First day of 7 days of hunting for my buddy from Arizona and he wasted no time this morning and harvested himself a cow. He will be a caller and pack mule for the rest of the week!
So we got a busy but close to home elk season in store this year. It started with my friends Mike and Jason arriving here Saturday from PA. Mike has a river bottoms tag and Jason has a mountains tag. Another buddy from PA will arrive the 5th who has a river bottom tag. Then on the 10th three friends from AZ and two more from PA arrive all with mountain tags.
The river bottoms tag has been open so Mike was the first out the gate. We threw him in a spot I have been scouting his first morning here and shortly after 7am a small 6x6 came in. We cow cow called and he started raking a cedar tree. 47 yards and Mike missed him right under the brisket. The rest of Sunday was uneventful. Mike was in the dumps and I told him he will have more chances. Monday rolls in and he had no action all morning and came back for late lunch at 2pm. He waited for me to get off work and I took him to a different spot for an evening hunt. We sat down and about an hour later I called in a small 6x6 that I didn't even know was there as we werent sitting side by side. This bull just kept wandering around in the brush between 30 and 80 yards away throughout the hunt offering no shot. At 740pm I got a response from the opposite direction. So I went into some series of calls and soon after 2 spikes and some cows appeared to my left. Behind me I can hear thrashing but I can't look. So I text Mike that we have elk to my left he never looked at phone cause he was consumed by the other 6x6 on the other side of him. Eventually I have both spikes within 10 yards looking right thru me at the other bull behind me. I'm being as still as possible and mosquitoes are biting the living shit out of me at this point. Meanwhile Mike still had no idea what's going on by me. Finally the spike turn there heads and I look back to my right to find the other bull. He is a good one. He is within range of Mike and I can't figure out why he isn't shooting him. Come on dude I'm dying over here mosquitoes are draining my blood. The bull let's out a soft bugle followed with some chuckles and Mike thinks to himself damn Sean sounds awesome calling over there. Then the bull starts destroying a bush and Mike is like now Sean's being a little aggressive so he turns to look my direction only to find out I'm not the one making the racket. So while the bulls head is stuff in the bush Mike draws. I hear the arrow hit the bull and it sounds good. Bull takes off does a circle and comes right at me passes by me at less than 3 ft I could hear the blood and air bubbles girgling inside him as he trotted by. He goes about 30 more yards and goes down. I yell way to go and the two spikes are still just staring at me within 10 yards so I grab my bugle and scream one right at them. They jump do a 180 and finally take off.
Mike shot him at 51 yards and he died 30 yards from where he shot. Easy track and I could get my truck to within 150 yards of him so an easy pack. Didn't even need the goats.
Little back story on Mike. He came out in 2016 for the first time to hunt and we had terrible weather with bad snow storms actually got stuck on the mountain. He saw 2 elk in 8 days and both were over 500 yards away across gullies. It was a miserable hunt. Felt terrible for him that I let him down, but last night he got redemption on a beautiful 6x7 river bottoms bull and a memory to last forever! View attachment 192971View attachment 192972
