Duidery
09-15-2014, 09:42 PM
With our success earlier in the year and freezers full of meat, my wife wasn't overly eager to go after an elk. With the heat of the elk rut going though, I begged her to get out and give it a try while her chances were best.
We headed out one night after work. With some fresh snow and colder temperatures I liked our chances. We hiked in a couple of kilometres and hadn't heard anything. Since we weren't hearing anything, we decided to check a camera just before dark. We got to the camera, downloaded some pics and let out a bugle. To our surprise, there was a response bugle just down the valley. We called back and forth for about 20 minutes but couldn't get him to come any closer. Nearing dark and not wanting to spook him, we decided to pull out and try for him another day. My wife hasn't heard many elk so she was certainly excited to head out after him again.
A few days pass and we have a morning free to hunt. It was warm but calm as we were started to walk into our spot in the dark. We cow called and bugled as we went. After a kilometre we got to the edge of the valley near where we had heard the elk earlier in the week. We called for awhile but weren't hearing anything. The wife was getting bored so decided to have a little nap while I continued to call. After about a half hour I finally heard footsteps closing in on us. As soon as I heard the footsteps, I got a glimpse of an elk in the trees about 40 yards away. I got my wife into position and started slowly walked behind her hoping to draw the elk towards her. Unfortunately the spike bull caught us moving and bolted back down the hill. As he moved another bull appeared and started to bolt too. A couple of cow calls stopped him and he started walking towards my wife. By this time, I was about 75 yards behind my wife and couldn't see what was happening. Suddenly there was a shot. I ran out to where I could see my wife and she gave me the thumbs up.
She had shot the bull in the head at 25 yards and dropped him where he stood. He's not the biggest but this was going to be her last day of hunting for the year and she didn't want to screw with karma and pass on a legal elk. Not a bad hunting year for our family; her first bull moose, my bull elk and her first bull elk within 3 weeks.
On a side note, I went out with a buddy the next morning and he shot a nice 5x5 bull elk. Needless to say, the elk have been active to start the year. Maybe he will post pics and tell the story.
http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u633/Duidery/DSC04623_zps5926fed6.jpg (http://s1325.photobucket.com/user/Duidery/media/DSC04623_zps5926fed6.jpg.html)
http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u633/Duidery/IMG_0652_zps6760132b.jpg (http://s1325.photobucket.com/user/Duidery/media/IMG_0652_zps6760132b.jpg.html)
We headed out one night after work. With some fresh snow and colder temperatures I liked our chances. We hiked in a couple of kilometres and hadn't heard anything. Since we weren't hearing anything, we decided to check a camera just before dark. We got to the camera, downloaded some pics and let out a bugle. To our surprise, there was a response bugle just down the valley. We called back and forth for about 20 minutes but couldn't get him to come any closer. Nearing dark and not wanting to spook him, we decided to pull out and try for him another day. My wife hasn't heard many elk so she was certainly excited to head out after him again.
A few days pass and we have a morning free to hunt. It was warm but calm as we were started to walk into our spot in the dark. We cow called and bugled as we went. After a kilometre we got to the edge of the valley near where we had heard the elk earlier in the week. We called for awhile but weren't hearing anything. The wife was getting bored so decided to have a little nap while I continued to call. After about a half hour I finally heard footsteps closing in on us. As soon as I heard the footsteps, I got a glimpse of an elk in the trees about 40 yards away. I got my wife into position and started slowly walked behind her hoping to draw the elk towards her. Unfortunately the spike bull caught us moving and bolted back down the hill. As he moved another bull appeared and started to bolt too. A couple of cow calls stopped him and he started walking towards my wife. By this time, I was about 75 yards behind my wife and couldn't see what was happening. Suddenly there was a shot. I ran out to where I could see my wife and she gave me the thumbs up.
She had shot the bull in the head at 25 yards and dropped him where he stood. He's not the biggest but this was going to be her last day of hunting for the year and she didn't want to screw with karma and pass on a legal elk. Not a bad hunting year for our family; her first bull moose, my bull elk and her first bull elk within 3 weeks.
On a side note, I went out with a buddy the next morning and he shot a nice 5x5 bull elk. Needless to say, the elk have been active to start the year. Maybe he will post pics and tell the story.
http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u633/Duidery/DSC04623_zps5926fed6.jpg (http://s1325.photobucket.com/user/Duidery/media/DSC04623_zps5926fed6.jpg.html)
http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u633/Duidery/IMG_0652_zps6760132b.jpg (http://s1325.photobucket.com/user/Duidery/media/IMG_0652_zps6760132b.jpg.html)