63 Striaght days in the Elk Woods.

[under H2O hunter]

I just got back and cleaned up my gear. I spent 63 straight days in Colorado hunting the entire archery season then doing first rifle then helping my girlfriend and a buddy out during 2nd rifle season in Colorado.... As a group over the 3 seasons we managed to put down 6 elk, 4 deer, and 1 bear. There were many highs and a few lows. It was pretty neat bucket list item that will have many stories and pictures to come... I got to finally hunt with both my farther and my son in the same year. I was also very fortunate to watch my girlfriend shoot a couple amazing animals. One in bow season and one during rifle. I took a first this season which was a short but sweat hunt which taught me a lot about attitude and patients. I even was a mentor to a new elk hunter who was successful on a non typical bull of a lifetime. The season wouldn't have been complete with out a few lows. From Lost animals to Parks and wildlife harassment and citations.... I haven't been able to down load my pictures to photobucket and get them adjusted so that will take some time before I can upload but as I find time to write out each article I'll post those pictures up along with the story... I didn't get to follow much on here but I can't wait to see and read how everyone else did this year.

[Indian Summer]

Wow dude it sounds like this thread is going to grow. Lots to talk about. You don't have to load pics to Photobucket. Just resize and save them then post them directly here. Looking forward to hearing about your hunts.

[Elkduds]

James, welcome back to the forum. Sounds like another epic fall 4 U, can't wait for story and pics.

[under H2O hunter]

To wet your appitite here is some money shots

[elkstalker]

Wow sounds like a marathon! Looking forward to some stories for sure! Congrats

[under H2O hunter]

After getting all my gear together my dad, step brother, girlfriend, and I all set out in three vehicles along with 3 trailers. We set up around 10K feet on August 22nd a week before season started. Two of the things I added to my camp this season was a TV and satellite along with a Hot tube. The TV was awesome and allowed us to watch the football games. The hot tube was awesome in theory but was hard to keep up in temp cause we didn't run our generator much. The few occasions we did run it was pretty awesome and after packing animals out it helped with my sore muscles.






I was able to do some serious scouting which allowed me to locate some excellent deer and a few elk before the season got going. On the 3rd day of season I was able to put an arrow into my velvet buck at 30 yards... The buck ran to 51 yards and bedded down. I knocked another arrow and let it fly when he stood up making two solid hits. He bolted and ran about 100 yards and tipped over. A friend on the Mountain came to help me pack him out which I was really thankful for as I was solo at the time and didn't have any of my crew at camp yet.

[WapitiTalk1]

Absolutely an amazing season James. Glad you were able to hang in there for so long with that rough looking camp .

[under H2O hunter]

So one of my good friends Jeff was able to get 4 days away from work and come up. Being that he doesn't get much time I usually focus on his hunt and making the best of the four days. This year was no different and we had action the entire time he was in camp. It started off with a Bull bugling out right by camp in the dark hours of the morning. So when it became light enough to hunt we headed out after bugling from camp. I got a good sounding bull to respond and we closed the distance and set up. Expecting the bull to swing to our right I was back and to the left. The bull did just the opposite and came in from the left to about 70 yards. I was frozen in place as the bull stared right at me. A nice 6x6. He blew out when Jeff moved. After making a quick video of what happened and discussing what we did right and wrong we moved on and we walked up on the backside of a couple cows. They had their butts towards us and the wind was swirly so it didn't take long for them to get our scent and take off before getting a shot off. We sat on top of a ridge glassing the far hillside when I spotted a nice black bear. I had a rifle bear tag in my pocket and seeing how I had never shot a bear ever I was going make this happen. Jeff agreed to stay put and give me hand signals as I closed the distance. I quickly headed back to camp and gathered up my equipment needed for the bear hunt. I got around on top of the bear and Jeff walked me in to 50 yards. I was able to quickly put the bear down with my 7mm Mag. The sound of a bears death cry is chilling and something I will always remember. It was neat feeling sitting above my bear listening and watching her knowing I had finally been able to put my bear tag on an animal. Jeff and my girlfriend made their way to me and I skinned the bear down for a rug mount. Jeff and I packed the bear off the mountain in one trip which was a heavy haul.



