" in my head he was already cut and wrapped."

[Lefty]

From one of Wawhitey posts

in my head he was already cut and wrapped.

Curious how many of us have had any animal in the freezer,.. yet it lived another day


Ive posted about both of these
The first elk I ever drew on, I was thinking this bull is bigger than any bull my Father-in-law killed
And a year and a 1/2 ago I kept texting my wife and buddy as a 5x5 slowly worked towards me foe a couple hours

Then the year I had two rifle scopes where a lens released The buck I was thinking this is a "piece of cake"
And a357 green bull a fellow killed after my miss. My gun was rested on log, an easy shot for me in my mind I said " easy shot",..

And this year way to often a single or pair geese came in and it took more than a single shot.

[foxvalley]

Ouch! Guess I can start laughing about it now that I'm not the only one,thanks lefty.
It happened last year for me,as I was sound asleep at a wallow,and at 2:00 pm here he comes as he wakes me up with a bugle at about a hundred yds.He comes straight at me the whole time,no shot,but the wind is perfect, and i'm 30 yds.from the wallow,kind of an "open park" erea. He feeds for about 5min.before he eases into the wallow,kind of got the feeling he was half asleep also,lazy,and in no hurry.5,10,15,20 min. later,he is still in the bath,now I'm a little more relaxed than I should be,as I go back to feeding my little chipmunk buddy,who is back on my lap eating sunflower seeds from my hand.......
I remember telling myself as soon as his big butt starts getting up,"draw"......still don't know why I didn't when he got up,thought I had all the time to kill him,as he was not in any hurry at all.........broadside now,slowly walking,head goes behind a tree,great time to stop him with a NG......still not at full draw....still have lots of time.....then he suddenly turns and now he is comming right at me.......it all goes downhill from here......He will be bigger this year.....

[Lefty]

He will be bigger this year.....

[elkaholic]

LOL. Glad I'm not the only one that this is happened to. Two years ago I had snuck in to within 10 yards of roughly 6 bedded cows and a really good bull. As I sat there on my knees my thoughts wandered off to how I was going to set him up for pictures and how I was going to pack him out yada yada yada. I was even thinking of getting another tag. LOL little did I know!

I should've guessed something was going to happen as three hours earlier on an attempt to call this bull, he was coming on a string and one of his bedded cows had other plans. She blew out of her bed and literally ran him off in the other direction. She could tell something was up and didn't want to jeopardize her bull.

So now as I'm sitting here on my knees watching his antlers bob from side to side as he naps I am thinking to myself he's mine. Then off in the distance I see two crows gliding along the air currents gradually floating closer. As they get near my location they switch directions and hover 20/30 yards over the top of us all the while making a very odd laughing noise. I had never heard crows make this sound but it freaked the elk out completely. The cows and bulls erupt from their beds on high alert and catching me completely offguard. Needless to say I left scratching my head wondering if the crows had somehow talked to the elk, giving them my location.
Oh the fun trials and tribulations of elk hunting!

[six]

Packed into a wilderness area 3 miles from the trailhead after a 20 hour drive from Michigan. My buddy and I were wiped out. We decided to grab a bite to eat and get a good nights sleep. I was brushing my teeth and my buddy runs up to me and grabbed my arm. "did you hear that?" Hear what? He told me a elk just bugled up from camp. Well so much for getting some R&R. I took off to get in front of where I thought he would be going while my buddy was going to go right after him.

I was about 75 yards away from camp on a hiking trail and came face to face with the bull. We each stared at each other for 5 minutes. All of the sudden a squirrel started chattering down the mountain and the bull turned broadside to look at the squirrel. Camp wasn't even set up yet and I'm going to have a elk down. Right. I estimated his yardage at 50 yards. I placed my 50 yard pin on the sweet spot and let her rip only to watch the arrow sail right over the elks back.

[ishy]

Last year, had a herd bedded in a draw above a wallow with a stand. Every 40 minutes the bull would mumble something. About two he starts bugling and getting closer... and closer... I am perfect winds is perfect. I grabbed my bow flip on a video camera and think, " This is it!". A cow rounds the bend with a nice 6x on her tail. Instead of heading to water she just keeps side hilling? The bulls stops at 50 yards straight on and looks at the cow, the water, the cow, the water and then proceeds to follow the cow. Still can't think about it around bedtime or I won't sleep.

