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Most Memorable Moment

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Most Memorable Moment

Postby Swede » 01 16, 2019 •  [Post 1]

Think back and tell us what was the most memorable event you ever experienced while out elk hunting.

Without a doubt it was the first time (September 6, 1993 at approximately 5:45PM) I had an elk (bull) come into water where I was waiting. I remember every move I made and the bull made from the time it came into view until it blew out of there with a lethal arrow in deep. That settled the whole question I had about the effectiveness of tree stand hunting elk. Even though I had a lot to learn and made a fair number of mistakes over the years, I knew some critical basics. I knew it was an effective tool.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby Elkhntr08 » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 2]

I was walking out one evening, lost in my thoughts and this mule deer buck pops out of the timber into the meadow. He was about 30 yards away just munching on grass. I stood there thinking, Wow nice buck. I looked at him, he looked at me.
I suddenly remembered that I had a deer Tag in my pocket and he must have been a mind reader, cause we both got that Oh crap look and off he went. Left me standing there thinking Way to go dummy.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby saddlesore » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 3]

Very first time I went elk hunting. Complete greenhorn.This was in1966. Three of us killed three bulls in the first ten minutes of the season.We had left camp at 2AM to hike to the top of a mountain and wait for day break. We got back to camp at 10PM carrying only the heads after spending the day,gutting,skinning and quartering.
The next day I had to walk the 6 miles back down to a ranch where we had rented two percherons , then the 6 miles back to camp, then up to the elk and back to camp .

I was 23 at the time. It was two years before I got enough courage to go elk hunting again. It made me an elkaholic. It was so bad,I quit that job in NM after ten years and moved to Colorado so I could hunt every year
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby BrentLaBere » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 4]

I have quite a few moments. One that stands out is the encounter I had with an absolute GIANT bull. One of the first few times elk hunting my hunting buddy and I were sitting on the opposite side of the drainage listening to bulls bugle. We were trying to convince ourselves to drop into the nasty canyon and formulate a plan. The elk ended up getting bumped and the cows worked their way up the side we were on. We were 2-3 hundred yards from them with the wind in our favor. Making a plan so we could both shoot a cow, thats when we heard the most memorable bugle I have heard. Nasty growling lip bawl. Shortly after the bull came trotting out of the trees with his head tipped back searching for the cows. Watching him trot towards us was a surreal moment. I couldnt have dreamed up a bigger, more perfect looking bull. Im happy just have seen one so close in person. If I had more experience under my belt the situation could have played out differently. 40 yards away in the timber I had tunnel vision and the cows busted out with the bull in tow. I had so much adrenaline my face turned beat read and I even had hot flashes. We reacted like we had just shot an elk. Dreaming of elk I picture that moment the bull stepped out of the timber. It will forever be ingrained in my memory. The setting of the basin, snow covered peaks, bugles ringing out in some extremely rugged terrain......thats what I picture when I think of elk hunting.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby Brendan » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 5]

2014, Montana. Morning of day 12 of my first Elk hunt - solo and DIY. Almost didn't go out because I had to start the 2500 mile drive home. Instead, I did, called in a 5x5 at sunrise and got him with a 30 yard archery shot. Walking up on him I had to sit down and collect myself - "Holy *&=@ it actually happened...."
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby Old school » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 6]

I still remember walking up on my elk I had just shot back in “the Bob”. It started snowing huge flakes and I remember thinking - wow is this thing big, looked like a greyhound bus turned over on its side.

-Mitch
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby Tigger » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 7]

The first elk I shot with my bow was the bull in my avatar. We played him perfectly from a calling and strategy standpoint. But the really memorable thing was the acoustics of his bugles. He would absolutely roar. He was bugling so frequently and so loudly it was surreal. If I didn't know that was an elk, I would have run out of the mountains in a panic! He was on the other side of a steep, rocky clearing and behind him were tall aspens. The sounds echoed off those aspens and seemed to amplify every noise he made. He was skirting the edge wondering why that cow stopped coming closer. Eventually, he made his way toward the bottom of the meadow and my buddy, who couldn't see the bull, timed a needy cow call perfectly. The bull lost his cool and decided to walk across the bottom little bit of the meadow. He stopped behind a tree that I had ranged and I can still see that arrow flying and burying into his boiler room. He sounded like a Buick going down that mountain!
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby six » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 8]

