoulder blade, the ENTIRE ARROW!, it's flapping around like the broadhead is the only thing stuck in there, like a long quill sticking out of a porcupine. He looked back, and in a flash trotted off into the fog like he wasn't hurt a bit....never to be seen again. We spent the day looking for blood, arrow, checked his bedding areas, nothing. He's probably out there wallowing on that same plateau today. I'm back in fort wayne building roads and parking lots, but my mind is still there, what should I have done different, did he take a step to bolt right when I released? He had to have, he was facing me but the arrow was sticking straight out of the side of his shoulder, is he going to be ok? will I see him again this weekend? was he as big as I think he was? he had atleast 6 on each, maybe 7, and what looked like a funky drop point of some sort....he was a giant

heartbreak.......
 
Man, I feel for you, it is not a good feeling. But the are resilient tough critters. Keep after it and stay positive.
 
keep hammering man! I missed a giant non typical last year when I was down there. Keep at it and don't give up. You have a ton of season left.
 
It happens. Sounds like you hit solid on the shoulder and that is very difficult, if not impossible to penetrate. One reason I don't do straight on quartering shots. Good luck.
 
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