[elkstalker]

Last year I was rifle hunting and had been scouting a few days before the hunt. I had seen numerous small to moderate sized bulls, but nothing I really wanted to go after. The evening before the hunt started I was out on a high point glassing a couple herds below me, and my vision was restricted by rain and low hanging clouds. About an hour before dark the clouds lifted and I could see the top of the ridge. About 2 miles away a bull was skylighted on the ridgetop and I could tell he was a shooter. I had to pack in from a different trailhead and it was about a 3 mile hike to where the bull and his herd had been feeding the night before. I hit the trail around 430 and as I trekked the 2000 foot vertical to the top of the ridge I passed by 3 different bulls bugling. One sounded so big I had to take a look. In the darkness I crept to within 300 or so yards of this bull as he ripped off bugle after bugle. I could just barely see the outline of 2 large pine trees in the sage park the bull was feeding in, and if I culd make it to them I would be roughly 100 yards from the bull. The wind was good and I decided to make for the trees, but never thought about his cows, I had tunnel vision. It turned out the cows were between me and him and busted out as I neared the pine trees. Oh well, I still had the bull on top of the ridge, and I hustled up the ridgeline to try and make it there by first light.
As I crested the sharp rocky ridge where I had glassed the bull the night before, I saw two raghorns headed up the ridge by themselves. I peaked over and could see the bull with two 6x6 satellites and about 20 cows about 250 yards away. I set up my pack and rifle on a rock outcrop and lowered my scope to the elk. I could immediately define the herd bull by it's long, white tipped swords, and settled my sight on his shoulder. "I've never had a hunt this perfect" I thought, and readied myself for the shot. Just then the bull moved behind a cow, then he came into the open, then a cow moved in front of him, I just couldn't get a shot! A cow moved downslope and out of sight, and the bull turned to give chase. I knew the bull wouldn't be gone long, and I made up my mind to shoot as soon as I had a clear shot. As I sat and watched the cow feed, the satellites began to spar. After about 5 minutes I spotted the cow coming back up to join the group, and the herd bull was right on her heels. I pulled up my trusty 7mm and as soon as the bull cleared the group, squeezed off a shot. I don't know if it was my nerves, or a flinch, maybe I just had too much time to think about it, but as the echo from my shot rang out, the bull and the rest of the elk just stood there, looked around for a fraction of a second, before diving down the ridge. I had missed. I had missed one of the easiest shots of my life! "I guess in my mind he was already cut and wrapped"
As I counted my paces and walked down to do the obligatory blood check, I tried to convince myself that maybe the bull had just looked unphased by the shot only to run off and collapse a hundred yards downhill, but in my heart I knew I had missed, and the lack of blood or hair in the dirt and the trail downhill confirmed it.
I decided to track the elk, maybe they hadn't ran clear into the next time zone and I could catch up to them (yeah right). I crept down the ridge slowly, crouching and peeking downslope every 20 yards or so. All of a sudden I could see brown, I ducked and pulled up by binoculars to get a better look, it was a cow! Maybe I was going to catch up to this bull after all I got on all fours and army crawled down hill, until I could see more elk, and then I saw the white tipped sword. Without thinking, and out of instinct I got up on one knee, pulled up, and centered my sight on the bulls crease. I squeezed off a shot and heard the tell tale "thump" of lead hitting elk, he lunged forward and I knew I hit him good, I shuttled another round in and hit him one more time right in the crease. He only made it a few more yards before he crashed. As the rest of the elk bounded downhill, I fist-pumped, I thanked God, and did my little happy dance there on the hillside.
As I approached the elk something didn't seem right about it's antlers, "maybe it's just a little ground shrinkage" I thought. But when I lifted the antlers, I realized, I had shot one of the satellites! He was quite a bit smaller, but he was still worth it, and a bull I'm proud of any day.

2014bull.jpg (238 KiB) Viewed 2260 times

[Lefty]

Great story elkstalker!!!