Live Hunts - Arizona Archery Elk Hunt - September 23

Live Hunts - Arizona Archery Elk Hunt - September 23 - Day 2

Saturday - September 23 - Day 2
Arizona Archery Elk Hunt

Friday P.M. Hunt
This evening we headed down parralel to a deep draw that went into the series of meadows where the elk have been feeding. The wind was still howling all day Friday. I'm talking about not just a little wind, I'm talking about a LOT of wind. It is starting to annoy us a bit. If the bulls are bugling much, we sure can't hear it, and the wind is swirling quite a bit as well, not exactly good stalking conditions.

This evening we saw 5 cows and calves working their way down towards the meadows, but did not see or hear any bulls. Tomorrow morning we're going to head back to the area where we saw the big group of elk this morning, with the two different 6x6 bulls, to see if maybe something a little bigger might be in tow this time.

At the top of a transition area with lots of sign.

Somebody had a bad day.

Saturday A.M. Hunt
The wind was worse last night than it has been the whole trip. There were times that our camper was literally shaking because of the wind. By morning when we woke up, it seemed to have died down slightly, to only gale force. It did continue on heavily through the morning, unfortunately.

This morning we wanted to try to get further along the course of where we had first seen the big group yesterday morning with the 2 bulls. So, we followed the trail they had come to our set-up on, and found a great spot about 100 yards from where the trail crossed a fence. We found a fallen log that was propped up on a big stone and some other dead trees, and it looked like a perfect spot to make a ground blind. It looked to be less than 10 yards from the heavily used trail. It was now shooting light, but still pretty dim. We didn't expect the elk to come for about a half hour, at least. Well, right as we were starting to pick up some limbs and brush to improve the natural blind, I saw 2 elk working down the fence towards the trail crossing. We immediately hunkered down behind our log, and quickly discovered that it was a cow and a yearling cow. We decided to just watch them and see how close they would get. Just as if on a line, they walked right down the trail in front of our blind, passing unconcerned at 8 paces. That was pretty neat. I tried to take a photo but it was still too dark. After they left, we finished brushing up our blind, and then waited almost an hour, with no action. The elk might have smelled us, as the wind was swirling pretty bad.

We left that set-up and still hunted near bedding areas for the next 3 hours or so. In all, we saw 4 elk, 2 different sets of 2. One cow and calf were feeding towards their bedding area, and another cow and calf were already bedded towards the end of the morning. No bull sightings. Also, we saw 8 antelope, which was a shock to me. I know Arizona antelope live in the trees in some areas, but there was hardly any big open areas around here. We were waling along and all of a sudden 8 antelope dart across in front of us. Strange.

The wind is not letting up in the least bit, however I did check the weather and perhaps it is going to finally slacken up a little tomorrow morning. That will be nice. Check todays P.M. hunt out tomorrow on Day 3 of this Live Hunt.

This was Bruce's view of me in the blind. Bruce was about 25 yards away.

Here is a front view of the blind from just the other side
of the trail the cows were on.

Here I am checking out my shooting lanes
while we were setting up the blind.

A fresh antler rub that was pretty torn up.

Bruce tries to coax a bull, any bull, into talking a bit.

A nice extremely fresh track we found on a serious elk highway. Go to Day 3

e-mail Joshua Flournoy

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