Heard a bugle from camp so I walked 30 yards out to the road where the truck was parked. The road was also a pipeline so it was 30 yards or so across. I stood by the truck and let out a bugle. I got a response not far from where I had been standing in camp. I knocked an arrow and hid behind the truck. The bull walked through camp and 10 feet away from the tent. He stepped out in the clearing and I guesstimated him at 50 yards. Arrow sailed right over his back and into a tree. He ran off then barked at me. Never been close enough to an elk for a shot before and never heard one bark. Yes he was big.
Elk are where you find em...
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby Lefty » 01 17, 2019 •  [Post 9]

So many good ones.
These happened my first year
My first full day ever archery elk hunting when I heard my first bugle about 600 yards away.
The next hunt I blew the shot at 11 1/2 yards a nice younger 6x6,.. he was also the bull while sniffing my face blew snot all over m face.
Making it back to camp and being surrounded by elk making all the elk sounds for hours.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 01 18, 2019 •  [Post 10]

It was my first real bow “calling” elk hunt with a HS buddy in NW Montana, circa 1975? Hiked up close to a wallow my buddies uncle had told him about and set up. It was on the side of a ridge that fed out of the Cabinent Mountains Wilderness. Gary threw out a couple of bugles thru his PVC grunt tube and we received an immediate hit back from some kind of dinosaur sounding thing that was in the wallow 40 yards above us in the timber! We had no idea what we were doing but believe me, our knees were knocking and our full attention was on the thing that was screaming back at us with a warning that chilled my blood. When the upstart spike appeared to my right, just cresting a finger ridge at less than 25 yards, I could not draw back the old Bear 50 pound recurve I was packing. The spike busted and the hill side above us blew up. As we crawled out of there at dark with a herd bull still screaming above us, I knew I was hooked.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby Elkduds » 01 20, 2019 •  [Post 11]

Back when I was "just" a deer hunter, I went out one sunny Sept. afternoon w a pal who was archery elk hunting. I had my shotgun and a small game tag for grouse. We were in above Gunnison CO in unit 54. He went to sit @ a pond, I walked the open timber. After a grouseless hour or so, I was walking along a game trail through pine, that crossed a clearing before disappearing into the trees again. I spotted something big lumbering through the trees, coming along the trail toward me through the trees across the clearing. A bull, swinging his head to keep antlers out of the branches. Clearly not like any buck I ever saw, and the smell was unmistakable, unforgettable. Then he bugled.

I stepped behind a tree as the bull strolled across the clearing toward me. 20 yards, then 10. I decided I didn't want to startle him when he was passing my tree hide along the game trail. He was huge, with antlers that looked dangerous. His musky smell burned in my nose. When he was 5 steps away, I stepped partway out from behind the tree into the trail, ready to use the shotgun if things went wrong. He stopped, his huge brown eyes trying to register what was right in front of him. He held his ground until I waved my arm and whistled. Then he turned and started back up the trail as casually as he had come.

I whistled again, trying to notify my friend. The bull turned back toward me, bugling and uprooting the meadow grass w antlers and hooves. So I tried to imitate his bugling w my mouth. He began marching back and forth across the meadow. bugling and raking the grass. I called my friend's name a few times, even that didn't dissuade the bull. The bull and I conversed for another few minutes, then he meandered back the way he came. I could barely believe what had happened, and my friend called "bullsh!t,"until I showed him the tracks in a flashlight beam. Then he kept after me to tell it again, the whole ride back to town.

That 20 min encounter changed my life forever. Just hunting deer would never be sufficient again.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby snowbank » 03 02, 2019 •  [Post 12]

I tracked a bull in 18" of snow over 5 miles. I had seen over 12 beds and they were getting fresher as I proceeded. I stepped out of a hole and found myself 30 ft from a 7x7 bull standing behind a grand fir. I couln't get a clean shot but felt I could thread a bullet through the tree. I was shooting remington bronze point in an 06. I had a chance but not with those bullets. The bullet broke up in hundreds of pieces and peppered him wth birdshot. He bled but not enough. I got rid of all of those shells and went back to hornaday and haven't had a regret since.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 03 02, 2019 •  [Post 13]

Glad to see you back around Snowbank. I enjoy your input.
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Re: Most Memorable Moment

Postby ishy » 03 12, 2019 •  [Post 14]

Really tough choice, but taking an adult lion at 20 yards has to be top of the list.
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