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Hey guys, got this guy last Sunday on day 10 of a tough hunt. The rut was sporadic at best with some days having almost no bugles during daylight hours. I've been getting caught up at work so haven't done a full write-up, this guy came in screaming with about 10 cows at 7:15 am when it had been quiet all morning. I had to wait at full draw for what seemed like ever for his cows to clear out from between us, but managed to make a heart shot. He only went about 30-40 yards before tipping over. I'm super exited. He's my biggest bull to date, and broke my drought. It's been a few years since I've put anything bigger than an turkey or javi on the ground.

I was truly blessed again this year being able to take this buck. I had actually passed this buck up 2 years ago waiting for something bigger ( still kicking myself). He is actually not much bigger than 2 years ago, but did add a small point off his G2. I sat in my stand for 35 hours before this guy made his appearance. That is the only good thing that will come out of the trail cam ban... not knowing what's coming in, I wasn't waiting for a "bigger buck".

This year continues to be one for the books. My 12 year old son Max drew a muzzleloader bull tag in a unit many consider to be sub par for elk. I have assisted on 3 archery bull kills in the unit, so I knew that although trophy elk were tough to find they were there. The opener found us calling our way into a major dark timber bedding area that I had seen multiple large bulls on previous hunts. It was dead quiet. No bugles and after one calling sequence a satellite 5 point came sneaking in but never game Max an ethical shot. Yesterday, day 2, I decided to slip in to the edge of the bedding just after first light and wait. No bugles at all, so I decided to do a few soft cow calls. Less than a minute later this giant snuck in silent 52 yards below us and Max made a perfect shot. We had no idea how truly magnificent he was until we walked up on him 30 minutes later. Bull is an 8 by 7 with a 14” flyer point. Didn’t get to fully score him but a few quick measurements indicate 370-380”. 42” inside spread and total width with flyer 58”. Best hunting day of my life and one I will never forget!

Here is the Coues deer I was able take with my statewide tag with the help of Kory and Bobby of A3 . There knowledge of the area and with the deer was truly amazing. Once we found this deer they spent hours breaking it down. It was decided that we would try and harvest this deer. We had to relocate to find him again and after 8 hours of waiting he finally reappeared just before dark . Now he was with another buck of similar size but was a typical 3x3 with amazing eye guards. To be able to have two 130 inch bucks standing next to each other I thought I was seeing things. Now I had to make a decision it was an easy one for me. I like em trashy . After we ranged him at 600 yards I let my Axis works 280 AI do the rest. It was now almost dark Kory and I hiked down to the deer When I put eyes on him I was speechless it was bigger than we had thought . I told Kory I was going to do a life size mount so he was very careful field dressing the deer. He then proceeded to load the deer into his pack whole it’s a pack that he has designed and just now starting to sale it was his smaller one about 3200 CI it was amazing all of the room it had not to mention it’s the best built pack I have ever seen I am getting one. His company name is Desert Mountain Outdoors Well after many miles of packing we got back to camp about midnight what an epic day. Still in shock of being able to take a deer like this thanks to A3 and there amazing guides Kory and Bobby.

I’ve spent a lot of time and money the last 5-10 years hoping to kill a big coues deer with my bow.. with the camera ban it seemed like it definitely wasn’t going to happen. The heat wave the last week I figured sitting water would pay off so I spent 5 days on tank with the most sign in the area hoping it would pay off and it did. This buck came in completely silent and by himself at 38 yards. He started broadside when I shot and nearly turned 90 degrees by the time the arrow reached him but it went in at a good angle and caught his vitals and ended in his spine. I knew he was big but couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how heavy he was..

Day 4 Update: TAG FILLED! My wife decided she wanted to head back up to the northern part of the unit to hunt today since we just couldn’t seem to make anything happen in the areas we had scouted pre-season. So we made the hour drive north in the dark and parked the truck, hoping that the early morning light might finally get us into some elk. We settled on doing a 4 mile loop out and back to the car since the area wasn’t too steep and it was a nice break away from the canyons we’d been hiking in and out of the last 3 days. About an hour into shooting light, after not having seen anything, a decent mule buck ran across our path about 30 yards in front of us. If only it was a bull instead of a buck haha. At least we had finally seen some signs of life. Another hour went by and we still hadn’t seen anything. We were starting to get a little discouraged that another morning had gone by with minimal activity but tried to stay positive. I found an antelope “shed” which was super cool cause I’ve never seen one and I’m pretty sure they fall apart quickly after falling off. That got us a bit excited for a while. As we approached a tank about 3/4 mile away from the truck, I looked at my map and realized there was a nice little bench just up ahead. From past experiences I’ve seen elk bed on little benches like these even though they’re only 30 feet tall, so I told my wife to keep an eye out. We hadn’t gone more than 15 yards when I spotted four oval looking things. I immediately thought how out of place they looked amongst all the jagged edges that are natural in the forest (branches, logs, etc)so I knelt down. My wife whispers “do you see one”? And I reply “I don’t know I thought I saw something weird but it’s probably nothing”. I pull out my binos and sure enough, there are two pairs of ears and I see two cows bedded in grass that’s almost blocking their entire bodies. I let my wife and father in law know and we slowly start glassing. The next cow I see was 80 yards directly in front of me bedded under a tree with a completely unobstructed view of me. How she didn’t spot us walking surprises me, but I have had that happen several times where I’m close to elk and they don’t know you’re there. I’m just glad I spotted them so quickly or they likely would have seen us walking and spooked. The longer we sit there we start finding more elk, maybe 10 total, but several of them are blocked by trees. I asked my wife if it’d be ok if I backed out slowly to try to glass them from another angle to see if there are any bulls. She agrees, and I move as slowly as I can but one cow spots me and stands up. Luckily the elk slowly start getting up one by one but none spook. I finally get a good look at some elk that were out to our right and there was a bigger spike in that group of elk. Then I look over to the elk that had stood up on the left and there was a spike there too. I try to look at the rest of the group and don’t see any other bulls so I tell my wife, 2 spikes and the one on the right is the bigger one. Thankfully they slowly start feeding down into a more open area off the knoll and I tell my wife to get ready. I lose the bigger spike between the trees but I know he’s coming out and will step out soon. Second later, I see him come out and my wife’s gun goes off! Perfect lung shot at 130 yards, slightly quartered away. I know people have reservations about spikes, but this bull was the best of them all for us. Not only was it my wife’s first elk tag, it was her first big game tag ever! Sure we were slightly disappointed we werent able to turn up/make a play on any larger bulls we had scouted earlier this month, but that’s ok. The look on her face and her excitement after her shot is something I’ll always remember. I wanted this so bad for her since she’s put in so much work practicing shooting, scouting, getting the right gear, and finally being drawn after 7 years. I’m so so proud of her and our family and friends that participated in the hunt couldn’t be more stoked! I’m glad I was able to end this “semi-live” thread with a success story! Thanks again for all the well wishes and following along! Until next hunt, John

After 2 years of preparation everything came together to harvest the ram of a lifetime in Alaska an 11 year old monarch! Hardest hunt I have ever done both physically and mentally. My pack was 60 lbs for the first 6 days sleeping bivvy style wherever we ended up each night. Out of 9 days it rained, sleeted, or snowed 6 of them. Ram down morning of day 7 and my pack went to 100+ pounds hiking 27 hours over 3 days to get out of the mountains. Truly an incredible adventure!

