We had been buying points in AZ for about 8 years and decided to actually apply for tags this year. He was supposed to apply for September archery bull elk in a couple primo prime time units.
I made some contacts with Bowsiters who had hunted there before. Thanks a million to the guys I talked to and to others who have posted stories over the years. It’s unbelievable how beneficial this site and members are for rookie elk hunters. I’m leaving the unit number out of this story, but plan to help anyone asking about this unit in the future.
As we’re getting camp set up, I stroll around a bit and find some fresh rubs nearby. Every so often we look at each other with a “did you hear that?” Are we just imagining bugles or are we actually hearing them? Once we settled down and listened, we could definitely hear bugles…wow. This elk hunt is starting off a little bit different than our previous hunts in CO OTC and WY.
At this point, we’re not sure what to do. We feel like lazy road hunters just driving around. But when we get out to hike, we bump into elk. And bumping elk before the season opens in two days doesn’t feel like a great idea. Currently used roads, or old, overgrown roads, lead us anywhere we could want to go, whether we are driving or on foot.
In the evening, we drove over to glass an area about 45 minutes from camp. Windows down, cruising the gravel road…ppppssshhhhhhhhh…flat tire! YES! Saw that coming from day 1. We changed the tire and came up with a plan to drive to town in the morning to get the tire fixed, or possibly buy 4 new tires. Flats were bound to happen again considering the roads and our current tires. The last thing we wanted with the clock ticking on this elk tag was a flat tire.
As the sun got lower in the sky and the shadows started reaching across the drainage, a bull started bugling in the timber. Then, some cows started mewing up behind us on the side of the canyon. The bull came out of the timber and had a 300ish 6x6 rack on his head. He raked some trees, moseyed around, and ripped off bugles for about 15-20 minutes. The cows behind us kept talking to him. Pretty soon, they had him convinced to come take a look. Since we were in between them, he b-lined it straight for us and ended up getting about 50 yards away before two guys standing next to their truck (us) spooked him.
HDecker's Link
Thursday morning, we didn’t want to chance any driving around without a spare tire before heading to town. We decided to just see what the action was like around camp. The bulls didn’t disappoint, and we closed in on some bugles to the south. There were at least 3 bulls going nuts and we heard some serious fighting. But, we were in sight of some cows on the fringe of the herd, so we hung back playing it safe and never got our eyes on the bulls. Back to camp we went.
He had an elk tag last year and had lots of stories. He gave us a ton of advice and spots to check out. He even sent us to his secret spot for the afternoon to scout. It turned out being so secret that the elk didn’t even know about it. Reminded me of the “9th green at nine…secret of the pros” routine. Oh well.
That being said, at this point we sure aren’t seeing the trophy quality that we anticipated Arizona would have. We tell ourselves that “it’s still a little early yet”, and maybe the big boys are hanging by themselves while letting the smaller bulls mingle with the cows right now. Plus, we haven’t actually hunted yet and are staying close to the roads. Deep breath.
That night, we glassed the meadow next to camp and out came a 320ish 6x6 with 30 cows. He was bugling and pushing cows around. He put on a great show and I got some good pics and vids of him through the spotting scope. He is right on the minimum line of what we thought we should attempt to shoot on this trip.
HDecker's Link
I hope to have an AZ elk tag this Friday!!
They'll start hitting cards on Friday. Looking forward to the rest of the story!
Up behind camp, the hillside was covered in tiny, thick aspens growing after the burn a few years ago. They were anywhere from 5 to 12 feet tall. Two hunters bumbling through them in the dark shut the elk down real quick. Nice start to the season.
It was still pretty dark, so we decided to head across the meadow to get close to where we saw the 6x6 from last night. Maybe he would have some bigger buddies in the area. No need to take the long way around. It’s still kinda dark. We’ll just charge across the meadow and get into position. We get about halfway across, and of course, the elk were still out in the open. The whole herd was in a slight depression in the meadow that we couldn’t see until we got right up on them. We laid down and crawled a bit closer to watch.
We got into the timber and crept within about 200 yards of the herd. It was too open to make a move, so we just hung out and watched. The bull was running around bugling while the cows just mingled, grazed and bedded. There was also another bugling bull nearby that we hadn’t got our eyes on yet.
After hanging out for about an hour and wondering what real elk killers would do to kill an elk in this situation, the elk all jumped up and ran off. Huh. The wind was fine and the bulls were still bugling, so we took off after them.
I could see elk moving around and getting close to where I thought my brother was. Some ran off, but some continued to mill around. The bugling bulls were still close, so I kept bugling over the top and raked on a tree. Pretty soon, I saw the 6x6 that we had been following around. He was only 50 yards from me and was walking along broadside. The only problem was that he was on the opposite side of me as my brother. He was trying to get an eye on me and get down wind. I shifted around in the trees so he couldn’t get a good look at me.
