UpToNoGood
Member
- Messages
- 90
I have to say I was extremely happy when I found out I had drawn a bull tag on my first try ever and in Unit 17. However, I knew nothing about the unit and joined this forum and asked for advice. I was lucky enough to get several people to tell me exactly what to do if I wanted to be successfully. They said scout, scout and more scouting as well as glassing high and low. Well I started scouting in May and some in June but the heavy rains wreaked havoc at my house and I had to take measures to divert all this water before it destroyed my road and house. Well in the process of stopping all this water I ripped my left distal bicep tendon clean off the bone and had to have surgery to have it reattached. I did it moving rail ties by myself. That same day I destroyed my arm my wife helped me move the final 15 ties as I only had 1 arm to work with, but I had to get it done. So now with my arm jacked up pretty bad and the rain continuing to fall I felt like things were just not on my side.
So then months of rest and recovery brings me to opening day and my arm is doing good at about 50% before the damage. I start this hunt with no sign of elk during my pre scouting and still very limited knowledge of this unit but I have to try. So my team is my wife and I and she can’t keep up with me in the woods so I am always waiting for her. Our plan was to camp at the house since we live close enough to drive to the places we wanted to hunt each morning. The first 2 days were about the same as we got to the woods before sunrise and mapped out our day as to the areas to hunt and glass from. On the second day my helpful wife did spot what she though was a deer and as I back tracked to where she saw it all I saw was an elks butt running away. She says she thought it was a buck. So I tred to work toward the direction I expect it to go and the bull must have doubled back past my wife because she sends me a text telling me the bull just ran 30 feet in front of her. I try to pick up the direction the bull went but it was gone in the wind. So now both the first 2 days end with us arriving at our house before sunset. I know the final hour before the sun sets can be a killer, but this is how we planned it.
On the 3 day of the hunt I had a last min scheduled appointment at the hospital at noon so that really messed that day up but I figured I could at least try and get some hunting before the sun set. Going back the Saturday before the hunt I spent the morning in the woods about ½ a mile from the house trying to fill either cougar or bear tag. I have had a lot of bears spotted at a spring near my house and had been watching them hit the spring almost daily until the last bear sighting on Sep 6th. Anyways 40 mins in to the call with my foxpro I hear crashing through the woods over my right shoulder. Probably the worst angle for a right handed shooter. I seriously doubt this is a cougar coming in this hard so I turn to the right as much as I can and prepare for a bear. Sure as sh!t a small bull elk comes crashing in to see what is going on. I can’t believe my eyes and I hardly ever see elk around my house and had no intentions of hunting here for elk. So back to my bull hunt and Monday morning before my Dr visit I decide to go check the game camera on the spring where I have seen all the bears. Not only did a bear return to the spring the Thursday before the hunt but that small 4x4 bull elk hit that spring on the first day of the hunt. So that got me thinking but I still didn’t feel like my area held the elk to warrant the try. So my Daughter came with me to my Dr apt so that she could tag along with me so that we could hunt some of the forest on the way home. We spent about 4 hours working up two different canyons only seeing 2 cow elk. Again we were back home before the sun set. I know precious hunting time wasted again.
With only 2 days of the hunt left the wife and I decide to try a different canyon and again we get there before the sun rose. We would hunt and glass up until noon before the winds picked up to 50-60 mph and just made it hard to hunt so we went home early, but I wasn’t done for the day because I now had a backup plan on a 4x4 bull and possibly a bear that was in my backyard. So I hiked up in the canyon and started my foxpro hoping to call in the young bull or the bear. Nothing showed up and I packed up and called the 4th day a bust. Day 5 resulted in the same start, ready before the sun, but we hunted until the sun set and saw 1 cow elk.
Over the 5 days I saw deer every day and bucks 4 of the 5 days and I could have taken a buck on all 4 of the days if buck was on the menu. We also saw 2 Javelina’s. So I surmise that my hunting skills are not that bad since I could have put the crosshairs on the bucks in the woods I was in, but that I was just in the wrong woods for the bulls. I just didn’t put in the time to find were the bulls were hanging out prior to my hunt.
So then months of rest and recovery brings me to opening day and my arm is doing good at about 50% before the damage. I start this hunt with no sign of elk during my pre scouting and still very limited knowledge of this unit but I have to try. So my team is my wife and I and she can’t keep up with me in the woods so I am always waiting for her. Our plan was to camp at the house since we live close enough to drive to the places we wanted to hunt each morning. The first 2 days were about the same as we got to the woods before sunrise and mapped out our day as to the areas to hunt and glass from. On the second day my helpful wife did spot what she though was a deer and as I back tracked to where she saw it all I saw was an elks butt running away. She says she thought it was a buck. So I tred to work toward the direction I expect it to go and the bull must have doubled back past my wife because she sends me a text telling me the bull just ran 30 feet in front of her. I try to pick up the direction the bull went but it was gone in the wind. So now both the first 2 days end with us arriving at our house before sunset. I know the final hour before the sun sets can be a killer, but this is how we planned it.
On the 3 day of the hunt I had a last min scheduled appointment at the hospital at noon so that really messed that day up but I figured I could at least try and get some hunting before the sun set. Going back the Saturday before the hunt I spent the morning in the woods about ½ a mile from the house trying to fill either cougar or bear tag. I have had a lot of bears spotted at a spring near my house and had been watching them hit the spring almost daily until the last bear sighting on Sep 6th. Anyways 40 mins in to the call with my foxpro I hear crashing through the woods over my right shoulder. Probably the worst angle for a right handed shooter. I seriously doubt this is a cougar coming in this hard so I turn to the right as much as I can and prepare for a bear. Sure as sh!t a small bull elk comes crashing in to see what is going on. I can’t believe my eyes and I hardly ever see elk around my house and had no intentions of hunting here for elk. So back to my bull hunt and Monday morning before my Dr visit I decide to go check the game camera on the spring where I have seen all the bears. Not only did a bear return to the spring the Thursday before the hunt but that small 4x4 bull elk hit that spring on the first day of the hunt. So that got me thinking but I still didn’t feel like my area held the elk to warrant the try. So my Daughter came with me to my Dr apt so that she could tag along with me so that we could hunt some of the forest on the way home. We spent about 4 hours working up two different canyons only seeing 2 cow elk. Again we were back home before the sun set. I know precious hunting time wasted again.
With only 2 days of the hunt left the wife and I decide to try a different canyon and again we get there before the sun rose. We would hunt and glass up until noon before the winds picked up to 50-60 mph and just made it hard to hunt so we went home early, but I wasn’t done for the day because I now had a backup plan on a 4x4 bull and possibly a bear that was in my backyard. So I hiked up in the canyon and started my foxpro hoping to call in the young bull or the bear. Nothing showed up and I packed up and called the 4th day a bust. Day 5 resulted in the same start, ready before the sun, but we hunted until the sun set and saw 1 cow elk.
Over the 5 days I saw deer every day and bucks 4 of the 5 days and I could have taken a buck on all 4 of the days if buck was on the menu. We also saw 2 Javelina’s. So I surmise that my hunting skills are not that bad since I could have put the crosshairs on the bucks in the woods I was in, but that I was just in the wrong woods for the bulls. I just didn’t put in the time to find were the bulls were hanging out prior to my hunt.
