tcam bull (updated pics 9-17 wallow action)

[wawhitey]

velvet bull in the draw i plan on doing my ambush in first week of september. missed him by 6 hours this morning. http://imgur.com/a/JhAEs

[twinkieman]

Since I don't live where I hunt elk, pictures like yoy posted just help keep my elk fire burning. Thanks for posting!

[wawhitey]

2 miles from home as the crow flies. The hard part is leaving the cams alone. Always want to go out and check them but I don't want to stink my sites up!

[ElkNut1]

Nice photos! What's attracting him there?

ElkNut1

[wawhitey]

Nice photos! What's attracting him there?

ElkNut1

i put some salt there, but originally i just found elk / deer / moose crap along the bottom of the draw, and a very well beaten path in the dirt. set up a cam last year in there with no salt or anything and had elk / whitetails / muleys coming through. now with the salt should pick up the traffic a little i think.

[stringunner]

Nice pictures. I have several cams up right now, placed them the beginning of June. I'm anxious to get back up there and check them out. Its a 3.5 hour drive one way though, so I'm holding off another week or so. Its a good thing they are a good driving distance away or I would be really tempted to be checking them weekly!

[wawhitey]

yeah the self control is tough. found a new spot that got my spidey senses tingling. i set up a cam and some salt last month and sure enough had a couple cow elk show up right away. plus mulies, whitetail and moose. this cam is about 1.7 miles south of the other one, and about a half mile south of this one is a pond i found and set a cam on a trail above, got elk on that one too. so i turned this one into a permanent mineral site, and im going to keep a cam up here for a couple years to see what happens. seems promising so far for its first month. http://imgur.com/a/gywHJ

i packed 150# of loose salt, plus two trophy rocks up here. no reason to keep disturbing it now. ill check it again in august.

[Swede]

Nice bull. It will be interesting to see his antlers develop. I hope he stays put and continues to frequent your spot.

[twinkieman]

Nice bull. It will be interesting to see his antlers develop. I hope he stays put and continues to frequent your spot.

I'll second this, I hope you are able to capture his full antler growth on your TC, and follow up with him on the meatpole!

[Wapiti7]

Here's a couple trailcam pics from a drinker about a mile behind my coworker's ranch house in the Gila.

[wawhitey]

Nice. Stud bear too. I'd put out water but it's not dry enough here for that to be effective. I'm going to try to figure out how to post pics here cause I have 17 cams up right now. Should be lots of good stuff by this fall.

[Deafirishman]

Nice pics ...best of luck putting him on the ground !!

[wawhitey]

went back today to hang a second cam in this draw, and to cut a little brush that would be in my way for my ambush spot. pulled the card, its been two weeks only, but got osme good stuff. http://imgur.com/a/Bd1Nq

[wawhitey]

i added one more pic in the album. look at the date / time on the cougar pic, then the date/time on the last bull pic. that cat ran the bull off! somebody needs to sit down and explain to that cat that hes a little too small to tangle with a bull elk yet

[stringunner]

very nice!

[Mikeha33]

Great pics! Hope you have a stand nearby, or at least a good hunt plan for that area!!!

[wawhitey]

i may be my own worst enemy here. let me start off by saying that ive already heard from people that there should be no aggression between moose and elk. ive heard this because ive brought it up after moose were seen chasing elk away from a water hole in the area a couple years ago. well, last year elk were using the trail through this draw regularly, all spring and summer. no problem. never saw a moose on the cam, tho i ran into one in early september very near that camera spot in the same draw. well, this year i decided to start a big mineral hole here to increase the amount of traffic. was great for a while, then a couple moose showed up. now its a moose party last few weeks and nothing else is coming near it. a couple stray whitetails and thats it. the elk are gone as are most of the deer. what i have now is lots of moose. couple few bulls and god knows how many cows, i cant tell them apart. ive had this same thing happen at another mineral site i made. started out with a trophy rock, getting elk, whiteys, muleys, then i dug a hole and stirred in a hundred or so pounds of loose salt and it becomes a moose party and everything else vanishes. i think theyre so hot for the loose salt they get territorial and the other critters jjust go somewhere else. pretty sure i ruined this draw for elk hunting by doing this. im sure if i go sit there on the elk opener ill see moose, for all the good that does me. so on my way back there today to check the cam i saw a lot of elk tracks on the logging road (there is some minor logging activity down below this draw a ways) and i think im going to spend tomorrow hiking looking for hidden springs / wallows that these elk may be using. theyre obviously still in the area despite the fact theyre not traveling through this draw now like they were last year. life just got harder for me i think.

[wawhitey]

new spot i hung a cam at, not far above a big pond. spike shmike id shoot him.