I took my focus off him since he was seconds from being straight downwind and I continued cutting off another bull that kept bugling. He had to be real confused at this point! I saw my brother make a move and scurry forward another 50 yards. Then, I saw an elk appear out in front of him on a hillside. He drew his bow but the elk moved off behind some trees.
After that, the action just kind of fizzled out and the elk moved off. Obviously human scent and the shifty wind was a major problem. Not to mention the guy in camo making elk sounds and poorly hiding from the elk behind sparse trees.
The area we were in was an extremely well-used bedding area with trails and beds just carved into the hillside of a bowl. It was perfect for the elk to be in and be able to see or smell danger from any direction with the swirling winds. The churned up soil from all the elk activity reminded me of soft, airy Miracle Gro garden soil you would buy from a store. It just reeked of elk in there! We went back to camp and regrouped.
The plan was to sneak as close as possible and then rip off a bugle over the top of him when he bugled. There is no way he wouldn’t charge right through the little aspens and end up in our lap. My brother would have to stab him with his arrow in self-defense!
We snaked our way about halfway up the hillside and came to somewhat of a clearing in the aspens with a few 30 yard openings for shooting lanes…perfect. We estimated we were about 60-70 yards from the bull. I backed off, waited for him to bugle again, then hit him with big, nasty challenge… silence… He ended up bugling a few more times and I bugled over the top of him a few more times, but it was generally uneventful other than that. It sounded like he moved off and went around to the other side of the little hill he calls home.
It was slow going in the dark, so we hung out and waited for it to get light enough to move through the woods without needing headlamps. A couple vehicles drove in past our truck. Great…opening Saturday of the season… We started closing in on the elk as they moved from the meadow they were in toward their bedding area. We trailed along for about a mile until they really picked up the pace and moved off, leaving us in the dust. We weren’t sure what happened to make them zing off so fast.
They sounded like they went around the end of a long finger ridge, so we went up and over the top to try to cut them off or get a location on them again. When we got to the top, we could hear some bugling. It was actually getting closer to us, and then even closer to us, and pretty soon there were elk charging us!
They were obviously moving from getting bumped by hunters. They filed past us at 20 yards. A bigger, nastier sounding bugle was trailing behind them and approaching us on the same path. Here we go! We were in perfect position and ready to ding him. We waited, and waited, and waited, but no big elk rack appeared. For some reason, he peeled off from the trail they had just taken and stayed out of sight just below the ridge from us…dang!
We kept going the direction of some more bugles and ran into a couple hunters doing the same thing. We turned 90 degrees, hiked about 100 yards and ran into a couple more hunters. We decided to head back toward the truck. On our way back, we veered toward a distant bugle. We hiked fast for a hundred yards, then listened. Then hiked fast, then listened. We were starting to get somewhat close to the bull and were listening for the next bugle. My brother looked back at me and pointed up ahead. I scanned in the direction he pointed, looking for an elk, of course. But there was another hunter, crouched down behind a tree about 50 yards ahead of us.
We made it to the truck and peeled off some clothes. We could hear another bugle below us, so we took off after it. We were moving down an open, previously burnt hill side toward the bottom of a drainage. The bull was bugling on the other side of the drainage in thick, unburnt timber. After getting within 150 yards or so, his less and less frequent bugles finally shut down for good. We sat down, ate and relaxed. No more action came from him and no moves we thought would be good ideas popped into our brains. So we headed back to the truck.
We headed down to the area where we had seen the mud-covered 7x7 when scouting. We walked in toward a big stock dam on the map where multiple drainages converged. The woods consisted of mature pines with very little understory. It was open and we could see a long ways ahead. We started running into fresh rubs here and there on the few smaller pines we came across. We sat down overlooking the stock dam and soon some bugles fired up in the distance.
We took off after them and eventually saw a smallish bull cruising up ahead of us. Then we saw a decent 6x6 that was moving fast and may have been bumped by us. We kept going after the bugles and finally caught up to a 300ish 6x6 that was running some cows and bugling a lot. The elk were on the edge of some burnt timber next to a wide open drainage. After watching him do his thing for a while and realizing he was not what we were looking for, we decided to move on and go after other bugles.
We kept hiking and saw a lot of elk as it was getting dark…nothing too big though. But, there were a lot of elk bugling that we didn’t get our eyes on. Elk were everywhere around us, but everything appeared to be moving away from us and nothing was lining up. This area seemed like a great place to come tomorrow morning since there were so many elk and apparently not many other hunters.