I had some good luck on the early archery tag. Killed this bull opening morning at around 11am. He was the main bull we heard bugling and that turned out to be his downfall. My cousin - who also had a tag - was able to get a good chunk of time off work so he was out scouting 4 days before the hunt started. He saw this bull every single day prior to the hunt. I made it up late Wednesday and scouted with him on Thursday... and again, saw this bull and his cows in the morning and in the evening. Bugling as well. We saw another 10 bulls or so in this same drainage so we figured we'd start there opening day and give them heck. We hiked into the area in the morning and we were able to chase some bugles, but they weren't as vocal as they had been the couple of days prior. We ran into a good group of elk, but they spooked and we thought we might have boogered everything up too bad for the afternoon. My dad and uncle were on a ridge glassing above us and could hear elk below them bugling every so often - even after the bigger group spooked. For some reason - even though we were pretty close - we couldn't hear the bugles. The ridge we needed to climb was pretty steep and thick with overgrowth so I wasn't thrilled about the hike to get up it, but we sucked it up and made the short, but steep, hike. We finally got up to the same elevation as the elk and spotted them about 250 yards away. I saw a group of cows and had a feeling we were on the same bull we had seen all week prior. Sure enough it was him. We watched from a distance as he ran off a couple of raghorns that were nearby. He was one of the few bulls that seemed to be ready to rut. We continued working in closer, but didn't feel like we would have the shooting lanes available if we kept stalking straight at them. We were in some thick cover. At this point, the elk had been milling around in the same small area for more than an hour. We backed out and looped around to get on top of them. For the most part, the wind cooperated. It started to swirl a bit as we got close to the elk. They were in a thick stand of aspens and the cows knew something was up. They weren't quite sure where we were though, because the vegetation was so thick. They first trotted one way and then back another way. We could see them in the aspens less than 20 yards from us. The bull let's out a bugle to corral his cows and get everyone going the same direction. At that point my cousin gave a quick cow call and the elk stopped. I side stepped to an opening to my left and could see the cows going one by one up a trail into a small shooting window. Naturally, the bull was last. My cousin ranged the cows at 65 yards and I drew back. Right when the bull stepped out and showed his vitals, I shoot. Downhill, quartering away. I hit the spine and into his cavity. He was paralyzed. I quickly moved in closer and finished him off from 20 yards. (I would love to say that my first and only shot was the arrow shown in the picture - I'll be honest with you guys, but probably not my drinking buddies ) Needless to say, I am thrilled with this bull. Good mass, lots of character. It's also pretty cool that we were able to watch him for a few days in a row and put a plan together that got it done. This early archery elk stuff is awesome. Can't wait to do it again...... in twelve years.

So after chasing mule deer in Dec/Jan archery my wife decided she wanted to try her luck on a desert mule deer during the general hunt. We’ve chased these deer only during archery and had decided to keep tabs through the years. We finally felt we had a solid plan so off we went. We got to her u it the afternoon before and set up camp then went out to glass. On our way to our glassing spot we came across a groups of 4 bucks hanging out in the area we were goi g to focus on. We got up early Opening morning and my wife and son got ready and headed to the area we had chosen to be at sunrise. I went to the glassing spot. At about 0611 I glasses up a group of 5 bucks, one of which was a definite shooter. Once they had formulated and approach everything just worked out perfect. I was bummed I couldn’t be with her when she shot but having just had hernia surgery a week earlier I was relegated to glass duty. 312 yard offhand shot with her 300WSM and the rest is history. Super proud of her!

So the past year has been a real roller coaster. Last year my daughter was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and it has been super tough on my daughter and family in general. We struck out on all youth tags, but picked up a 3rd choice general hunt coues tag. I wasn't sure my daughter was ready or could handle the challenge. Long story short, I'd like to thank Kev for his help. He found this buck for us opening morning, in a location my daughter would be capable to make a decent shot, and we were able to make it happen. Seeing my daughter being herself again made this one of the most memorable hunts I'll have.

