My hunting partner and I have been exceptionally lucky in the Arizona elk draws, but haven't been so lucky when it came to actually shooting the bulls we scouted. Dealing with lots of hunters had finally taken its toll on our hunting plans, last season he, his father and I all drew tags, and spent an entire season spotting and stalking bulls, it felt more like an archery deer hunt than an elk hunt, fun, but tough hunting all the way around.
Now I have to preface this story with the fact that all of us have significant hunting experience and have all killed good bulls, all through hard hunting.
This season, I decided to sign up for 18 credit hours at school. Most of these classes are in finance, so they're a bit more than a smidge over my head. I knew that I had to make my hunt happen as fast as possible to prevent a total failure of a semester, so I went in with the simple goal of shooting a bull. For the first time in my career, I wasn't trying to raise the bar; in all reality, I had set my sights lower than ever.
Day one was tough, running into a few other hunters in the field and not hearing my first bugle until near dark. I managed to see a couple small bulls, but was far from in position to get the job done.
On the second morning, I put a few miles on the Ford, hearing bulls at pretty much every stop. After making a big loop I picked a spot that was fairly close to town and the highway, so all the other hunters were driving right past it. I was pretty sure this would make for a good morning hunt, as I watched a decent bull trying to tend a cow in the middle of the road.
I bailed out of the truck and got right in on a bull, that lead me into several other elk. The first part of this morning was surprisingly busy, all I could do was try to sneak from one group to the next to see if I could get a sot on the bull. The end result was no, I couldn't poke a hole in any of the bulls I saw, or even get into range. But I remember thinking to myself on the way back to camp that it had been the most entertaining morning of elk hunting I could remember.
I rolled into camp fairly early, it just so happened that the show ended a little early where I was hunting. I figured I would take care of some chores around camp and get a fire started to enjoy a little morning coffee. Michelle, my hunting partner Jason's wife offered to put a pot on. All in all the day was starting off pretty good.
While I heard bugling from camp for the first ten minutes I was there, I couldn't let myself believe it was a bull. We had been surrounded by other camps, and I figured somebody was making noise from their camp. Then he starting chuckling, the sound was too "elky" so I grabbed my bow and took off at a trot.
The stalk took close to fifteen minutes. I stopped to check my wind when I realized there were two bulls firing off at one another, and one was right next to me. He started making a rub and I decided I would try to sneak in for a shot.
My attempted stalk lasted about three steps, he had started walking my way! Hearing his hooves hit the ground I backed into some shade and let him come in.
The bull came in to about 18 yards, bugled then turned for an opening in the trees, stopped to listen to the other bull, and I shot. I was less than a half mile from camp, after my morning hunt had ended and had just managed to shoot a bull.
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