[wawhitey]

well after hiking through a nasty mess of head high berries and roses and nettles i finally found this about a quarter mile downhill from the camera where i have those two 5 points showing up. there are more rubbed trees than you could shake a stick at, regardless of the amount of time you allow yourself for stick shaking activities

[wawhitey]

hard horned now. man this guy (now a 6x6) spent 30 minutes thrashing everything in sight, throwing big logs around, got a hundred pics of it, heres a sampling. http://imgur.com/a/Stkwu

[Ridgernr]

Man he isn't camera shy is he? Great sequence. thanks for sharing and hope you get a shot at him.

[zpd307]

that's pretty cool! he is feeling pretty studly....

[twinkieman]

Great photos, now the pics I am waiting for, you in the photo as well, on the meatpole Good luck, Get him!

[wawhitey]

Great photos, now the pics I am waiting for, you in the photo as well, on the meatpole Good luck, Get him!

i intend to. i have until the 14th to make it happen (plus a late arch season if need be.) being as how ive never filled an elk tag, ive been going with the thought of killing the first elk i see, cow or bull, but after seeing this guy put on his 30 minute show i think i have to get him! pretty sure i can let cows walk, at least for the first half the season or so. i want this bull. cool too to have pics of him from spring on, see the progression of his antlers, then end up tagging him, i think would be a neat thing.

[LckyTylr]

Cool looking bull, he's got stag crowns!

Get him!!!

[wawhitey]

so, to keep a long story short, i had this bull close enough today (mid rampage) that i was at half draw waiting for him to take a couple more steps my way. in my head he was already cut and wrapped. anyway, off he went shredding bushes in the wrong direction. extreme disappointment, due to bad choice on my part. the good news is he never had any clue i was there, i didnt spook him out. since he was doing his thrashing act toward me i figured id be better off staying silent, letting him come in unawares, instead of calling and have him come in looking for me. didnt work out, but ill be back in there tomorrow! so what do you guys think, this bull obviously has some anger issues! would he be a good candidate for me going in and raking stuff up and bugling and acting like a badass bull? would that bring a testosterone filled bull like this guy in on a string or might it send him sneaking away to the next gmu? so far only took two days of my whitetail style ambush hunting to have an encounter with this guy, maybe i should just stick with what im doing for a few more days?

[wawhitey]

so a couple hours ago i was sitting at a wallow hunting bear (bears been messing with my cam at the wallow non stop) and this 6 point that ive been posting up in this thread came in and almost stepped on me. i was sitting on my butt under a tree and he walked by no more than 5 yards away totally unaware. then he had some good ole mud flingin fun in the wallow 25 yards away while i watched and tried not to laugh. ill pull the card on that cam tomorrow morning should be some good pics

okay here they are. this is the same bull that i posted the album of tearing up that draw, throwing logs around, only this wallow is 2.5 miles as the crow flies from that draw he went on a rampage in.

http://imgur.com/a/tSoLF

[Olydog09]

Good stuff Wa Whitey

[wawhitey]

Well this guy is still around. Working on his new set of antlers. Can tell its him because of the little stubby junk point between his 1st and 2nd on his right side.

If he does the same thing he did last year, walking right into the wallow in front of me mid september, this will be his last set he will ever grow.

[Elkonthebrain]

Awesome you're already getting some action. I'm putting out all my cams this weekend. Have a couple new spots picked out. Hopefully a 200+ whitetail shows up.

[wawhitey]

I got a few other bulls on another cam a few miles from that one. When i get home early july im going to spend a week or so trying to get the rest of my cameras up. I think i finally have more than i can handle. Just getting them all set is a serious chore, not to mention finding time to go check them once in a while.

[ishy]

Come on wawhitey you can do a few more. We all live vicariously through your, what is it now 40 or 50 cameras?

[wawhitey]

Come on wawhitey you can do a few more. We all live vicariously through your, what is it now 40 or 50 cameras?

Oh hell you talked me into buying another. Just for the sake of science, you know, bought a new model thats supposed to be really good. Bushnell aggressor

[Deafirishman]

For us living far away from the elk woods, these are some awesome pictures !! Keep 'em coming and very grateful for your time in checking them out and letting us see them. Can't wait to see the pic of the one you are going to put in the ground

[wawhitey]

Update on yhe antler watch. Here he is 6/19. Crappy pic but it is him.

[GobbleFarmer]

Crappy pic? Thats an awesome pic! His antlers are huge already!

[wawhitey]

Most recent pics of him. And i happened to meet a guy who found his sheds this spring. He said if i kill him theyre mine.

[Stick]

Whatever you have there for him to eat he really likes it. Was laughing at his tongue run out in anticipation in that pic. Ummm ummmmm he says!!

Pretty bull! Hope ya get him.

[wawhitey]

Its just a mineral site. Gets plenty of elk and whitetail and moose action, and the very occasional muley. This one here aint too shabby. But that particular bull does spend more time hitting those minerals than probably all the other elk there combined.