Big Bull Tag November 2018 Elk Hunt

Finally I Drew the Tag!!

After fourteen years of applying, I finally drew what most elk hunters would call the tag of a lifetime. Utah big bull. If you are unaware exactly what that means there are a few things to know. In Utah there are some of the biggest bull elk you will ever see, in several spots you can hunt and harvest any adult male, most of the time you can find some decent sized elk in these areas. In other areas you can hunt the females. I happened to draw a tag in a premium unit, meaning the state of Utah only allows so many people to hunt mature "big bulls", it is also called an "open bull" unit. In this area there are some trophy bull elk. Competition for this tag is huge. Several thousand hunters apply for this tag each and every year. Approximately 300 of those applicants are successful, give or take. As I previously stated, it took me 14 years to draw a tag for this unit.  For lack of wanting to increase my competition, and being unaware where this blog is going to take me, I'm not going to reveal where I'm hunting until a later date.

One of the biggest reasons for starting this blog is to enable my family and friends to read about our experiences learning how these great animals live, scouting for a quality animal to harvest, and share what I learn about the several hundreds of different myths and "facts" that exist about elk. I admit I am not exactly a professional hunter. But I want to be, especially for this hunt. I have spent thousands of hours in these mountains, mostly as a deer hunter with my family, but often times recreating and just enjoying the outdoors. Mountains affect you that way, they call to you.

For this hunt I took what some would call a risk and others would say is the best time to hunt elk. This will become yet another lesson learned, but for me this is no risk, there are several reasons I chose this tag. I have to go back about ten years to tell you a little about when my brother drew this exact same tag. An any bull unit in November in Utah. My brother Merrill had been putting in to draw a tag for several years and decided he too would take a risk. He was the first of us to attempt the November tag. Admittedly we took on this hunt without a real understanding of what was happening with the elk. We have seen thousands of elk in these mountains over the years and the assumption was we could go where we knew they were and be successful. Because of the number of elk in the area we were able to locate several different bulls, never to have success getting a shot at them. One of the days Merrill was the sole hunter, both my father and I had to work and could not be there with him on that day. Of course this is the day he got a shot and hit a nice bull elk. He was able to get cell service and called both of us to help him locate the animal and pack it out. He did as every good hunter does and allowed time for this animal to die before giving chase and causing problems for retrieval of the animal. If you pursue an animal that has not expired they can run, and a hurt elk can run for miles. Approximately two hours after he had shot the animal we went down into the canyon to clean and pack the animal out. To our great surprise we could see a large pool of blood indicating what we believed to be a lethal shot. To our great frustration we were also able to see the bull had somehow escaped the canyon we were in and went up the other side. Merrill and I slowly pursued the animal only to learn it had climbed all the way to the top and started back down another canyon. As we then started down, the first snow storm of the winter hit. We were unable to risk continuing our pursuit and determined we would come back in the morning and continue tracking the animal. The storm was much worse than we anticipated and with broken hearts we were unable to get back up the mountain. The bull was lost. Winter had settled in. The fact that we were unable to locate the Elk hurts. Its hard to tell how much it hurts Merrill, he remains optimistic and we understand what we need to change in the future.