The following day I got a call from my buddy who helped me pack out my deer and he told me that he had spotted a nice bull and that I should get down to him. He didn't have an elk tag so Jeff and I made our way to his location. He had been watching a this bull rake some brush for over an hour and we knew that we had some time to make our way to him which was almost a mile away.. Jeff and I made the trek and closed the distance. The issue was the side of hill where the bull was at was extremely heavy cover and thick brush. Jeff had the bull at under 20 yards but couldn't ever see it. I ended up with the bull at 30 yards but only managed to see his face and antlers before the bull blew out from being nervous. My buddy was able to take some pictures through his spotting scope as I was closing in.
On Jeff's third day he decided to head back to where we walked up on the cow's and where we spotted the bear from. He wasn't there 10 min when a big old cow walked in and gave him a broadside shot at 30yards. He made a great shot and got both lungs.. The cow ran about 50 yards and crumbled. The pack out was super easy and as a group we got it done quickly.

[under H2O hunter]

Eventually we got into some talkative elk. My son, his buddy Jacob, and a new buddy to me named Jeff and I all headed out one morning to an area where I had shot and missed a big bull named Mike Tyson (The Mike Tyson miss story will come soon). We set up cold in a small opening. We were all spread out when I started calling and a rag horn 4x4 silently came in to check out the sound. When he stepped out he was only 21 yards from my son however my son wasn't able to get to a good shooting position to make the shot. Jacob was in a good position however he would of had to shoot over my son. The bull blew out after a couple minutes from either winding us or catching my son moving as he was trying to get to a shooting position. We regrouped and discussed the events while I made a few more calls. After getting a response a couple hundred yards away and down hill we all quickly took off running down the hill to get on the same level as the elk that responded. Once I knew we were on the same level I had the guys spread out and stay put as I dropped back about 75 yards over a small ridge and started calling. Both Jeff and my son both had cows feed right by them. Jacob waited till a satellite 6x5 bull came to 7 yards and dropped his head before coming to full draw. I don't know how he got away with it but The bull never knew Jacob was there as he turned almost broadside before Jacob let his arrow fly. The bull took off down hill and turned back away from us blowing by my son at less then 10 yards as well. I continued to work the Herd bull however he never presented a shot for either my son or Jeff. After the encounter was over we all grouped up and discussed Jacobs shot. He told us that he made a good hit just behind the shoulder. We found half of his arrow and some blood quickly so we sat down for 45 min to give the bull some time. I thought it would be a quick recovery however it turned out to be anything but a quick clean recovery... After our 45 min wait we started trailing very weak blood. In 100 yards we only managed to find 4 or 5 small drops of blood. We eventually had to start tracking hoof prints which also ran out. After 4 hours and only going a couple hundred yards we eventually kicked the bull out of his bed. As the bull left his bed he had to jump over some pretty high blow down. In doing so the bull must of had some secondary cutting from the arrow because he started to leave really good blood. We sat down in his bed and waited 2 hours before trying to track him again. Once we started to track again we found the bull still alive 60 yards away bedded out in the open. The bull was facing away from me as I walked up on it. I quickly was able to get a second arrow into him. He tried running away again but managed to trip into some heavy blow down. Jacob got a couple more arrows into him to keep him from going any further. This was by far the tuffest recovery and bull I have had to deal with during archery... Not the way I like to recover a bull but I was really happy we were able to finally lay our hands on him. After taking our pictures and deboning him I loaded up everyones pack with equal amounts of meat. Jacob carried out the head along with his portion of meat. This finally allowed Jacob to feel the work that goes into getting a bull out. You see this bull was only the 2nd elk Jacob has seen in the woods the first being earlier in the day. So he had no idea how much work and effort is required to get these animals out and processed. He was a true warrior and we managed to all safely get down and off the mountain. The bull was shot at 8am and It was after dark by the time we all got back to camp and we were all very tired and exhausted from the days ordeal.




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