We sped down the road about a mile to get a good crosswind on the elk gymnasium. It worked well and we were soon barreling toward all the action on foot. It got light enough to see up ahead and we noticed a big bull raking a tree about 400 yards in front of us through the open timber. We moved quickly and spotted him again in the middle of an open drainage raking and pawing the swampy grass and mud. Somehow, he looked up and spotted us too. We’re not that sneaky, but, it was BS that he spotted us. He was a big 7x7 and was not interested in hanging around to figure out what we were. He trotted off up the hill and into the timber. You guys know the trot I’m talking about.
We kept moving toward all the bugling. They were just bugling like maniacs! We covered ground fast and eventually got to a spot where the elk were CLOSE but just over the top of a finger ridge from us.
We saw a big 6x6 rack coming over the ridge. He was a definite stud, in the 340s. He was bugling along as he grazed, all the while getting closer and closer to us. My brother and I were both kneeling in the thin cover of grass, standing trees and burnt logs. He had his bow ready, arrow nocked, release clipped. I was ranging the bull. 90yds, 75yds, 50yds, 40yds… Then, the bull picked his head up from grazing and his eyes locked right on us. Come on! We’re wearing high-end camo and everything!
He didn’t like what he saw and was ready to leave. He turned to trot off while my brother drew at the same time. I cow called to stop him. He stopped, quartering away at 45yards. I’d love to describe the arrow sailing through the air at this point. But, there was a branch sticking up from a burnt log that covered his vitals…no shot…dang! He barked and took off back to the herd.
Very well told so far.
HDecker's Link
Now we were in the middle of the elk-filled gymnasium. They kept working up the other side of the ridge and we kept shadowing. We were just cruising along, paying no attention to the small bulls and spikes, and bumping them left and right as we followed the herd. Although, the big 6x6 obviously kept an eye out for us and took off for good when he saw us a few minutes later.
The elk slowed down and we were at a standstill within 80 yards of the herd bull. Up to this point, we had somehow managed to avoid getting our eyes on him yet. He was at our 12 o’clock with a few cows and we were also fairly close to a 7x7 bull at our 3 o’clock. The 7x7 looked like the mud-covered one we saw while scouting. We were in the middle of a lot of action and just needed something to come our way.
Considering the 7x7 and big 6x6 were apparently satellite bulls, this herd bull had to be a giant. We finally got our eyes on him as he pushed a cow back and forth. He was a 310ish 5x5! I guess he was just meaner or craftier, or both, than the others.
Then, some cows ran spooked from upwind of us to downwind of us. The 7x7 near them moved off quickly and quit bugling. Uh oh…here come some more hunters. Sure enough, we see a hunter walking along up the hill from us, and another hunter walking along down the hill from us. Since we had seen the herd bull and didn’t want him, the big 6x6 was gone, the 7x7 had taken off, and two more hunters were now on this herd, we decided to back out.
We went back to the truck and got the stand. We hiked in and put it up next to one of the wallows, then headed back to camp. That afternoon, we checked out a rugged, somewhat roadless area north of camp. Considering all the elk in easy terrain with roads all over, this area should be loaded with unpressured herds acting similar to the elk in National Parks. We heard a couple faint bugles, but it was mostly a deadzone. After running into some other hunters, and not seeing any elk, our options for this evening hunt looked bleak. We headed back to camp for dinner.
Back at camp, our pet elk came out into the meadow just before dark. We got our eyes on the bull running the show and it was a 320-330 6x6 that we hadn’t seen yet. He headed straight down to the water tank to get a drink when they first came out, just like that other 6x6 had opening morning. We need to get a little ground spot set up there!
The elk dinked around in the meadow while we grilled burgers. Light started to fade as the sun set, our camp light on. I can only imagine the elk enjoyed the smell of sizzling beef on the grill as the smoke rolled across the meadow. Then, we hear a cow call about 100 yards down the road. It was clearly a hunter and he persistently called to the elk for a good 15 minutes as shooting light faded into dark.
As soon as we could see, we started racing down the trail to get a good crosswind on all the bugling elk. We had to go with the wind, perpendicular to the direction we wanted to go, for about half a mile before it was right.
Once we got down to the meadows, we spotted a bull cruising along bugling. He looked like a good one and we kept moving along shadowing him. We got to a point where he was moving up an open drainage and we were within a hundred yards or so. He was a good looking 6x7. Since he was by himself, and typically bull elk like cow elk during the elk rut, we decided to cow call. I dropped back down into a slight drainage and my brother crept forward to the top of a little ridge overlooking the bull. I cow called and watched my brother’s body language. I expected him to move in slow increments, like a praying mantis readying for a kill as the unsuspecting prey approached. Instead, he looked back, shook his head “no”, and then waved at me to come up there...