Fast forward to two years ago. After fifteen years my father drew what is often times referred to as the premium tag in the state of Utah. He drew the same mountain region only this time it was during the rut. A time where elk are mating and are believed to be in a sort, "out of their minds". They become so distracted with the need to mate with every cow elk they see, they forget about being elusive and open to prey. Added to this mayhem they also begin to bugle or call out to the females to tell them where they are. This makes them a lot easier to locate if you are a hunter. The bugle can be heard from several canyons away. My father Eldon drew this tag as a 71 year old man. To his great credit he worked hard to prepare for this hunt knowing he was going to have to put in long hours of hiking in steep terrain. He took up an exercise routine that included running sprints in case he had to shoot after being a little gassed from the hike or running to get in shooting position. At the same time we were scouting for elk in places we knew he would be able to hike to. As the hunt started we had not yet pinpointed exactly which bull we wanted to hunt first. We arrived in a canyon we knew there were bulls and upon arrival in the early dark we could hear several different bulls bugling all around us. As the sun came up and the day heated up the elk were suddenly silent. Not a sound. Here we were in the middle of the rut and there was nothing. It was just too hot. The elk were preparing for winter and were several hundred pounds heavier than in the summer and they were not going to be out in the hot sun trying to mate. They went for shelter from the sun as much as we did. We were not able to find one to harvest that day. The next several days took us to a spot Eldon hiked in and out of about four times. This was a challenging hike for me as a 40 year old man, I can only imagine the determination it took for him to make this hike several times. We were able to locate some great bulls once again. We could get eyes on them at about 1000 yards each morning. And of course once again, the hot sun came up, the bulls flat out disappeared. This was the first elk hunt for any of us during the rut, and it seemed to all of us that the rut was nothing more than over exaggerated. We could get them to bugle back at us to help us locate after giving our own imitation bugle, but as soon as it was hot, it was over. They were gone. We had exhausted ourselves in pursuit and determined to try another location. We again went to a place that was accessible and that we knew there were elk. We sat in the late day and tried a cow call. Simulating the noise a cow elk makes to attempt to draw a crazed bull in for mating. A bull immediatley jumped up and started down the mountain towards us. After four days of the rut seeming like a complete and utter waste of time, the fifth day gave some credit to the idea that they respond during mating season. At one point, we saw the bull walk briefly making his way towards us in the trees. He then vanished. We expected him to walk out in front of us, he did not. He walked directly to the left of us and spotted us about thirty yards away. We then heard him charging back up the mountain. We had lost him. Frustration set in and we decided in the late evening to head back home. We devised a plan to go back in the morning as he was simply the only bull that had responded to our calls. We arrived very early the next morning, about five am. Parked our vehicles several hundred yards from where we were going to set up for the morning and then covered ourselves with cow elk urine. Yep, cow elk urine. If you have never done this before it has a stink that is unmatched. It's like opening a garbage can that has been sitting full in the sun for a couple weeks. We started hiking in the dark to the meadow we were going to try and draw this elk to. To our surprise we walked right up on this bull laying at the bottom of a tree. It stood up and stared at us. The problem we had is that it was so dark you could barely see it with the naked eye let alone through a rifle scope. The bull left. As this was now the second to last day of the hunt we were deflated. It felt as though our last chance at a good bull had come and gone. We continued on our hike trying to be positive about what had taken place. We set up at the end of a meadow and put out pucks with elk urine to cover our odor. As I hiked to the other side of a hill to check a valley for elk, I heard one shot. One single shot. Merrill had used a calf call we purchased the night before at Cabela's and the bull once again responded. He walked all the way to the other side of the meadow almost exactly as we had planned. One thing about my father is that he can shoot. He can hit damn near anything with that rifle. He once shot a deer so far away I couldn't even see it. I remember thinking "this old man has lost it". He was probably the same age I am now. He shot it and told me to walk the trail until I find it, he would go get the truck. Sure enough after what felt like a three mile hike across a mountain side I found the deer. Dead. This day he shot once. One shot, standing, no rest, at about 250 yards. The elk fell immediately. Upon arrival at the bull, you could clearly see the bullet struck exactly where he was aiming. The lungs. He had been told by several of his friends that his gun wasn't big enough and that he needed a bigger rifle calibre. He told them all he was going to hit it in the lungs and take it. Well he did. The rifle, a .270. No really special bullet load, just a really great shot. I take from this hunt is that the rut, in all its glorious and legendary status, was really nothing more than any other time we had been on the mountain. The heat had turned the rut into days where the near 1000 pound bull elk needed to hide and cool off rather than chase cows for breeding rights. It also cemented in my head that being prepared to take the shot when it counted served more important than what calibre you are shooting or what ridiculoulsy overpriced bullet you were using. I look at the trophy hanging in my parents family room as a beautiful reminder of the years and years of bonding, learning to be men, and time with our father that serves us well to this day.

