Well another very busy year. We did luck into some elk tags and we filled them, our hearts and freezers are full! I don't have the energy for full writeups these days so this will have to suffice.

My buddy Casey and I drew archery bull tags in Arizona. Very lucky draw for us. I held out for a larger elk and was unable to bag one. Casey has already killed a big ass bull with his bow so he wasn't picky. The rut was slow to start and we finally got a travel pattern down that was short lived but on day 6 we set up in a route and Casey thumped a 5x5, made a great shot at 56 yards, 4-blade Slick Trick Magnums crushed this bull:


Had a very awesome time on this hunt. I hunted all 14 days and had some close calls on some pretty good bulls and passed a couple small six points on day 3. Here's me passing the sleeping small 6x7 bull I walked up on. Passed his buddy too, he was about the same size. Pic is 50 yards from the bull, he's asleep:


Had some great times with Casey and my brother and my buddy Al from NY and my dad and my buddy Mike that I grew up with. Hunting bull elk with a bow during the rut is freaking great. I must do it again



The last hour of the last day I was able to make it happen. Got into a herd and a big 330+ bull was running the show, keeping his cows bunched up and moving every other bull along. Al and Casey were finally able to pull a satellite close enough for a shot. 59 yards and the shot felt good but we couldn't find the arrow or any blood. So we looked around before dark and then it got dark and Casey had to get back to Tucson and I had to work the next day. I was sure I hit him, the guys were not convinced but Al went out to look the next day and I knocked off early at work to help. I was on my way when Al said he found him. He was only 350 yards from the shot, I hit him a little back in the liver, but he'd hooked hard left and there was no blood. Arrow passed through him and we never found it. I was sure the meat would be bad so I was actually upset but we got him cut up and actually saved most of it. I lost a decent amount of the hind end around the femurs but his backstraps and fronts and half his hinds were good. Al forced me to take pictures and then forced me to smile. I was not in the mood thinking he'd be rotten. So happy we got him:


Italian sausage:


This was my first archery elk and man what a thrill it is hunting this animal this time of year. Amazing. Hope I get to do it again. Al and I were happy as hell he wasn't rotten:

A few weeks later my two daughters had cow tags and so did my nephew Elliot. Elliot and Jenna had the youth hunt and the bulls were still bugling a lot. So much fun. Jenna and I saw a tank of a bull and he kept his cows clustered and stood in front of them the whole time and we didn't get a shot at the cows. Tate and Elliot closed in on the bugles too and were able to get Elliot on a cow. Turns out the loose herd was about 30 elk, 20 of which were bulls, 5 of them were good ones. Two of them kept fighting after they made their way to open country away from us after Elliot shot his cow. Just a great experience to see the elk rut and fight, and Elliot kill his first elk:


We got Elliot's cow situated and Jenna and we went out trying to get Jenna a cow. We had the crew glassing for us on the hill but they weren't seeing anything so Jenna and I decided to chase some bugles. As we approached the bull that was screaming most often we jumped some cows and calves, I was able to stop them and the two young calves were the ones that stopped in the clearing. She made a good shot, 80-100 yards ish with the 7mm-08:



This was Jenna's first elk, so happy for her. The highlight of the year for me was, maybe an hour before she shot this calf, we were out in the junipers listening to bugles and she said "Dad, hunting is fun. This has been awesome." I about melted. I think she is hooked.

Back at home we celebrated with elk heart and liver:


And deviled kidneys:


The next week it was Jill's turn. Jill has been unlucky in the draw, this was her first elk hunt as well. We didn't see much the first day until right before dark, Tate and my dad were on the hill glassing and picked up a herd. They were able to guide us in and Jill made a great shot on a cow at 190 yards. 120gr TTSX blew right through and she went about 50 yards and piled up. My phone died after 3 pictures because I'm an amateur but we got a pretty good one. So proud of this kid, this is her first elk:


All in all I've had an amazing 30 days. A lot of hunting, a lot of work, a lot of love. Very proud of my kids.

Jenna messing around in camp:


Calf steaks and roasts:


I get to tag along on some late rifle bull tags so hopefully more coming after Thanksgiving:)

Great trips and pics. 👊🏻 Thanks for sharin

Great pictures and a wonderful family and friends! Congratulations to everyone!

Very very cool

A memory maker for everyone involved

Good job Dad!

Great write up too

That's what it is all about--Conglads

Big congrats to all!

wheres that damn like button at

Wow! That’s as good as it gets. Congrats.

Excellent job!

Great hunt and lots of good time with family and friends and a ton of meat to boot.