I haven’t shared a story in a while, been trying to find the time to write this one up and finally taking the time today. I didn’t draw a tag this year but my 2 youngest boys did. My 16 year old, Rusten found a spot he wanted to hunt and made a couple trips in there and scouted it pretty well. He found where we could get water and got a good lay of the the land but never found any big bucks. The first few days of the hunt we decided to go to an area we were already familiar with. After a pretty brutal hike we set up a quick camp and started glassing. We quickly found a cool 2x3 buck bedded at 600 yards but while we were trying to decide if one of the boys wanted to shoot him, he got up and disappeared into the brush. By then it was mid-day so we decided to drop into the canyon and filter some water to get us through the next couple days. After filling up we made our way back to our glassing point. At around 2pm, Rusten glassed up two bucks bedded at 800 yards. We took a good look at them and thought the bigger one might be close to 100”. My 14 year old Camm, decided he wanted to shoot the bigger of the two bucks so we made a plan. Rusten stayed on the hill while Camm and I moved closer. While we were getting into position the bucks got up and started feeding. We got to 415 yards and found a big boulder to get into a semi-prone position. He was able to make a great shot and put down his 3rd coues deer and his biggest buck yet at around 97”. By the time we got him broke down and back to camp it was 830 and we were pretty exhausted. We got Camm’s meat cooled off and hanging in the shade and we were back at it the next morning looking for a buck for Rusten. He had his sights set pretty high on an only shooting a big buck. He has been lucky enough to kill two bucks around the 100” mark already. One of them was on the same hill that camm just killed his buck on so we were hopeful of finding another good buck. Unfortunately, the next 2 days the wind picked up big time and we only turned up some small bucks and a bear. We decided to pack Camm’s deer out and move camp to the area Rusten scouted After a few hours at home we were back at it the next morning in a new area with high hopes Monday we found around 10 bucks, nothing big, but that evening we saw a couple that were too far out that looked promising. Tuesday morning we glassed close to camp at first light but by mid-day we were over were we saw the bucks the previous evening. We were on top of a the biggest hill in the area looking down into some shaded cuts. At around 2pm, I found a buck up feeding about 600 yards below us. As I was trying to point him out to the boys, he disappeared behind some trees. We were waiting for him to come out and another buck appears that was noticeably bigger. I wasn’t sure how big but I could see he had long beams and decent point length. Rusten decided pretty quickly he wanted to shoot him. Normally, I would help my boys find a place to shoot from and get the rifle set up for them but this time I just told Rusten to make it happen. We weren’t able to get any closer because of a big bluff below us so I gave him the dope for 613 yards and he knocked him down. I was pretty surprised when I walked up to him to see that he was a better buck than I thought. This is Rusten’s 5th coues deer and also his best at close 106” We were beyond blessed on this hunt. My boys impress me so much with their willingness to put in the hard work chasing these deer in the backcountry. We had a lot of laughs especially trying to stuff the 3 of us into a 2 man backpacking tent. Good memories for sure.

Have 3 tags for my kids. 2 in 5bsouth 1 in 6a. Bugles have shut off by 7am in both units. All the big herd bulls we are seeing have 20 to 40 cows with them. We got lucky with one small 6x6 so far that split from the herd bull and his cows and called him into 46yds and he made his arrow count on his 1st archery bull. Bull went 15yds and was down. 2 more tags to fill. Hopefully its kicks in a litter better. Good luck everyone

It's a story hard to write but my son killed his first bull after a whirlwind 6 days. He was very limited on time and it got the best of him but we had a great time and lots of memories made. Bull he passed after a tough day the day before. Bull that came in after he didn't have enough patience. This is the bull we were hunting but he had already shot another bull 5 minutes before. Having little experience and no time for a hunt really hurt him but in the end his goal was accomplished. He killed a bull, and we got to spend some good days hunting.

Had a chance to catch up to this tall goat. 16 6/8ths

Finally harvested one.

Wow! God is great! I am still in shock! I found this buck 4 days ago. The very brief encounter sparked my interest and I could not get him out of my head. I knew he was a good one and continued to look for him for next 4 days. Finally, I found him again, put a stalk on him, and got very luck considering the country was so thick. He was actually with 2 other bucks. I almost shot the wrong buck because the other one was a 105ish! I thought it was him at first. Don’t get me wrong, I would have been tickled with the 105, but then he stepped out from an oak and I realized I was on the wrong buck. It all happened so fast. I set my sight to 65 yards and made a great shot and he expired within 100 yards. I still can’t believe buckfever didn’t bite me, but I was very calm until I walked up on him! I didn’t realize how big he really was. He ended going 121 gross and 117 net.

