Late Season Success - Brothers Big Fall

[CouesPursuit]

As usual, I put some detail in the write ups of my hunts, this one's no different, a warning that it's a little bit of a read.

 

Just over a month before this hunt, my brother and our good buddy took a couple spike coues bucks in the first hour of opening morning. For both of them, it was their first big game animal. It was a great experience and to say the least, 2 new hunters were born.

 

http://www.coueswhitetail.com/forums/topic/61340-in-camp-drinking-beer-right-now/

 

Again, new to hunting, and with just the 1 purchased point, my brother also drew for late rifle bull. After a great Thanksgiving day and feast with the family, we headed up to camp and got in the right mindset for the hunt. I had prepared 4 maps for 4 days of hunting. Each hunting area offered something unique to one another, 2 were areas I was very familiar with from my previous late archery hunts, and 2 were new areas more situated for rifle hunting that we scouted the week before.

 

Day 1, we elected to still hunt our way down a narrow ridge and into a joining of 3 gentle drainages. At first light, we began our decent and immediately spotted a dozen mule deer. Within a half hour and quarter mile down the ridge, we had a decent bull and cows feeding at about a mile away. On our way to get a closer look, more cows appeared in a drainage to the west. Smelling elk everywhere around us, we held tight in the thicker timber, eventually getting into a spike and raghorn at 200 yards. We passed as we agreed we wouldn't be shooting spikes on opening day again, and worked our way back out of the area, checking both sides of the ridge to no avail in finding a shooter. It was a little too thick for what we were looking for down where the elk were and there was also a hound dog in one of the drainages howling for an hour or two. The spot was worth checking out but we needed to move on.

 

 

Day 2, I told my brother I knew where elk were abundant and hunters were usually absent, and that it wasn't easy to get in and out, but it should be worth it. It didn't take much to convince him, and there we went. The first 10 minutes proved the not easy to get in part. We had to find a way to cross flowing water from the snowmelt. We stacked up logs and rocks, and watched them freeze during the build.

 

 

It was frustrating for sure, wasting over an hour to finally get across, and not being in our glassing spot at first light. Aside from sweating far more than we wanted to, no real harm was done, and we ended up laughing about it as we climbed the mountain. The area looked great just as I remembered it, the mule deer started popping up immediately. After an hour of skirting the mountain and glassing the hillsides, I was amazed we hadn't seen elk yet. I kept reassuring, "there are elk here, we'll find 'em!" A few minutes later, the smell was back, and we found ourselves standing in fresh turds on the hillside. A few more later, and cows were spotted at 200 yards working slowly away.

 

 

3 cows turned into 10, 10 more farther up the hill made 20, more appeared from another direction, and 20 minutes later, we were somewhat pegged as the elk fed from our hillside straight across to the next. Eventually, we watched 30 or so cows, without a single spike, feed their way into their bedding area. We held tight and watched.

 

Within an hour, from a mile away comes 3 bulls, a spike, raghorn, and good looking 6x.

 

 

They bounced in and out of sight, I kept wanting them to bed but they just kept coming, and going, farther up the ridge and potentially over, then back down towards us, a total roller coaster. Finally, after watching them wake up several elk out of their beds on their journey, they made their way into the same bedding area as the 30 elk we were already watching. There had to be 50 elk now, half feeding, half bedded, and taking turns. There were 5 small bulls and the lone 6x. Luckily, we finally watched him bed down, at the outmost left side of the herd. 800 yards away clear across the canyon, we made our plan, the stalk was on.

 

Being that the elk could clearly see us across the mountain in open terrain, My brother and I walked straight back the way we came in, away from the herd to show them no sign of danger. Our best hunting buddy, Frank, along with his dad, stayed on the hillside to not further booger up the herd. As he watched through the binos, he told us that the elk were staring at us walking away, thankfully they just stared and did not leave, part one of the plan is working. Once we got out of sight, we immediately got down into the canyon, ran back up the creek bed, and maneuvered our way quietly up a draw with some post-burn jack pines in between. Knowing the bull we wanted was on the far left made for a perfect stalk on the way up, keeping the pines in the way of the herd and we frequently checked on the bull as we closed the distance to 259 yards. Bull still there, within easy shooting distance, part 2 of the plan was complete. We put the small pines on both sides of the bull. Only 1 cow out of 40+ was visible. The bull remained bedded behind a down pine, so we waited him out for almost an hour.

 

 

 

Finally, he stood, my brother was immediately ready and bang. The bull moved 10 feet over, another bang, the bull fell straight over sideways with his legs locked out. The 168gr Nosler ABLR performed flawlessly out of the 7mm RM, bull down!

 

 

The real work began, 3 trips up and down, 2 miles each way, 4 guys. The math equals 250 pounds of fantastic boned out elk meat. This was by far the most demanding pack out I've experienced.

 

 

Also the most processing I've endured. It's amazing the meals this fantastic bull will provide for our family and friends. Everything went to plan, going down as a Thanksgiving week to remember and a tough one to top. We are very thankful and blessed. Thanks for reading!

 

[cvw789]

Awesome job Congrats !

[cmbbulldog]

Great write-up, that's a good bull.

[Will K]

Very nice.

[justinspe25]

Congrats on a great bull!

[Mocha1545]

Great write up and great bull! He'll be totally addicted to hunting now!

[PelaPapas]

Wow! Very cool that your brother drew that tag! Congrats to him on the bull and big thumbs up to you for showing him the way! Very cool pics and write up!