It was too open to move any further, so we just sat and waited for the elk to keep moving. I got my binos on the bulls over there and the big dog was the big 7x7 that busted us early yesterday morning. Man, he was BIG. Yesterday he was alone. Today he had 25 cows with him. The other bull with the herd was a good looking 6x6.
We sat there and watched the elk mosey around in the timber and graze. The bulls were bugling every so often. The 6x6 moved up into the timber away from the herd and the big 7x7 started pushing the cows our direction. They slowly grazed across the drainage and eventually started filtering up into the trees in front of us.
As they approached, my brother slowly shifted into position to get ready for a shot if they came through. I laid down as flat as I could on my belly in the grass, but got the rangefinder next to my eye so I could range without movement as the elk strolled by.
The cows started feeding through the trees in front of us, spread out 50-90 yards away. I thought for sure the wind would swirl or another hunter would mess the situation up. The bull was taking forever in bringing up the rear of the herd. I peeked up to see where he was. He was out in the open drainage still…and was working the opposite direction. I realized what he was doing when he cranked a bugle and rounded up a couple calves that had strayed from the herd. They ran back to their mamas and he was trailing close behind…
The herd ran off for good shortly after they disappeared into the timber. We looked at each other and couldn’t believe what just happened. There was some loud bugling with the herd as they left, which seemed like it could have been the bull we just shot. But, we remembered that the 6x6 from earlier had moved up into the timber in that area. Hopefully that was him expressing his good fortune of watching his buddy tip over dead and 25 cows suddenly falling into his lap.
We decided to wait an hour before looking for the arrow and then we would wait another hour before looking for the bull. Bulls were still ripping across the drainage.
We sat and talked about the shot. I felt sick, but my brother was more optimistic and was sure the arrow hit perfect, penetrated all the way through and dinged off the opposite shoulder. After an hour, we walked up and found the arrow. The last 4 inches of the arrow were broken off, along with the broadhead obviously. There was also about 18 inches of blood up the shaft. Things were looking good and it seemed like my bro’s assessment was right. We expected the bull to be dead not too far up ahead.
We had worked up one side of the finger ridge. Now we would work back down the other side toward where we had last seen the bull and herd of cows. We continued to stroll along, looking and glassing ahead. We made it all the way back to the point where we initially started looking for the bull. I looked up ahead and there he was… Before saying anything or reacting, I brought up my binoculars and confirmed that it was him and my mind wasn’t turning a fallen tree branch into an elk antler. Yep…dead bull. I yelled “HEY” to my brother and motioned for him to come my way. Up to this point during the search, neither of us had made a sound. He knows I like to be a jackass at times, but this was no time for a joke. He trotted down and looked up ahead where I was pointing. From there, it was a speed walk over to his bull.
As for the shot; it went behind the close shoulder and was a tad high. The arrow entered, passed through both lungs, broke through the far scapula and the broadhead stopped in the hide. The four inch business end of the arrow was still lodged in the bone. The far shoulder had snapped the arrow shaft when the bull took off to run, which explains why the tail end of the arrow fell out so easily. We also found a smashed 50 caliber bullet in a healed wound. It met its match when it connected with the bull’s shoulder in a past hunting season. I wonder how that guy’s story goes.
We drove by a fifth-wheel camper that was set up near this hotspot. I have to imagine they wore ear muffs at night in order to sleep. A lady was out tending camp and flagged us down. Turns out she was just waving. But, you know how you feel when you have a big rack in the back of your truck or catch your limit of fish...you don’t take the backroads home. She checked out the rack and told us her husband and crew were out hunting right now. We chit-chatted a bit and said our farewells. As we drove away she yelled, “Congratulations you mighty hunters!!!” haha
As we approached camp in the pickup, we saw headlamps up ahead. There were four hunters walking along the trail. It was now about an hour after shooting time. Since it’s difficult to get more than about a quarter mile from any road, this seemed odd that they weren’t back at their pickup yet. We talked to them and they sure were flustered, but excited at the same time. They had a wild day of elk rut action and close calls. We ended up giving them a ride to their truck about another mile away.
HDecker's Link
Cheers!
You mentioned 8 years of waiting, do you know if your brother drew in the bonus pass or did he get lucky and get one in the random side of the draw?
Thanks for taking us along
Congrats
Good luck, Robb
Damn nice Bull.
Best of Luck, Jeff
--Mitch
He shoots a carbon Hoyt with 80lb limbs, 31 inch draw, easton axis arrows and 125 grain rocket steelheads. He shot a mule deer later that fall with the same setup and it did some serious damage.
And, congrats on getting the bull cut up/cooled quickly once you found it. I have seen too many on TV where the picture taking was more important than the meat. You have the right priorities.
