Not a great story but heres how it went down....
Was up at 03:30, coffeed up got to my spot around 05:15, don't drive right in cause I have caught the elk in the middle of the block before..Walked in about 1 km on the road by moonlight til I got to the very last cut block. Set up in a pile of brush and waited for first light. I have seen or heard this herd everytime I was in here during bow season...At about 06:30 I heard the bull bugle from about 300 yards away...I started to bugle (small bull tones and cow call) this got him really pissed...He came to the edge of the timber but wouldn't step out. This went on back and forth for close to an hour and then I noticed he was moving away from me as he bugled...
I snuck into the thick stuff until I found the fresh tracks, gave myself another 8 or 10 squirts of elk urine on my hat and started following the trail. As the trail came up to a bench logged off cut block, I noticed a cow and a calf about 60 yards out ahead of me, so I belly crawled into the block onto a little ridge....
All I could see were cows and calves, but they were all over the place...After laying there glassing for about 5 minutes I hear something across the gully to my left and here comes a cow with the bull hot on her heels....About 300 yards off.....I lay the binos on him and instantly I could see he was a 6 or better....I get a crappy rest on an old stump and let one fly at a quartering away shot...I think my stump might of crumpled, cause the elk didn't....
SO he turns and comes back towards me and stops, looking straight at me at about 250...I put the x-hairs on the center of his chest and boom...He doesn't move....I chamber another and all of a sudded theres cows/calves running everywhere.....He trots across the hill side, never giving me a decent shot, into the thick stuff.....
I am thinking crap....If he goes down in that ravine I am just gonna make a fire and start eatin, cause I ain't getting him out......SO I am standing there contemplating my next move and all of a suddedn here he comes walking up the trail that I am standing on with his head down, 30 yards from me....30-06 180 grainer between the eyeballs, Done like dinner...
Had to go back to town and get the quad, had to cut him in half, too heavy for the quad to pull...Skinned him out in the garage last night, took him to the butcher this morning......
Officially weighed 480 pounds at Rick's fine meats.....
First shot missed (bull fever !!!) and the second one went right between his pec muscles about 2 inches up from his brisket, never got the heart or lungs but there was a lot of internal arterial bleeding.....He was spitting it out pretty good when he came up the trail to me (I din't see that at the time, just from the blood trail)....