Live Hunts - Arizona Archery Elk Hunt - September 26

Live Hunts - Arizona Archery Elk Hunt - September 26 - Day 5

Monday - September 26 - Day 5
Arizona Archery Elk Hunt

Me waiting behind a root wad watching an evening trail.

Monday P.M. Hunt
This evening we backtracked the trail where we set up the ground blind this morning, and decided to hunt closer to their bedding areas to catch them coming down to feed in the meadows before it got dark. We set up behind a big root wad of a fallen Ponderosa and waited about 20 yards from a very heavy trail with fresh tracks, almost all of the heading to the feeding area, not the bedding area. Unfortunately, we didn't see anything. We did, however, hear 4 bugles, which are the first bugles we have heard in the evening on the whole hunt thus far. That was encouraging. For a few minutes it sounded like the bull was going to come out on our trail, but he didn't.

I'm excited about tomorrow morning's hunt from our new ground blind.

Tuesday A.M. Hunt
It was cool again this morning when we left camp - a hopeful sign. We got to the ground blind about 5:00 a.m., about an hour before we thought the bull had been coming through the area. We wanted plenty of time to be set-up. Before we even arrived at the blind we heard a bull sounding off in a draw about a 1/4 mile distant. It wasn't the same bull we have heard the last 2 mornings. The bull we heard this morning sounded like a more mature bull. His bugles were deeper and had more growl in them. He probably bugled 25 times from when we first heard him until about 6:15 a.m. He was moving around a lot, and sounding pretty irritated, so we're thinking that perhaps he doesn't have any cows and was just cruising around beating stuff up. We're going to try and get on him this evening.

My ground blind.

So, I sat in the blind patiently waiting for shooting light around 6 a.m. and for the elk to start filtering through towards their bedding area. About 6:05 I heard a few cows mewing to my left. I looked over and saw about 5 cows and calves feeding approximately 150 yards away. They were feeding towards the fence crossing right in front of my blind. We set up the blind to take advantage of a southeastern wind, and so far it was working. The 5 cows and calves after a few minutes multiplied into 12 cows and calves and 1 spike. All were working their way towards me. They got within about 80 yards and then several of them stuck their noses in the air and looked in my direction. With a southeast wind, the wind was blowing back over my right shoulder, and plenty safe for where the elk were. Well, I got my little powder wind checker and sure enough, the wind was blowing right towards them at that moment, out of the north. They didn't run, but they got a little nervous, and started to work their way back towards where they came from, but the wind shortly switched back and they calmed down again and started feeding. For the next half hour the wind stayed mostly out of the southeast, but also swirled a bit, and while the elk would look up and look my way every few minutes, they would eventually start feeding again. At this point there was no sign of our bull.

A distant shot of the cows and calves feeding to my left.

A big mature cow in the group that fed to my left.

I was periodically looking over my right shoulder to see if there were any elk crossing back that way, as there were several heavy trails that way. At approximately 6:40 I looked back there and saw that there was a group of elk walking single file across the mesa back to bed. They had apparently crossed the fence much further down behind me. Bruce was behind me about 60 yards, and they were behind him probably 75 yards. There were about 7 cows and calves, and 2 bulls. One was a spike, and the other was a raghorn with 5 points on one side and nothing on the other, almost as though nothing had grown there. He was bird-dogging a cow something serious. He was running her with his nose on her tail. Unlike the group feeding to my left, this group wasn't interested in feeding, just getting to their beds. They were only in sight for about 3 minutes. After they left, I turned my attention back to the group to my left, who were still feeding. At this point, I thought that our bull had somehow evaded us by taking his group on a different trail. At about 7:45 they were still feeding, and I was waiting for them to leave so I could leave, since it seemed to me there wouldn't be any new elk action. Around 8:00 I took off my face mask, my gloves and my release, and took the arrow off my bow to get ready to put things back in my pack and leave. I happened to look up back towards the group and saw a pair of almost black legs that looked different than any of the others in the group I had seen. I could also see at least the belly's of all the other elk as well. I could not see the belly on this one - it was too tall. About 5 seconds later it steps out from behind the tree and I see it's a good 6x6, probably the one we heard bugling the last 2 days, and the one we're after. It looked very much like the one I couldn't get drawn for on the first morning of the hunt. I almost had a heart attack because he started coming my way and I wasn't ready, so I got my gloves and stuff back together as quick as possible, knocked an arrow, and waited. He slowly worked his way right towards my fence crossing. I just knew I was about to get a shot. At about 50 yards he hung up, seeming unsure of himself, but really acting like he wanted to cross that fence. After a minute or so he slowly moved off to my left and out of sight, though. On this whole trip we have only seen 1 hunter in the woods. Two minutes after that bull was out of sight we saw hunter number 2. He came from behind the bull, and now I realized why the bull had left and his cows had spooked off. The guy was wearing a bright green shirt that showed up like a neon sign. I don't know if he ever even saw the elk. That was a pretty frustrating circumstance - almost had a shot at that bull, but had another hunter spook him off. Unfortunately, Bruce was unable to get a good close-up shot of the bull with my digital camera. He was about a 260-270 class bull.

The spike that passed in the group behind me.

We are optimistic, though, because for the last 3 mornings the bulls have been bugling successively more and more. We heard a fair number of distant bugles this morning. Hopefully this evening or tomorrow morning we can get on a good bull.

On a different note, on the way back to camp we saw a coyote crossing the road and heading in the general direction of camp. You don't need a license to hunt coyotes in Arizona, so when we got back to camp we set off about 150 yards in back towards a meadow to try and intercept that coyote and call him in. As we crested a hill we saw the coyote trotting across the next meadow and had another coyote with it. I got set up about 40 yards in front of Bruce, and Bruce got out his hyper hot cow call and did a pretty good simulation of a rabbit in distress. He did maybe 4 series of calls, and in less than 3 minutes from the time we got set-up, here comes the coyote running up the draw we were in, looking for that rabbit. He was moving fast, and as he started to go behind a tree I drew my bow. He was crossing straight in front of me at about 20 yards. I tried to lead him a little and released but I hit the dirt about a foot behind him. He was just moving too fast. In retrospect, I probably should have squeaked or whistled or something to stop him, but I wasn't thinking, just acting on instinct. When my arrow hit the dirt, that coyote spun around to leave, but not on the course he came. He started running straight towards me! At about 7 feet he finally saw me and veered off to his left and missed me. I thought I was fixing to have to give that coyote a big bear hug.

Check todays P.M. hunt out tomorrow on Day 6 of this Live Hunt. Go to Day 6

e-mail Joshua Flournoy

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