Late bulls 2011

For thanksgiving and my birthday I once again got to go to the woods in pursuit of bull elk. For the past 5 years I have been fortunate to hunt the same unit this time of the year with friends or having the tag myself. I love this time of the year and this particular hunt, plus every late hunt we have never been skunked on taking a couple of bulls. This year my good friends Art Garcia Sr and his son Artie Jr drew tags together and asked me to tag along. Thursday before the hunt we headed out locate some bulls, between all of us we didn't get to scout much with other conflicting hunts and work. In years passed this has never been a problem with the number of elk in the country we hunt. We located several bulls on Thursday with a couple possible shooters and one giant 6x8 in the headlights on our way to camp. We hunted hard for 5 days turning up no shooter bulls, just a lot of hunters. It was pretty warm this year for November and there was no weather what so ever to help push these bulls into the canyons. Where we hunt is a mixture of pines and cedars more cedars then anything. So as the hunt moved onto the 6th day we decided to try some higher country thinking the cooler country may have some bulls pushed deeper into some of the canyons. At sun up we found ourselves glassing down into the steep canyons turning up nothing but a couple of sheds. Around 830 am Art Sr glassed up two bulls feeding around the corner on the opposite side from us. The canyon we were in is extremely steep and rocky and this morning was quiet and calm. So the chance of getting super close was out of the question. We decided that Art Sr would be the first shooter and we were off on a stalk. We managed to get just under 400 yards from both bulls and were in position to shoot just waiting on the bigger of the two bulls to step out and present a shot. The bull stepped out and Art put him down with one shot, I turned to Artie and said get ready if you want the other one! He set up quickly and hammered him at 380 yards. This hunt had been so tough with other hunters and the thickness of the country but like Art Sr said your hunt can change in a matter of ten seconds and it sure did! We had two awesome late bulls down side by side in a nasty canyon but the joy of what we accomplished was so rewarding with how hard we had worked! Thanks again guys for letting me tag along, it was an awesome way to spend my birthday! Notice the on the ground pictures are a little rough but if you can see each bull is tied up with rope to keep them from falling down more, we did our best to get some good pictures! Thx again guys

Art Sr's 2011 Bull

Artie's 2011 Bull

Great times packing out!!