Friday evening we pushed farther around the mountain to try our luck at another hot spot, and it didn't take long to get into the elk. I stalked in on a group of 30-40 elk and had a cow come into 20 yards, but she was facing me the whole time. Finally her calf got excited about ran me over and they all spooked. Luckily they didn't spook hard and I had the opportunity to stalk back in on them again. Unfortunately this time they were on a little higher alert and by the time I got close enough to see them it was too late, I was busted again. By this time the weather was starting to get bad again, and some nasty storms we're closing in fast. For the next hour I was forced into the trees to hide from the lighting and hail.
Morning came and although we'd seen a lot of elk the night before we were a little reluctant to head back to the same spot. A Saturday in this canyon almost guarantees you'll run into a few other hunters. Sure enough we did, and there ended up being a lot more of them then we thought. Ughh! What I would give at this point to have our secret little honey hole back in action. But even though, it didn't take me long to remind myself to be grateful, cause I'm still doing something I love and look forward to the whole year long. We spend the majority of the morning on top of a ridge watching a group of elk feed about a mile away. Knowing it was probably too far down and out of the way to try to hunt them we stuck it out on the ridge and just had fun watching.
Around noon as we were watching these elk get up and start to move again we noticed there was a nice bull among them. Knowing that my uncle was sitting in his tree stand 3-4 miles away and within radio reach we decided to wake him up and get him in on this bull. It might have been a long haul out of there, but it would have been worth it for this bull. He was, at first a really big 6x6, but as he fed out in the openings we noticed that he had 2 inch cheaters on each side. This bull was really nice, and a lot bigger than the bulls we usually see in the area. We spent the next few hours working Marvin into the saddle on top of this bull, hoping that with any luck these elk will feed that direction. From about 3 to 7 there wasn't much action at all, they bedded back down and just out of reach. This bull was hanging onto about 40 cows and calves, and although he showed the other small bulls that were lingering around that he was boss, he just wasn't interested in anything outside his herd. There wasn't much chance of getting in close enough to lob an arrow his direction, but just after the sun went down Marvin eased his was down the mountain to see if he could luck out before it was too late. The elk at this point were out feeding again, but because there were so many he ended up alerting the cows long before he got close enough to the bull.
No kill success stories this weekend, but overall we had a really fun time, and if nothing else we have a great bull to keep our eyes on. Here's to hoping the elk are rutting up by next weekend and my camera's shows a little more potential. I'd love to shoot one out of that hole. Anywhere really, but there's just something about hunting that mountain.
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