Well another annual epic Utah archery hunt goes in the books. After having a great archery deer hunt out of Manti, UT last year the one thing I loved about this area is that it was loaded with elk, we had to kick the elk out of the way last year trying to get to the deer. This year being I drew Arizona archery bull elk in November I decided to skip the draw and go for elk cow n spike over the counter. I have spent over forty years hunting Utah and this place is some of the most beautiful country I have ever been in and I wanted to get back to this area since the day we left last year. The opener was as usual watching every local drive there side by sides out on every point trying to split every herd up and run everything out of the country, right at grey light we had a nice herd run by us just out of my range at 120 yds. And watched a few spikes move into the timber but with this heat they were checked out at light. Sunday morning we parked in the middle of a north face mountain range and split up to cover more area, about half way up I could hear elk calling between us and I knew we played it perfect and we had the elk between us and it was on, no more than a minute later I look to my left and see a huge cow running right at me at 30 yds, I had to lean over into the berry bushes to cover myself up and knock an arrow and as I came up to draw she slid to a stop at 5 yards, as I am in a stare down with those huge eyes a group of pine hens blow out of the tree above us and she turns and starts to run away from me, not to want to give her a texas heart shot I gave her a mouth cow call and she stopped at 30yds and turned broadside, all I could see was her neck and head so I had to judge where her shoulder was and let the titanium rage fly which when I seen her jump up I could see my nocturnal knock lit up right in the shoulder and I knew I had a perfect shot, She ran down hill about 60 yards and piled up. It just never gets old, Thanks to all my hunting partners for making 2015 Utah archery hunt an epic one. Peace.
