Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting AZ backpack elk

I was blessed to draw yet another bull tag this year for one of my favorite areas. Earlier scouting trips were productive and my camp site selected. I packed in 10 gallons of water... which makes for good training hikes if nothing else.

My brother came along to help and we hiked up the hill on the eve of the opener to set up camp.





The first two days of the hunt were enjoyable, but unproductive. Found fresh skeletons in two of the "hot spots" so the elk had been there in the earlier hunts. Forecast was for some snow Saturday evening...



Sunday morning refreshed my optimism for success. After watching a trail at first light we decided to hike until we cut some tracks. Found some large tracks of a lone animal and trailed it in the noisy wet snow until it went into this.



While we have both killed bedded bulls before, I decided to wait for another time rather than bust the elk out of the area.



First light Monday morning looked pretty much the same but I was solo as my brother had headed back Sunday afternoon for work.



Heading to the area where we saw the tracks Saturday, two 5x5s were briefly visible though a thickening fog. I side-hilled to where I expected them to re-appear and shortly saw 3 elk.

Turns out they were 3 spikes and they worked their way towards me. Due the the curvature of the terrain I could only see their upper body and heads through the trees.
When they became visible again at about 10 yards, I couldn't do much except take off the safety and wait. As they moved on, I was able to raise the rifle and line up on the front spike at maybe 15- 20 yards. The 200 grain partition dropped the bull right there.

[img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/81823.jpg[/img]

Time to pack up camp and head back down the hill. The scenery was great, although somewhat alien for this Phoenix native.

[img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/81838.jpg[/img]

Nice hunt,
thanks for sharing. How did you like your set up with the snow and lower temps? Looks like you made out well. What did the pack out take? That always seems to be the big part of Elk or Moose hunting.

Thanks, I was pretty happy with my gear performance on this trip. I did make the mistake of not opening the vents on my Hilleberg tent enough the first night and got quite a bit of condensation. It worked great thereafter. I had Sitka top layers along with icebreaker merino wool base layers which performed great. The pack out with the little bull was a pleasant surprise compared to past efforts, and my brother came back up after I texted him so it only took a couple of trips this year,

Cool story and pictures.. Way to get it done!

Awesome cool story great pics thanks for sharing !!

Good deal man that's great!

Congrats!

Dewd way to git er done very nice congrats!

Great job Mike - you always get it done. .

Thanks for the kind words guys. It will certainly be one of my more memorable hunts.
Another backpack hunt into my favorite Coues spot in a couple of weeks!