Round 2, my cousins tag.....

stlhdr1 · 09-14-2008, 12:03 PM

Well we're headed out in the early AM to see if we can't capitalize with my cousins elk tag. The game plan is to head back into the hell hole I killed mine in, which is a monster canyon system with no access.... We will be setting a spike camp for 4 days and hunting from there all throughout the canyon system...

Hopefully things will come together for him too! We'll see what happens, I'll be back Thursday with a report assuming we don't kill one earlier!

With it being his first year too, maybe we'll get double lucky!

Keith

buckhunter · 09-14-2008, 03:22 PM

Hope he's as lucky as you. Heck, I hope I'm as lucky as you. Again, nice 1st bull. BH

stlhdr1 · 09-19-2008, 10:34 PM

Well what a fun 3 day hunt....

We managed to get into some action our first 2 days.

We started off the morning up the trail with our 55 pound packs and took our first break at about the first mile. We set up and did some cow calling and a few short bugles to no avail... Off we went up the ridge and decided to set up one more time about a 1/4 mile before our camp spot... We sat down took off our packs and I made a couple cow calls followed about a minute after with a short bugle.... As we sat there sweating our buns off we decided to pick up and head on... Right as I stood up I seen some movement off to my left which was a bull of some size ( I couldn't ID it) but at about 50 yards he spun and took off.... My first lesson on a bull coming in SILENT..........

Anyhow, we made it to camp set up, lightened our loads and headed out for our afternoon hunt with nothing too exciting except for some fresh elk beds within about 1/4 of a mile from where I killed my bull on the ridge... So after getting back to camp we planned our next morning hunt to drop back down into that hell hole I killed mine but to hunt the NE part of the ridge where it was a bit steeper and a swamp was about 1000 feet below... So as we made it to the top of the ridge and got a good understanding on the wind directions we dropped in and started side hilling for about a mile... As we approached within about 400 yards of the swamp my cousin stops us as he hears a branch break out ahead... We pulled in behind a couple of trees and sat and listened. About every 10-15 seconds you'd hear a branch break about 60 yards ahead of us but the furthest we could see was about 30 yards on the rangefinder.... Here's where it get's confusing. So the whole time the wind was in our favor and this "animal" was working it's way towards us as the sounds of the branches breaking were getting louder and louder over about a 10 minute period....

At that point it sounded about 35 to 40 yards away but we still couldn't see it... Then it makes this noise which sounded like a deep breath and a kind of a snort sound somebit similar to what a horse makes and then silence for about 5 minutes then we could hear the branches breaking as it was going away from us..... We still don't know what it was as the ground was too dry to ID any sort of tracks.... But we did find this about 80 yards up the ridge....

So my question is, what sort of animal makes that sound?? I questioned whether it was a bear or elk??

Second question is what different would a guy have done to change that situation? We hadn't bugled or cow called all the way down into there.

In one sense I'm bummed my cousin didn't get to kill a bull but in another sense I'm happy as hell he didn't kill a bull where we were at or I'd probably still be in the hospital after trying to get it out of there....

Keith

Myles · 09-20-2008, 07:28 AM

First off I don't think that with pads on their feet a bear would be that noisy. I had a similar situation my first year bow hunting, I heard "something" coming in, then a "harrumph" sound a couple of times then something tearing up a log or a tree. I didn't see anything but my imagination got the best of me, I decided it must be a bear even though I heard footsteps. Since I was alone deep in a creek bed with nobody having any idea where I was that the best plan was to sneak out.
Bad idea, I talked to a friend and he told me I had called in a bull

.
I went back and looked and found a sapling all tore up with elk tracks around it, only about 40 yards from where I was.

Elk will bark when it expects to see elk but doesn't, or make a harrumph or gluck instead of bugle especially in an area where they've been pressured. A deer will snort or make a sneezing/coughing sound as a warning.

Probably Bigfoot

MYLES

Igotitreelbad · 09-20-2008, 07:52 AM

I had a similiar experience that I wrote about in the "Oh so close"thread. The bull made the blowing sound after he caught our wind. It sounded to me like he was clearing out his nose to get a good whiff of us. After that he went silent and bolted on us as well????

stlhdr1 · 09-20-2008, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Igotitreelbad

I had a similiar experience that I wrote about in the "Oh so close"thread. The bull made the blowing sound after he caught our wind. It sounded to me like he was clearing out his nose to get a good whiff of us. After that he went silent and bolted on us as well????

That's a good explanation of the sound... I've heard a deer do the snort thing and it certainly wasn't that... Plus there are virtually no deer where we are hunting...

All in all I was hoping it was Bigfoot, I'd like to meet him someday...

Keith