My buddy Jade and his cousin Darren called on Friday night to say they were on the ferry (on the Coast) and would arrive in 11 hours to go hunting.
They arrived Saturday and set up camp out by Findlay Creek, a spot an hour north of my place.
I was supposed to meet with Jade and Darren on Sunday am at first light but I was slowed down by early morning fog and arrived late.
When I drove up, they were crossing the creek below on their quads and couldn't hear me calling. I unloaded the quad off the truck and geared up and followed their tracks but couldn't find them so I carried on and eventually followed an old road to a fenceline at the base of a ridge.
I decided to hike up thinking I might see a nice muley or an elk. That was at about 7:30 am.
About 2/3 of the way up the mountain, I had an elk bugle to my right so I hunkered down and started cow calling and bugling as an immature bull. The bull responded back and after about 15 minutes, it came in about 100 yards up hill of me and I couldn't get a count on it and then it went silent. That was at 10:30 am.
I carried on further up the mountain and an hour later, near the top I had another bull bugle above me. Again I called back and this time received a bugle back and then no response.
I finally crested the ridge at about noon (very steep incline). At the top there was an elk rub where the tree was easily 5 inches through and it was splintered and full of elk hair. It was a good sign of things to follow.
I walked the ridge a little ways through a section of juvenile trees with blow downs and sat down to have lunch on a rocky outcrop over looking the valley. I then had a little nappy. When I woke up, I let out a cow call and immediately heard movement coming towards me.
I saw the tan outline of an elk and soon saw that it was a cow and shortly after another tan shape came into view about 30 yards ahead of me. After about 20 minutes, the second tan shape turned out to be another cow. Then they winded me and took off running.
I waited a little while and proceeded into the tree line where the cows were and realized it was old growth timber and really nice viewing between the trees and looking down into a bowl.
I called for a while and had no response except for a bit of movement I could hear to my right. I turned and walked maybe 100 yards and heard crash! crash! crash! and dropped down and could see a bull elk running from me so I turned around circled back and down below where the elk was and lay down at the base of a huge old tree.
I called a bit with a cow call and bugled as an immature bull. I could hear a few squeals below me and then I saw movement. A five pt bull followed by 5 spike bulls were walking up through the bowl about 150 yards away. The continued up the hill and out of sight.
I started again with the cow calls and immediately had a bull bellow back at me so I bugled back and the same bull bugled back followed by what sounded like an even larger bull below him.
It was incredible!! for about 30 minutes both bulls were screaming at me and I would tease them with the cow call and then follow with a bugle and it drove them nuts.
Finally one of the bulls came nearer and started cutting up the bank where I could see him. It was a small 6 pt but as fast as I could get a count, he carried on out of view and circled around above me. I couldn't see his rack again but could only see the tan so I couldn't take a shot for fear it might be a different bull.
Meanwhile the larger bull below me was still bellowing at my cow calls and bugling but I had to be careful not to have the bull beside me see me.
When I couldn't see him any more because he moved just out of sight, I let out the lowest, nastiest growling bugle I could muster and the bull shut right up and moved away and up from where I was, I guess because he thought he didn't want to tangle with a bigger bull than he (which was me).
The larger bull below was continuing to bugle at me even more franticly at this point and this went on for about another 30 minutes. I would cow call holding the call in front of me and then bugle and he would respond and then I'd cow call with the call behind my back and he would come in a bit closer thinking the cow had backed off but I still couldn't see him for a small stand of trees.
I stopped bugling all together and kept up the cow calls and he became even more frantic thinking he had scared off this big bull and now had the cow all to himself. I again cow called behind my back and he moved in and started walking up the hill and stepped into an open area. I got the 6 count and he lifted his head and bugled and I shot.
He jumped and started running down hill and I could hear the crashing of him running, falling and then dead silence.
I gave it 15 minutes and started looking for him thinking he had run down the hill into some nasty deadfalls but I walked up from where I thought he was and found him on a bench actually further up. I guess he tried to go up over the ridge. It turned out he was a very large and thick 6 x 6 with a little tine beside his brow tine which makes him a 7 point on the one side.
Needless to say I was excited that I just shot my first bull but reality quickly dawned on me... I was by myself on top of the ridge and had to get it out now and it was now 4:30 pm.
I hiked back down the mountain, got to the quad and back to my friends camp at 6:15pm, just in time to catch them before they took off for an evening hunt. I explained that I had an elk down and they asked where... I apologized and pointed up to the top of the ridge behind their camp.
Anyways, we headed out and got to the botom of the hill at 6:30pm and drove the quads about 25% of the way up the hill. We then put on our pack boards and hiked back up for 2 hours straight and crested the ridge at 8:15pm and went down the hundred yards or so to the elk.
We boned it out in the dark with headlamps and took the two hind quarters, back straps, one front shoulder (I heart and lung shot it but hit one shoulder and wrecked it), the tenderloins and the rack.
We walked out following our track by GPS (thank christ I just bought one on friday). We would go a few hundred feet and then have to stop and sit for 5 and we finally made it back to the quads at 1:30am.
We had to take it very slowly going down such a steep grade to make sure we didn't hurt ourselves and I was really hurtin by the time we got to the quads at 1:30am (I had hiked up and down twice)
To make matters worse, we were on quite an incline with the quads and it took us 2 hours to find and make our way down the trail we had come up in daylight.
We got back to camp at 3:30 am and I had a quick bite to eat and a beer to celebrate and then headed home arriving at 5 am. I then had to take the meat out of the packs and clean it and lay it out to cool more which took me until six.
I washed up the pack boards and lay them out to dry and then had a quick shower and went to bed at 6:15 am and woke up around 11am. After another nap I picked up butchers wrap and Jade and Darren came in from camp.
We've got it cut and wrapped and in the freezer already plus we cut and wrapped my whitetail I shot on the 10th. We got about 300 lbs of boned out meat from the elk.
Sorry for such a long winded story but it was very exciting and I can honestly say I worked my butt off for this one!!
