There is lots of pressure on hunters to have success. Like you have said that the hunting pressure is incredibly high for too few legal bulls. Folks come from far and wide to hunt and hope to kill a bull. This is stressful when you have a limit amount to find that legal bull. This leads to some hunters to being more rash than they should. Too much pressure for failure leads to mistakes.
That bull you called in to 50 yards was likely a 5-point or less. There really isn’t a whole lot of 6-point bulls out there and the ones that do grow 6-points get shot. Plain and simple. Not many, if any make it to the next season.
I’ve spent a lot of time chasing elk in the East Kootenay over the last bunch of years. My partners and I have had some success, but for every 6-point we’ve seen there is ten or more 5-points that you call in. It’s hard to put in the time and effort and get that close and have to let it go…. But you have to….