Bugling bulls, broken hearts, and a short, short, blood trail(pics now on page 5)

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Elk hunting in Montana can take you from the lowest of lows, to euphoria in the blink of an eye. After six fruitless years of chasing elk with my bow I was getting pretty discouraged. All my old spots which had promise are now overrun by wolves. Low elk numbers, and efficient predators turned a tough game into a nigh impossible one. Coming into this season I was more interested in chasing mule deer than elk, simply because I didn't have any good spots to hunt. But my buddy had a new theoretical spot for elk. He convinced me to give it a shot yesterday, and boy am I glad we did.

[VictoryHunter]

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Daylight found us working our way up and around a north facing slope above a meadow. Bugling on occasion seemed appropriate, but by 9 am we had not heard any response. Usually, I don't hear elk bugle after 9 am, so we decided to stuff the bugle in the pack, and stick with the cow calls.

By this time we had reached a saddle, and stood between two bowls, both of which were full of aspens and pines. The terrain was open enough that we could see into gaps in the timber, with large open grass pockets in the floors of the bowls. Just about then, I let out a halfhearted cow call, as I was getting discouraged once again by the lack of elk. You can certainly imagine my surprise, when a cow call echoed back from the bowl, no more than 100 yards away.

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

gotta go to bed now, but...  

[Mamba]

not nice

[Jayrod]

i will be waiting patiently!!!  

[Joeabowhunter]

   

[Whip]

My cup is full      :D

[champ38]

[Gator1]

     

Anyone else up and waiting?

[stocker56]

     

[Mike Vines]

Just poured a fresh cup of       and will be paying close attention

[Whip]

   
 

[Dirtybird]

I'm on my second cup myself, can't wait for the end.

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Well guys I will be in and out of class all day today, but I will try to keep the story rolling along.

Where was I?

Oh yes, we had just heard a cow answer us from the bowl. We were on a ridge face of sorts, between two bowls, with the wind blowing directly downhill, and a saddle just a hundred yards below us.

The one thing I've learned with elk, is that they often circle  a caller, to identify via smell. So I placed my buddy between the last spot we called, and the elk, and scurried 30-40 yards further downhill, to cut the animal off if she did just that. Both of us were still within 20 yards of the ridge, and the cow was still talking to us, as my buddy took over the main calling duties and I added some quieter herd talk.

Now as this was transpiring, it kept reoccurring to me that this elk sounded suspiciously like a Hoochie Mama cow call  from the store. (Later, my buddy confessed to having the same misgivings).
Misgivings and doubts aside, we set up and waited. It's better to call hunters in, than bust an elk out cause it sounded fake, right? Well, I kept shifting further and further off the ridge, because I wanted cover behind me rather than in front.

I finally got in a good position, about 20 yards below the ridge, and 30 yards below my hunting partner. I started looking for the source of the crunching footsteps I was hearing and saw...

Woops, its time to finish off this last homework problem! Be back.

[Whip]

   
 

[Dirtybird]

Well he is a few hours behind us eastern timeline guys.

[centaur]

Is the class you are taking in the "Charlie Lamb School of Literature"? Maybe we will have the climax by when I head back up the mountain on Wednesday.  

[gringol]

Originally posted by Dirtybird:
Well he is a few hours behind us eastern timeline guys.

That's no excuse!  

[Mudd]

centaur... "Is the class you are taking in the "Charlie Lamb School of Literature"?"