Today was a great day, I got to hear my first bugle of the 2011 year. There is nothing better to hear in the early morning dawn than a elk bugling with the sounds echoing through the canyons for miles. Scouting this morning only brings back memories of whats to come in the next 45 days. BRING IT ON...
Here are a couple pictures of some of the cow elk I saw today. It was like I was in Alaska glassing the Caribou migration. I saw over 150 cow elk in one little area, bring on the rut and lets see what type of Bull Elk move in to take over a share of this huge group. Stay tuned and I will keep you posted on the scouting efforts. I hope you do realize if and when I find a real monster you wont see anything on it until we kill it or the hunt ends, SORRY..
Here is the video of the morning. Turn up the volume after I talk and listen to these elk cow calling and a couple bugles even.
Skyler has success! With 15 any elk tags and 60 cow elk tags on a hunt with very limited number of elk it make for some tough hunting. After 4 straight weeks of scouting and 3.5 hours in the air flying the unit we had determined there were four shooters (Skyler's standards 320+ and no he has never killed an elk before, yes he is very picky). Opening morning had us 850 yards from a group of 10 bulls with one "shooter" before the wind changed direction and they were off running. Three miles later they crossed the highway into a part of the unit that we could not hunt. Day two and three went by without even seeing an elk. The morning of day four found us tracking a group of elk in the soft sand for over 3.5 hours in the dense tree cover in hopes of finally completing the task at hand. After bumping the group from there first bedding spot with out a shot the trek was back on. Approx. 1.5 miles later we came around the corner of a cedar tree and I hear Skyler say "there he is under that tree". Yes the "shooter" was bedded only 150 yards from us looking the opposite direction. After an awesome shot with no coaching from dad the journey was complete.
Here are a couple pictures of the awesome velvet bull elk Skyler took.
There is an extremely hard hunt. They don't call it limited opportunity for no reason. We talked to over 20 different hunts that had not seen an elk in three days. Today is the last day of the hunt and I have only heard of two bulls and two cows killed.
Here is a short clip of Skyler's hunt with the kill shot, walking up to the elk and the interview is on a different camera. I will post the entire hunt video when it is completed later. Thanks to Jed Larson for getting the kill shot on tape. He did not have time to zoom in on the bull before Skyler put the hammer down. Congrats Skyler that's an awesome elk for a 12 year old.
The Antelope here is one of many Antelope we have been seeing lately looking for some quality bucks in numerous units through out the White Mountains area. Theses units are not usually known for producing large bucks. This buck has just awesome prongs. We have killed a net 90 and 85 inch antelope in unit 10 the past two years but with elk tags we are going to have to stay closer to home this year. It looks like we will still kill a buck in the mid 80's even staying on this side of the state.
