TPB
10-04-2010, 07:06 PM
Well the plan was for me and two friends to drive up into the Flathead into his cabin around the 70k marker and hunt two slides we have heard about big bull elk moving around. After packing up our stuff in a small chevy sidestep (small box) and cramming three guys in a small cab with two guns we were off. We hit the river road around 6:30 and started to crawl in their with all the big crater puddles. After seeing nothing for an hour my friend spotted a 3 point muley sitting in a meadow, he was damn near hidden and i was indecisive about shooting a "2" point so early in a promising trip. I decided to say sure and set up the shooting stick when i had him in my scope i seen the other points just as it buggered off in the treeline. So we hit the cabin and bs'ed around the fire for awhile.
Saturday Morning: We walked into a slide which was massive and we hadn't seen a person all morning so we had the bush to our self on a pristine morning. My friend decided to let a bugle rip and we had a bull bugling instantly and chased him around for awhile but never caught sight of him and we decided to give up for the morning and eat.
Saturday Night: This is the bad part, we decided to take a 1 hour drive to where there is tons of deer running around. Once we finally made it there we seen nothing till around 7:15 when a little spike whitetail stepped into the clear and no one felt like shooting it so it walked another day. We then seen the tire wobbling and found out that the lug nuts were 3 turns from falling off, so after putting our tire back on we burned back to the cabin bouncing in the potholes. My friend who owned the truck was going nuts because his prized possession was getting beaten to shit and no one wanted to shoot the deer so he was upset we didn't have an animal just because we had high expectations for the weekend. We then jumped a big bull moose on the road and cheered up after eating a delicious t bone around the fire.
Sunday Morning: The fun one, we hiked into the second slide and had a big bull going absolutely nuts but wouldn't break the treeline so we never seen him. After trying many things to get him to clear he eventually buggered off over a ridge we caught a quick glimpse of him then seeing he was legal. After hiking down the slide we found out that we stole his cows which probably pissed him off. So off to pack up/clean up and go for a quick hunt before heading it home.
Sunday Night: We are disheartened and figured we should try the slide quick. We get into a spot by the truck and hear a deep deep chuckle across a patch of trees which hid a smaller arm of the slide. The wind was against us and so was time so we bugled and tried to work him out. He never came and after seeing a big fresh grizzly print we were hesitant to go to him. We were losing light fast so we said screw it and hiked into an opening were we could see the other branch of slide. Meanwhile the elk was going nuts and eventually we got another bull coming in on us both sounding big and both upwind. We sat their and kept calling him, after letting a high pitch pissed off bugle go we heard what we thought was a big grizz roar we damn near shit ourselves but a deep chuckled boomed through the valley after. Just curious but is it common for that to happen because for a split second before the chuckle came we all thought it was a grizzly because it was a deep roar. We then knew the bull was big and was really pissed off so waited. 5 minutes later the bull walked out and stood broadside at 75 yards but we couldn't count. By the time we counted his was 125 and slightly angled leaving a little target. My two friends agreed they would both shoot and share the elk so BANG BANG! The elk hunched and trotted off. We were losing light and just rang the dinner bell for bears so we ran to where he was standing only to find hair and small chunks of meat attached to it which meant we hit him. We flagged the area and took off as it was now pitch ass black and we heard movement up above us. The weird part is that the other elk was still going crazy in the treeline bugling and thrashing trees even after the shots he kept going till we drove away.
Monday: This is where it turned to the worse. We skipped school/work and went after this bull after a long night of celebrating, not feeling my best we hiked every inch of both slides and the trees for 7 hours without seeing a drop of blood ( Poured the night before) So after we finally finished scouring all of the are we agreed that he was just grazed as one shot was definitely high because we found the shot up higher than the elk was standing. We figured that shot was just a jerked shot because of the first gun going off my friend twitched and shot early. So we went home and here i sit disappointed still envisioning the big rack sitting in the truck. Two weekends from now we are going to be there calling that elk in again. So that was my weekend in condensed form, even as we left empty handed it great in the sense we had so much action and were basically alone in the bush. Cheers
P.S. I forgot the part where we jumped a cougar running across the road, pretty neat when he just stops and stares at us from 25 yards away.
Saturday Morning: We walked into a slide which was massive and we hadn't seen a person all morning so we had the bush to our self on a pristine morning. My friend decided to let a bugle rip and we had a bull bugling instantly and chased him around for awhile but never caught sight of him and we decided to give up for the morning and eat.
Saturday Night: This is the bad part, we decided to take a 1 hour drive to where there is tons of deer running around. Once we finally made it there we seen nothing till around 7:15 when a little spike whitetail stepped into the clear and no one felt like shooting it so it walked another day. We then seen the tire wobbling and found out that the lug nuts were 3 turns from falling off, so after putting our tire back on we burned back to the cabin bouncing in the potholes. My friend who owned the truck was going nuts because his prized possession was getting beaten to shit and no one wanted to shoot the deer so he was upset we didn't have an animal just because we had high expectations for the weekend. We then jumped a big bull moose on the road and cheered up after eating a delicious t bone around the fire.
Sunday Morning: The fun one, we hiked into the second slide and had a big bull going absolutely nuts but wouldn't break the treeline so we never seen him. After trying many things to get him to clear he eventually buggered off over a ridge we caught a quick glimpse of him then seeing he was legal. After hiking down the slide we found out that we stole his cows which probably pissed him off. So off to pack up/clean up and go for a quick hunt before heading it home.
Sunday Night: We are disheartened and figured we should try the slide quick. We get into a spot by the truck and hear a deep deep chuckle across a patch of trees which hid a smaller arm of the slide. The wind was against us and so was time so we bugled and tried to work him out. He never came and after seeing a big fresh grizzly print we were hesitant to go to him. We were losing light fast so we said screw it and hiked into an opening were we could see the other branch of slide. Meanwhile the elk was going nuts and eventually we got another bull coming in on us both sounding big and both upwind. We sat their and kept calling him, after letting a high pitch pissed off bugle go we heard what we thought was a big grizz roar we damn near shit ourselves but a deep chuckled boomed through the valley after. Just curious but is it common for that to happen because for a split second before the chuckle came we all thought it was a grizzly because it was a deep roar. We then knew the bull was big and was really pissed off so waited. 5 minutes later the bull walked out and stood broadside at 75 yards but we couldn't count. By the time we counted his was 125 and slightly angled leaving a little target. My two friends agreed they would both shoot and share the elk so BANG BANG! The elk hunched and trotted off. We were losing light and just rang the dinner bell for bears so we ran to where he was standing only to find hair and small chunks of meat attached to it which meant we hit him. We flagged the area and took off as it was now pitch ass black and we heard movement up above us. The weird part is that the other elk was still going crazy in the treeline bugling and thrashing trees even after the shots he kept going till we drove away.
Monday: This is where it turned to the worse. We skipped school/work and went after this bull after a long night of celebrating, not feeling my best we hiked every inch of both slides and the trees for 7 hours without seeing a drop of blood ( Poured the night before) So after we finally finished scouring all of the are we agreed that he was just grazed as one shot was definitely high because we found the shot up higher than the elk was standing. We figured that shot was just a jerked shot because of the first gun going off my friend twitched and shot early. So we went home and here i sit disappointed still envisioning the big rack sitting in the truck. Two weekends from now we are going to be there calling that elk in again. So that was my weekend in condensed form, even as we left empty handed it great in the sense we had so much action and were basically alone in the bush. Cheers
P.S. I forgot the part where we jumped a cougar running across the road, pretty neat when he just stops and stares at us from 25 yards away.