Awesome hunt! Thanks for the pics and really cool seeing some hunting kids in camp!

congrats on the hunt , good deal with the kids hunt hope they are hooked for life

Good stuff, congrats to all.

Outstanding, that's what it's all about.

Looks like an excellent month!

Congrats to all on their success.

That is frigging awesome!

Sounds like a great family adventure and lots of good eats.
The kids re-live it each time you have a nice meal of elk.
Well done.

Nice job all around. Looks like a lot of fum was had. 😁

I love it but I’m gonna have to wait till next year.

Looks good, all but the liver part…

Awesome.

I’ll go the other direction “even the liver part.”

Liver was the best part

These T-Bones with shrimp scampi weren’t terrible:



We ground and wrapped breakfast sausage today

There isn’t enough A-1 sauce in the world to make liver palatable…

Awesome job bro all the way around....

Outstanding all the way around. Conrats to all of you.

True enough, I’m sure A-1 sauce would ruin a good piece of liver as fast as it would ruin a good steak

Awesome!!! Congrats to all of you! Love seeing the young ladies hunting and having success!!!! Nothing makes me happier these days than hunting with my daughter.

Most excellent, thanks for the pics and write up.

Great stories and great animals!!!! Congrats to all!!! Waidmannsheil !!!

Thanks for taking us along in pictures.. congrats all the way around for the successful hunters and condolences and " next year" to those that didn't get to score this season...

cheers
seafire

Very nice! Congrats!

The Winchester 1894, is it a pre64? 30-30?

Well, This is a very awesome post, all the way around. Congrats and thanks for sharing!!!!

Todd

It’s a 30-30, I don’t think it’s pre-64

Great report! Congrats on the hunt with your family!

Looks like it went great all around, congrats.

Looks like an awesome AZ elk season. Congrats on all the success. Good to see Casey is still around and doing good!

Just curious what’s Harvest score? Those hats look great.

Congratulations to all.

Looks to have been a real fun elk season with family and friends. Congrats to all.

Condradulations to everyone! Love this picture, these ladies are doing it right! NO need to give you game to a butcher when it is so much fun and easy to do it yourself.

Have to admit as a Canadian I am jealous of your amazing Elk hunting south of our boarder. The massive amounts of Elk you have in the USA is a testament to all of the hunters that support wildlife conservation and management.

Great job, all...

🦫

Congrats to all. Great story and pic's. Its nice to see the family together on an awesome hunt. Thanks for sharing the experience.

Great post, thanks for the pictures and congrats to all!

Awesome Man !!!

Wow, the girls are growing up.

Love these family orientated hunts.

Well done Mr, bringing them up right.

Hey just saw this. So Harvest Score is a new hunting app launching shortly that will be a platform for hunters to record (pictures), store, and score their game. There will be other features like mapping and scouting etc, a lot is in the works. One very exciting thing about it is the 3D modeling they will offer. Essentially you can take a 360 degree video of the antlers with your phone and the program will score it *accurately*. B&C, SCI etc but also a total volume and and their own Harvest Score which will essentially count measurements without the deductions

Now for B&C say, they’d have to adopt the program to count it in their books. Which they may never do. But the program will give you a score say within an inch of what an official scorer would measure so it would be a good way for someone interested in having their animal officially scored to know what to expect and, a good way for the average Joe to know what he has

As I said a lot is in the works, it’s not just a trophy Hunter type app

Here’s a link to the website. Things are just getting started, app should be available in the App Store soon. And anyone interested there is a wait list to get on the first beta release of the app. This is free:)

Harvest Score

Oh, and yes I also dig the hats. Merchandise not yet available through the website but if you’re interested I think they have some for sale. Info@harvestscore.com

Thanks buddy!

How did I miss this thread! What an awesome time we had and im so glad the girls got to kill some elk!

Holy smokes! What a hunt and a huge congrats to you all! Now that is a hunting story and likely one of the best I've read in awhile!

That stuff gets me pumped! Your freezer must be bulging at the seams by now!

As Jake stated in his opening post, the Slick Trick Magnum crushed my bull.

I wanted to expand on that a bit.

The shot was 56 yards, high lung, no ribs on the way in or out. The arrow blew through the bull, hit a rock behind him so hard it bent the tip of the broadhead and damn near sent the knock out the back.
This is from a 16 year old Bowtech, 72#, 29.5" draw, 480 grain arrow. Very impressive performance.

This is the second elk I have killed with this set up, very impressed. Especially with the performance of the broadhead.

Good times right there!

Great write-up and very nice pics.

Congrats to the hunters!

I enjoyed the whole thread! Great photos and kids are always welcome. This is what the Fire is about, not sophomoric name calling by the usual suspects.