Well both of my kids harvested their first elk last week. We were in screaming elk everyday. My daughter shot her elk opening day and my son on the forth day. Want to give some thanks to a family member and a good buddy for directing me to a few spots. Sorry for the sideways pic.

This year I drew a 7w Late bull tag for the second year in a row. Last year was my first ever bull hunt, and I was able to shoot a nice little 5x5 opening morning. Fast forward to this year's hunt. I went out scouting the weekend prior to the hunt with a buddy who had the late archery tag and was needing help as he was hunting solo. It was the last few days of his hunt and he'd been on several bulls during the week but just couldn't make it happen. I agreed to go out with him as I needed to get in some time locating bulls for my hunt. We went to a spot that I've hunted cows for the last 5 years and always been successful, and I usually see some smaller bulls in that area this time of year as well. As soon as it started getting light I had several small bulls in my new Swaros. (Just upgraded this year, will never go back what game changers!) They were grouped up with about 15 cows but he now had a spotter so he started in on his stalk. He had about 1500 yards to close to I proceeded to continue glassing some closer ridges and that's when I located 4 shooter bulls for my hunt. I didn't mention them to my buddy at first, as I was walking him in via texting. He was able to finally close the distance to about 50 yards when the two young bulls just decided to up and leave with good pace (not spooked). He was then gridlocked with the large group of cows and the stalk just didn't end up working out. I continued to watch the larger bulls on the closer ridge and they fed until dang near 10am before bedding. My buddy got back up to me and seemed a little defeated. Part of me didn't want to mention the big bulls I had located just 500 yards away from us in fears of them getting blown out by another unsuccessful stalk and me never seeing them again for my hunt the following week. Long story short I did the right thing and let him know about the other bulls I had found, and I was able to walk him into 38 yards before the bulls caught his wind and bolted off to the west. Well, there goes my hunt! My buddy was super grateful and excited about the opportunity to get in that close with such awesome creatures so it was worth it. Fast forward to my hunt. I went out the evening before opener to glass the same area. Never turned up my bulls but did locate a nice one up high on a mountain top about 1.5 miles away. High winds were expected the next day so I figured he'd drop down into the bowl on the south side and hangout there for the night. Went in opening morning and after hiking about 5 miles finally caught a small glimpse of the two bulls from the night before up on a ridge moving through the pines at 295 yards. Was never able to get a shot off and they disappeared into the abyss. The morning of day 2 I went out with my brother in law and decided to go back to where I had found bulls the week before. Right at first light I picked up the same 4 bulls we had bumped out a week prior, feeding down low in the cedars about 1200 yards out. 25 mph winds had them feeding for a short period before getting into the real thick stuff and losing sight of them. I didn't want to get down in there with them that morning with the winds being unpredictable in fear of blowing them out again. This would be the last time I'd see a shootable bull for 2.5 days. And after the weekend ended, I would be hunting elk solo for my first time ever. Monday I was by myself, and bumped out some cows and few spikes hiking into my spot. At this point, the mental games had begun to set it. It was 18 degrees with 30mph winds and only the mule deer and cow elk were up and moving. I glassed all day and never saw another bull. Tuesday morning rolls around and I didn't want to even get out of bed. I had already hiked nearly 45 miles in 5 days, and just felt defeated but something got me out of bed and back out to the same spot I'd been seeing elk consistently. I hiked up to the glassing point very carefully this time, and set up my tripod. As soon as glassing light was available to utilize, I found a lone cow wondering the flats. A quick pan up and down the cut she was feeding in revealed another shiny golden butt facing away feeding in a small old burn area. I patiently waited for this elk to lift its head and to my surprise I could see antlers! A quick scan with my rangefinder revealed a 980 yard shot. Not something I'm comfortable taking without a spotter or in high winds. I pulled up my maps to look for another high point I could get to and there was a another ridge just to my south that may or may not give me a better vantage point. I dropped my pack, and went in light with just my rifle, tripod and binos and hurried down the ridge I was on and over to the next one. I ended up coming to the edge of a rock bluff with a large dead pine tree laying perfectly across the top. I quickly pulled out my binos and scanned quickly to find the bull had actually fed even closer to where I had hiked over too. The rangefinder indicated a 459 yard shot and I quickly got my turrets adjusted and used the dead log as a rest in a seared position. The wind was in my face and sun at my back, so the bull had no idea I was there. I had buck fever like no other plus just having hiked 1/3 mile quickly I was shaking like a leaf on a tree. I called my nerves and waited for the bull to turn broadside and when he did I let one rip. I heard the thump and knew I had hit him, the bull did a 180 and ran about 60 yards before stopping again and giving me another broadside shot at 448 yards. Whack! I watched him take the bullet and the shock of it echo through his large body, but he didn't move and continued to stand there staring back at me. I loaded another round and sent one more down range. Another hit, this time a fatal one. I watched him hunch up his back and take several steps down into a ravine before going out of sight. I took a minute to process everything before calling my wife to let her know i shot one. I decided to give him a little time so I hiked back up to the ridge I glassed him from to retrieve my pack. I marked his last known location to the best of my knowledge and after about 30 minutes decided to creep my way over. The ground was still frozen solid so there were no fresh tracks. I also couldn't find any blood anywhere and I began to doubt myself. I began just making circles larger and larger until I caught a wiff of him. I followed that scent right down to his body where he laid down in a juniper thicket not 15 yards from where my last shot had been taken. I called my brother in law up from Prescott to get help for the pack out and he was on his way in no time. By the time I was able to get my DIY photos and get him caped and quartered my brother in law showed up to help me get him out. After about 2 hours, we finally were able to get him back to the truck and off to the processor and taxidermist. What an awesome and rewarding hunt, just when I felt like throwing in the towel things worked out in my favor and one of the bulls made the mistake i needed so badly. Thankful to our lord and savior for this beautiful harvest that will feed my family for the year to come.

