I saw him long enough to know he was a good bull, but didn’t examine him too well as I quickly realized he was in a great spot to sneak in closer. He was probably 125 yards away, only one little ravine between us. I peaked over the rise and another timely bugle allowed me to pinpoint his location. At this point, we had only heard one bull but I assumed he would have cows. He was close! It was just light enough to see, but not to shoot yet, as I crawled on my hands and knees over a small knoll to try and get eyes on him. After my elk meat was on ice, we struggled to locate more elk in the same area for a couple of days, causing me to spend a lot of time on the Hunt App studying maps and checking new areas within our hunt unit.”Īs soon as we made it across the opening, the bull sounded off again.
#BULL ELK AT TIMES FULL#
Had I not had the ability to, in the complete dark, read the terrain in the app and essentially mark and stalk this bull’s bugles in the dark to be in the perfect spot at first light, there is a good chance I would not currently have a full freezer of amazing elk meat and another European mount hung up in the house.
#BULL ELK AT TIMES OFFLINE#
A few of the key features I used on this particular hunt were: Offline Maps, Aerial and Topographic Basemaps, Waypoints and Private / Public Layers. “The Hunt App was crucial for my success on this hunt. How Dylan Used the onX Hunt App on This Hunt Legal shooting light was still probably 20 minutes away at this point. I knew if we could get to the other side of the clearing without bumping any elk, we would be in a great spot. When I was confident his last bugle was from over the next ridge, we got aggressive and crossed the large opening he had been in when we first heard him. We continued to cautiously stalk his bugle in the dark, barely able to see the ground around us. He started up on an open flat and was making his way toward some breaky terrain with burnt timber I know they like to bed in from hunting this area in years prior. Every time he bugled and sounded like he had moved, I updated the Waypoint in the Hunt App to the location I thought he was.
He consistently bugled every five minutes or so, allowing us to keep pretty good tabs on where he was. Using the onX Hunt App, I marked where I thought the bull was bugling from. With consistent wind, we decided to make a play on him but darkness ended up winning the race before we could turn him back up after we closed the distance. A small five point, probably half a mile across an open sage flat, raking a burnt pine. My cousin spotted the first bull of the trip that evening. We arrived just in time to split up and find a vantage point to try and locate elk for the following morning. I knew it was just a matter of time, but oddly enough, I still hadn’t heard a bugle by the time I left for my hunt on the 25th of September.įor the past several years, I have met my dad, uncle, and cousin for an annual week-long archery elk hunt in our home state of Montana. We covered many miles on foot and even horses without hearing or laying eyes on a single bull. I spent the first few weeks of the season tagging along with family and friends on hunts of theirs. The elk rut seemed to start out slow this year, at least in the spots I was hunting. More than twenty years later, I still get the same feeling when hearing a bull bugle. It was one of those magical times in the elk rut that is almost impossible to try and describe. I remember telling my dad I wanted to stay and listen to the bugles well after shooting light was over before our hike out in the dark. My very first evening elk hunting was spent in the middle of several bugling bulls as darkness crept in. Even at the age of eight, it didn’t take long for me to realize that there was something extra special about screaming bulls in September. I vividly remember the first time getting to tag along with my dad on an archery elk hunt.
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