CTELK83
Active member
This is my 4th trip to Idaho and my 2nd bull. I live in NY (upstate) and have a good friend who lives in Idaho who I come out and hunt with. This year was different since the zone we usually hunt, resident tags sold out in 3 days and my friend and I had to switch zones. We were going to bivy until after we packed in only to find 20 degree weather with about 12" of snow. We spent one night, hunted an evening and a morning before deciding to head back, get his camper and hunt lower. We may have stayed had we seen 1 elk track. Getting the camper and hunting lower turned out to be a great decision. Our first morning had us into multiple bugeling bulls. 2nd day we had 4 close calls and mid day we had a bull really fired up. My friend stayed back to call as I snuck toward the bugeling bull. I got to about 70 yards when I saw the bull headed oir direction, about the same time i felt the wind on the back of my neck. The bull shut up, turned around and slipped out of sight. The next evening we got one bull to respond and we moved in. After what seemed like an eternity, which included 3 set ups and a lot of calling, we coaxed the bull to come check us out. Kneeling at the end of a fallen tree I stared up the hill for any movement hoping the bull would be sneaking in as we had only heard him bugle at us 4 or 5 times. The last bugle was a very aggressive sounding bugle followed by some grunts. The first thing I saw was legs, as I reached for my range finder the bull started running strait at me. I gave up on the range finder and clipped my release. He turned and as his head went behind a bush i drew, the bull stopped broadside I settled my 30 yard pin and released the arrow. The arrow was a complete pass thru a few inches high as the bull was actually only 24 yards. He ran about 30 yards and dropped in site. After a large celebration by both of us the work began. 2 pack outs later and my hunt was over. It was an amazing experience and every time I come out west I am humbled. The sheer amount of land you are trying to cover and get within 50 yards of an animal amazes me. When it all comes together it is somewhat unbelievable. I learned more this year then I have in my previous 6 years of elk hunting largely due to the elknut playbook and podcasts with elknut. I googled and downloaded to my phone 4 podcasts with elknut and listened to them in my truck almost everyday for about 2 months. Along with my 9 hour flight and made my hunting partner listen during our two and a half hour drive to our hunting spot. My hunting partner has been a successful elk hunter for about 20 years and he said that he gained a lot of useful information from the 2 hr podcast. There were a few tips in there that without them we would have had less close calls and never would have sealed the deal on my bull. That was as short of a cliff note version of my hunt as I could give. Good luck to everyone!
Oh we finished early so I was able to catch my first cut throat!
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