Matt and I got back from AZ yesterday.... We were able to fill one tag. It was a little bit of a tough hunt, the Elk head for un-huntable heavy cover early in the day. The weather was quite warm compared to normal I think: 50 degrees everyday although it dropped into the teens every night. No snow either to push the elk around. We would typically just get a glimpse of them at first or last light going in or out of the cover. Day one we only saw Mule Deer and Antelope, until the drive back to camp when two cows ran across the road in front of us 8 minutes after legal shooting light.
Day two we spotted two groups of 5 cows in the morning. The first group got spooked by a truck about 90 seconds after I spotted them... That was the only thing that I really didn't like about his hunt. The unit is absolutely riddled with roads and a lot of people just drive around all day hoping to get lucky. That was pretty frustrating, especially seeing how the elk were acting. We spotted the second group a few minutes later coming out of a band of cover between two meadows. They lingered in the meadow for maybe 5 minutes total as they walked across it and then went into the thick and nasty stuff quickly. Shortly after I saw an orange hat wandering around in the meadow on the opposite side of the cover they had come from, and it was obvious this guy had bumped them. That evening we sat the meadow the elk had left hoping to get an opportunity as they came out of cover. 15 minutes before the end of shooting light a guy and his kid come walking through the middle of this meadow with their headlamps on. I held off on giving this guy a piece of my mind since he had his kid with him.
Morning of day three (Tuesday) we noticed much less traffic which was great. The morning before 5 trucks had driven by and none did this morning. It seemed like a lot of camps had packed up to go back to work. That morning we spotted a group of 5 cows going into the same patch of thick cover from the day before. We had eyes on them for all of 30 seconds before they were gone for the day. Mid day we explored another part of the unit but decided we should probably stick with the area where we had already been since we knew it pretty well at this point and we were seeing elk daily, although not a lot of them. That afternoon we were back on our glassing knob seeing more Mule Deer... Then, 30 minutes before end of shooting light I spotted a group of cows at about 2 miles. We had decided we were going to make a move on anything within reason. We jumped in the truck and drove fast down to the edge of the huge meadow where we thought they'd come out. We proceeded on foot for several hundred yards stopping to glass frequently where we thought they would appear. Sure enough they started to filter out with just a few minutes of shooting light left. We were at 330 yards and I waved my buddy Matt forward. There was no time to plan any elaborate stalk and really we were already in range. We got to 275 and they all looked our direction. I told Matt it's now or never. I offered him the shot but he told me to shoot, so I sat down and got on the sticks. Again, no time to debate. There were 7 elk. They started to slowly walk to the right but not too fast, stopping to feed. I was too shaky from running and held off on the first one I put the crosshairs on, took some deep breaths and got back on the gun and picked another one out. She stopped for me and I squeezed one off holding a little high. My follow through wasn't great and Matt had fogged his binoculars so we weren't totally sure what the outcome was. But I felt very steady and thought I had seen the elk hump up at the shot. Matt went to get the truck and I just slowly started walking and glassing. We got over there about 15 or 20 minutes later and started to look for blood and after a stressful 10 minutes of finding nothing we found her dead as can be right where she had stood. It was a heart/lung shot and she didn't go one step. As much as I had hated on the roads I have to admit I was thankful for the proximity to the road now... we were able to gut her, back the truck right to her and put her in the truck and take her back to camp where we hung her in a tree to chill overnight. Still, I'd trade that road access for a little solitude.
I would have been happy to let Matt hunt on Wednesday while I broke the elk down but he wanted to help with that and get on the road. I was fine to split the meat since I'll still go to Texas in January and I got a D16 buck too.
Great trip overall! We saw lots of Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk and Javelina. Lots of beautiful country too. We rented a pop-up trailer from a guy in Phoenix on our way there. I would definitely do either that or a wall tent in the future. Tent camping would have sucked. Here's some photos:
Day two we spotted two groups of 5 cows in the morning. The first group got spooked by a truck about 90 seconds after I spotted them... That was the only thing that I really didn't like about his hunt. The unit is absolutely riddled with roads and a lot of people just drive around all day hoping to get lucky. That was pretty frustrating, especially seeing how the elk were acting. We spotted the second group a few minutes later coming out of a band of cover between two meadows. They lingered in the meadow for maybe 5 minutes total as they walked across it and then went into the thick and nasty stuff quickly. Shortly after I saw an orange hat wandering around in the meadow on the opposite side of the cover they had come from, and it was obvious this guy had bumped them. That evening we sat the meadow the elk had left hoping to get an opportunity as they came out of cover. 15 minutes before the end of shooting light a guy and his kid come walking through the middle of this meadow with their headlamps on. I held off on giving this guy a piece of my mind since he had his kid with him.
Morning of day three (Tuesday) we noticed much less traffic which was great. The morning before 5 trucks had driven by and none did this morning. It seemed like a lot of camps had packed up to go back to work. That morning we spotted a group of 5 cows going into the same patch of thick cover from the day before. We had eyes on them for all of 30 seconds before they were gone for the day. Mid day we explored another part of the unit but decided we should probably stick with the area where we had already been since we knew it pretty well at this point and we were seeing elk daily, although not a lot of them. That afternoon we were back on our glassing knob seeing more Mule Deer... Then, 30 minutes before end of shooting light I spotted a group of cows at about 2 miles. We had decided we were going to make a move on anything within reason. We jumped in the truck and drove fast down to the edge of the huge meadow where we thought they'd come out. We proceeded on foot for several hundred yards stopping to glass frequently where we thought they would appear. Sure enough they started to filter out with just a few minutes of shooting light left. We were at 330 yards and I waved my buddy Matt forward. There was no time to plan any elaborate stalk and really we were already in range. We got to 275 and they all looked our direction. I told Matt it's now or never. I offered him the shot but he told me to shoot, so I sat down and got on the sticks. Again, no time to debate. There were 7 elk. They started to slowly walk to the right but not too fast, stopping to feed. I was too shaky from running and held off on the first one I put the crosshairs on, took some deep breaths and got back on the gun and picked another one out. She stopped for me and I squeezed one off holding a little high. My follow through wasn't great and Matt had fogged his binoculars so we weren't totally sure what the outcome was. But I felt very steady and thought I had seen the elk hump up at the shot. Matt went to get the truck and I just slowly started walking and glassing. We got over there about 15 or 20 minutes later and started to look for blood and after a stressful 10 minutes of finding nothing we found her dead as can be right where she had stood. It was a heart/lung shot and she didn't go one step. As much as I had hated on the roads I have to admit I was thankful for the proximity to the road now... we were able to gut her, back the truck right to her and put her in the truck and take her back to camp where we hung her in a tree to chill overnight. Still, I'd trade that road access for a little solitude.
I would have been happy to let Matt hunt on Wednesday while I broke the elk down but he wanted to help with that and get on the road. I was fine to split the meat since I'll still go to Texas in January and I got a D16 buck too.
Great trip overall! We saw lots of Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk and Javelina. Lots of beautiful country too. We rented a pop-up trailer from a guy in Phoenix on our way there. I would definitely do either that or a wall tent in the future. Tent camping would have sucked. Here's some photos:
