[IMG]http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad233/jimandsue/DSC00757_zpsdde48fe9.jpg[/IMG]I am home, the meat is cut and wrapped. What a trip. We had a great hunt. I took my wife along to the Bridger Wilderness in Wyoming on my first archery elk hunt. It was a warm and windy week but we were successful. I was lucky to take this bull on the 2nd to last day, in the evening. We was hunting with Bald Mountain Outfitter's out of Pinedale. They run a first class operation, I have taken a bull with them three years prior. The first four days of the hunt had the bulls being very quiet for the most part, they weren't very talkative. That changed a little on the fifth morning.

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Heck Yeah!!!!!  God Bless

On the fifth morning we had some bulls talk to us and even seen a few from a distance but unseen forces didn't allow us to connect. At lunch, my guide Nicole, asked her husband Aaron if he wanted to take us to one of his "honey holes" in the evening. At 1500 the four of us rode out of camp, Sue and I , Nicole and Aaron, a Wyoming double date.  We rode abd bugled thru a couple promising spots but no action. At about 1650 we bugled and received a faint answer from some real gnarly country to our west.
I dismounted and got set up with anticipation to have a cow come to Aaron's bugle and lay down in front of me at 30 yds. She rolled around and basically held there watching me. Aaron was signalling me, that I had to move. Finally she looked away for a while and I was able to make my escape. Tyhe bull we had been calling to was getting excited. We traveled about ten yards and there was a spike bull grazing in front of us. We had to get by another sentry. After what seemed to be a lengthy stalk around this guy, we were overlooking a steep draw. Aaron had the bull fired up and he was coming. I needed to lose about fifty feet in elevation and move twenty five yards to the northwest. With my Great Northern Bushbow in my hand and my Arrowmaster slung in front of me. I started the fifty foot verticcal desscent.

Congrats!          

Great job!


David

When I reached the bottom. (Finally). I realized I had no shot. .I needed to belly crawl under some burnt and blow down timber to close the distance to the trail I thought he would approach on. After some time and some tricky manuevering I was in a little depression behind some lodgepole looking down the draw, at the ready. Well, I see movemnet and here he comes on the wrong side. On my right I see him approaching, I am on the wrong side of the tree and he is looking right at me. Aaron cow calls and the bull lifts his head to bugle, it gives my a chance to move around the tree and get ready again. The bull follows the trail I am watching but he is in no hurry, I had a shot at thirty yards but I didn't want a quarterin to shot and I thought he was a bit too far. He stopped broadside at what I thought was twenty five yards or so but he was behind some spruces. Only his shoulder was visible. He was leaning forward and back, barking and bugling.. I would draw and then have to let down because he wouldn't move that shoulder forward. Finally he took a step with his far side (right) leg and I thought whne he moves forward again this is my chance. He did lean forward to bugle, the shoulder cleared the opening and sometime after that I saw the arrow bury in him. He raised his head, took a few steps forward very calmly, looked around walked up a five foot rise in the terrain. At hgis point I could see blood pumping out his side where the three-blade VPA entered. He wheezed and I saw blood come out his mouth and nostrils. He turned away from me and walked two more steps and collapsed. I broke cover and sigalled Aaron that he was down. We shook hands and went and got the girls. What a hunt.

Congrats on your elk. Thanks for the report and the photo. Loved seeing the photo.

congrats, way to get it done.

Outstanding!!!

Thats really a great picture !!! Congrats..

Wow, Good on ya!!

Bob.

Congrats

       

Congrats!      

Heck yeah!

Awesome!!! congratulations!!

Thanks forsharing your hunt with us and thats getting it done.

Congratulations!

WOW

Good for you    
Great smiles the both of you.