The deciding factors for me to attempt the November elk hunt came last year on the deer hunt. Our family decided to camp and hunt areas that were otherwise completely unknown to us as hunters. The weather was very warm and we often times found ourselves hunting in short sleeves. It was late October in the Utah mountains and we were wearing short sleeves. Merrill and I took my son Brett into a place that was essentially unknown to us. We had never been there and had no idea where our hike would take us. We hiked for several miles into an otherwise low traffic bowl. We saw no other hunters. This bowl was several miles in every direction from any roads, eliminating the annoyance of hunters unwilling to get off their damn 4 wheelers and go for a walk. It always amazes me how many guys have $70000 trucks with decals of big deer and elk in the back window, and $25000 side by sides but none of them have the guts to get out and actually walk somewhere. Big animal aside, the country is rugged and beautifully untouched by man. Brett and I were walking one side of the bowl and Merrill the other. As you might imagine in a movie, suddenly to our immediate right a large group of elk started pouring over the ridge side right into the bowl we were standing in. The whole group stopped about 50 yards from us. In the middle of that group was a big, beautiful bull. He was running around the group seemingly keeping them together as he pushed. To our great surprise, nearly a month after the rut he let out a loud and commanding bugle. He then turned and pushed the group up the canyon. Not only had we seen an incredible sight, the bull had vocalized in a manner we didn't know they did at that time. He continued to scream the rest of the way up the canyon making it easy for us to locate and watch them. He turned before going over the ridge and looked at us. He was so majestic. An incredible animal, it seemed like he knew it too. The behavior seemed so uncharacteristic to us. Was this the way they behave all the time and we just hadn't spent enough time in their domain to experience it? And how could this be, we have been in those mountains for years and never seen or heard anything like this. There were several bulls in this herd and total numbers were approximately 40 head of elk. We didn't kill a deer that day and truly none of us seemed to care. The experience with the elk trumped that.

The following day proved to be even more incredible. Once again we chose a long, deep canyon to make our way through. We started early in the morning and had made pretty good time getting approximately half way up the canyon when we determined we would hike to a vantage point and look into our bowl. We reached the view and continued up the canyon a little. Out of nowhere we looked up the hillside to our immediate right and saw a big six point bull running across with a few cows trailing. This wasn't unusual, we just got to chalk up a big bull sighting. Then the unusual. As we stepped another twenty feet or so another large six point bull stood up, he too ran off with about four or five cows trailing. As we watched him we saw another big bull directly in front of us running from right to left. Three different, nice sized bulls almost acting as if we were witnessing the same crazy state of mind described as the rut. That was then followed by a bull elk bugling, full bugle, loud and long. This bull was across the valley. And from that point on he did not stop bugling all day long. I mean it, all day long. We made our way to were we had passed him before he walked out and fed in the field below us. He too was a beautiful big bull elk. We then watched him push about thirty or so head of elk into  the trees at the bottom of the draw in front of us. This herd also included several other bulls. It wasn't yet noon and we had seen approximately 15 bull elk and heard the screeching and bugling all day long. We then walked right into the clump of trees. We were able to witness this bull making all kinds of noise, he was acting almost frantic. Again, was this the rut? We had walked to almost 50 yards away from him, all of the noise from those elk had covered our own noise and made it very easy to get that close. That quickly the elk turned a sprinted out of the those trees. Amazing, amazing animals. Its like a thunderstorm on the valley floor. That was the most bulls I had seen in a single morning. I think Merrill would agree. I don't have an exact total on the number of bulls but I would put it somewhere around 15-20 for the morning. And what was with the bugling? I thought this was a mating call, a "hey get over here and do it with me". I was completely unaware that elk communicated like this outside of the rut.

Based on the behavior of these elk, my brother and I had a lot of questions. We researched and found that these two days that had been the two coolest days of the year since summer started, a very small snow storm cooled the area even though for us it was still short sleeves. We talked a lot about this behavior being what we both thought the rut would be like. Only, the rut wasn't like that. We then started looking at what the draw results were like on the late season elk hunt. A hunt that starts Nov 10 and goes until Nov 18. If you have ten bonus points for this hunt, you have a 100% percent chance of drawing a tag. I had 14. I was a lock to draw. We then researched weather patterns, talking to people who work in the area took us to city employees who confirmed they had not plowed snow before Thanksgiving in the 20 years they have worked there. These were cities at the bottom of these canyons. If patterns held we would be in our short sleeves hunting in November making these places easily accessible again. I drew the tag, now its time to find the elk.