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The next morning I left Adam in camp with the goats again. We definitely got closer to an elk without them the previous day, and we wanted to see hear the latest goings on from the neighboring camps. I went back to the big burn, higher up and there were bulls bugling much further down, but nothing where we had previously gotten into elk. It was a slow morning while I contemplated bailing down into the canyon, heading further up mountain or back to camp. By mid morning I let off a bugle and got a weak response from within a 1/4mile in some timber. We played a little cat and mouse, I'd stalk in further, sit and wait, and either he or I would eventually get impatient and bugle, but he wasn't getting out of his bed. I got well under a 100 yards from him before noon and could tell it was only a 25 yard pocket of timber he was in, but I couldn't cover the open burned timber without spooking him, so I got a little bit closer and put out a challenge bugle. This finally got him up and I saw him thinking about sneaking over a small ridge, but he hung up for several minutes, looking for me, letting out little barks and standing there while I glassed him. Wasn't a shooter. So I let him go.

At that point I was pretty well committed to staying all day in the burn, but it was quiet, so I found nice place to nap. By early evening, the bulls below were talking some more, but I really wasn't up to going down in the afternoon alone. So I slowly started working back towards camp. From the shelf above me, some elk started coming in off the rocks, heading downhill. There was about 10 in total, and the bull, though I couldn't yet see him over 100 yards away, sounded pretty mature.
As the elk headed downhill, they were about to get my wind, so I hit them with a cow call and stopped them. I still couldn't see the bull, but he ripped off a bugle. All the cows stopped and stared towards me. I started getting ranges and looked for shooting windows. I found a good one at 90 yards that the lead cows had used, and hoped the bull would take the same path. He bugled again, and this time I could see his antlers, but not much else. I saw the fronts, and knew he was at least a notch or two above the raghorns I had turned down and decided I'd take him if he gave me shot. I sat as still as I could, thankfully was smart enough to get my gun on the sticks before the cow call. The cows were just standing there staring towards me, and though I wasn't wearing any camo(orange mountain hardware shirt, green Kuiu Attack pants, Kuiu orange vest, orange and camo baseball cap), I felt pretty good that I could wait the bull out or he wouldn't come blasting through my lane too quickly for a shot.
It seemed like eternity, but he slowly walked toward my land and stood there, quartering towards for just a few seconds. I shot, my whole vision was clouded with smoke, and I couldn't see where anything ran. I heard no crashing, just some hoof stomps as everyone took off. I put my orange hat on the tree, grabbed my pack and headed quickly toward where I thought the bull was last standing and left my pack there with some more orange on it. Nothing.
I started doing circles, nothing.

I couldn't hear anything. There was no follow up bugle or cow calls. More circles. Nothing. Wider circles. Nothing. F U C K A D U C K! It's getting dark so I called it. I felt like it was a good shot, but I found no hair, no blood, no kicked up dirt, no fresh holes in trees, no broken limbs in the way. I had nothing.
That night was a tough one. Adam and I talked it over and it had been a while since I screwed up a shot, so we all went in together the next morning with the goats and went to the spot again. Still nothing to be seen.

By mid morning, I convinced myself that I flubbed the shot. So after a snack and conference, we decided to head lower and see if we could get any of those elk in the bottom of the drainage to talk to us. While standing by a spring, we all got a whiff of elk, and heard some crows and jaws squabbling. Not 50 yards from where we tried to peak over the edge was the bull. I hit slightly back in the liver and he had gone about 260 yards. There was no exit from the 54 caliber 348 grain Powerbelt. But either way, he was dead and most of the he meat was still good. Probably thanks to the cold night. Some of the meat on the downside rump had turned, and the tenderloins were gross, but all the upside, backstraps and neck was good. He was a 5x6 and pretty nice one. The pictures make him look bigger than he really is. I'm not gonna score him. The score doesn't matter to me. Though not pleased with losing meat, and the stress of that evening and following morning, it was a great hunt and he's a damn good bull by any measure. You don't get many opportunities to turn down bulls, even in limited units. So that was tons of fun, but now the real work began. As well as some math, trying to figure out if we could get all done with one load or if it would take two. And could we get it all done and out tonight?