Was a tough hunt for us. We saw a total of one buck the entire hunt. I started this hunt with a target buck in mind that I got on cam last year, but not knowing if he was still alive this year, I wasn't overly optimistic about finding him. I didn't end up finding my target buck, but after hunting the entire hunt and not seeing a single buck I was definitely stoked to see this guy at first light this morning. My dad and I started out early and got onto a small hilltop in the dark. Right about first light spotted this guy. After the shot he ran and disappeared in some trees. Waited about a half hour to see if he might try to slip out and he never did. Feeling confident in my shot decided to go check things out. Getting close to the area he disappeared, he stands up , seeing only head and neck an off hand shot put him down.

Hit the lotto and I am a resident that drew 27/28 whitetail tag, my Jan and Feb will be busy.

Special thanks to @Crazymonkey for the giveaway. That shows tremendous generosity. This kid is a serious hunter, with 3 elk and 2 deer under his belt at the age of 14. He’s broken 25 straight on the trap field, and took second place at the Ben Avery trap shoot for sctp a couple months ago. He’s also teaching his hound to run lions, hopefully.

My brother and I were fortunate to call this dude in a few evenings ago. Targeting lions specifically. He came in on my side. 30 minutes on the nose. 4-5 year old, 6'7" at 81 yards ...

Spent the last few days up north chasing bugles. I’ve killed a bull before with a rifle and killed a cow with a bow so not necessarily a stranger to elk hunting but far from seasoned. Lots of failed attempts, long hours sitting trails, miles walked. In the end it came down to me and an ancient bull mixing it up one on one in the timber. Our paths so happened to cross and a single arrow put him down quickly. I believe he will easily qualify for P&Y, making him the first “book” animal I’ve ever taken. Couldn’t be happier with how everything turned out! Side note - I knew he was “old” but after getting a look at his teeth I was hoping maybe someone with more experience could chime in with an age estimate!

Ram mount all finished and home. Wanted to share the final product. Enjoy. Good luck to all tag holders this year . Hope your out scouting now to find that trophy of a lifetime

My daughters late hunt.