rambler7 Report post Posted September 28, 2011 So I am just reeling a little from my bull hunt this year and wanted to share for anyone who cares to read it.. I scouted/deer hunted a week in advance and saw a few decent bulls in the unit. They were scattered with some up high and others down in the flats, nothing to really pattern them by. Once the 9th came around there were no bugles and not many cows to find. I hunted hard till the 21st before I finally decided to throw the towel in. I got into a fair amount of elk but it was extremely hard to figure out what exactly they were doing. One day they would bugle like crazy in the am and the next day nothing. They had plently of water and food so I never say anything at the tanks. A few wallows but nothing to talk about. The elk seemed to be hanging out in the extreme burn areas where the grass was tall and green, all of this area was closed to hunting. The fact that most of the roads were closed off to motorized vehicles didnt help much either. If you wanted to get in deep you had to walk 6 miles in which I did almost every day. Anyone else have these frustrations? Just upset since I waited 8 years for the tag (most waited much longer) and had very limited success. I would love to hear others stories. BTW I hunted the northern part of the unit.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CouesWhitetail Report post Posted September 28, 2011 I had much the same experience in 27. Due to all the closures, hunters were highly concentrated in open areas. Scott said it's the worst he had seen it ever up there (in terms of hunter density). The closures seemed to really make it so hunters had to be in the same areas. We did some long hikes and most everyday we ran into other hunters, which is really unusual for me and Scott. We had the same experience with elk screaming hard one day and then not a peep the next. The last morning of the hunt, I checked miles of country and barely heard a bugle, it got frustrating at times. But I had a plenty of oppportunity to take a decent bull....I just passed on those in hopes of a monster, which I never got. I had several times where we were following bulls for quite a ways only to have them beat us to the closed areas, so we turned back. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
double lunger14 Report post Posted September 28, 2011 haha we were all in the same boat :/ . By far the hardest hunt ive ever been on. My dad and i got up a week early too and scouted. Saw some decent bulls nothing to big. One day elk were screaming the next it would seem like elk didnt even live in the area.... I wanted to throw in the towel after about a week of nothing but hard hunting. My dad told me i couldnt give up that easy. It would make me so angry that i would work my butt off to intercept a bull to have other hunters start blowing calls and scare the bull off. idk if you guys had the same experience with calling but calling did nothing, if anything it had the oppisit effect and made the elk run away. I spent the 1st week inbetween middle mountain road and road 26 (along with about 50 other hunters)..... I did however find a nice bull that was pry 375 range but never did get a shot at him. My brother took a nice 5x5 in their. What we noticed was all the elk got presseurd and went over middle mountain road into the cambell blue area... (which was closed i think)... I never ended up getting a bull but i had a chance and just flat out missed so no one to blame but myself. My dad ended up getting a nice 7x7 so that was cool. Ide say we did pretty well filling 2/3 tags. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
200"mulie Report post Posted September 28, 2011 To bad.....that fire really put a toll on everything. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sjvcon Report post Posted September 28, 2011 Sorry to hear that for you Elk hunters. That used to be such a fantastic unit. My buddy and I put our 4 boys in for Jr. Deer in that area and they got drawn. We are headed up there next week. We were wondering what the roads/camping areas are like up high. We used to camp on the forest roads about a mile south of Alpine, but I think those were pretty hard hit. We were considering dropping down to the 4 Bar Mesa, Juan Miller Road area to get out of that, but it is pretty warm down there still. We'd rather be up high if the roads and camping are okay. Anyone have any suggestions? We'd sure like for the boys to have a fun hunt ... cooler is funner. Any tips we could get on what the conditions are would be great. Sorry again that your hunts weren't what they would have been a year ago. Makes you wanna get your hands on the Wallow Fire guys for sure. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
200"mulie Report post Posted September 30, 2011 Hope the recovery is fast...if not some areas can be closed up to 5 years. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
