I’ll just go ahead and get it out of the way now, but I blew a shot at a bigger bull than I shot in 2007. Still kicking myself.
Anyway, my buddy and I arrived at Iron Gate CG at about 6 a.m. on Friday morning. Caught about an hour of sleep, and hit the trail. His dad and dad’s friend had gone in a week before and all of our gear had been packed in, so we had only light packs. We did have to pick up a few supplies, since his dad had called us on the rented satellite phone to put in an order for several things. The packs got real heavy toward the end.
The weather was misty with intermittent drizzle, but the trail was in good shape. Right before we dropped off Hamilton Mesa to Beatty Meadow, a bull bugled right down the mountain from us. So we dropped off and went after him. He apparently heard or saw us, since we heard him take off a few minutes later. It was a good sign though, and we continued on. About the time we hit Beatty Meadow (halfway in), it turned into a full fledged light rain. And the trail turned to muck and slop. So we were pretty much soaked from the waist down and worn by the time we got to camp. It took about 8 hours to walk in. Downed a Mountain House meal, set up my tent, and hit the sack.
We slept in the next morning (Saturday), since it “rained” all night, but when we woke up, we discovered this:
It started to melt off pretty quickly, but the entire day it was impossible to hear anything in the woods, due to the consistent dripping of all the snow melt. That night I went to the top of the meadow at the saddle, but saw nothing but a lone coyote that I managed to lipsqueak in to 20 yards before he realized that I was the biggest, meanest, and most deadly mouse he had ever seen and high tailed it out of there.
Sunday we got up and crossed over the river to the mountain on the other side of the river and heard several bulls bugling. One bugled fairly close to us, but we weren’t able to get him to respond. Later in the day, we heard one back across the river from us, but he sounded so good, we thought he was another hunter, especially after a guy on a horse towing a packhorse showed up on the trail right afterwards and we heard no further bugles. The bull sounded like he was straight out of a bugling contest at a hunting expo. Remember this.
That evening we went down the meadow from our camp to see if we could pinpoint any bugles. We heard a few distant ones, but the only close one was the perfect one that we heard earlier. As we were heading back up the meadow to camp, we saw something moving across the meadow about 100 yards up the hill from us. One quick glimpse was enough to realize that it was a bear, and we broke into a run to get up the hill a bit to get a closer look. The bear had dropped into a depression, and we thought it was just ambling across the meadow, but we got about 20 yards and came face to face with a running bear, about 25 yards in front of us. He saw us, and immediately dived into the woods. The quick look we got included short legs and little ears, i.e. BIG black bear. He was sleek and stout. Definitely a trophy for anyone that might have a bear tag (not us).
Monday was pretty uneventful. Bulls weren’t bugling, sans Mr. Perfect right at dawn and dusk. Lots of walking and calories burned on our part.
Tuesday was pretty quiet in the morning. I went out about 3 p.m. and headed down the ridge that we were camped on and into the woods, which was about two miles long. About a mile in are three consecutive meadows that are about halfway up the ridge from the river below. I decided to stop in one of them and just wait to see if anything would call later in the evening. About 5 p.m., I heard a faint bugle directly below me. I started down the mountain towards it, and every once in awhile, I’d hear another bugle, and I was definitely getting a lot closer. The longer I chased him, the more convinced I was that it was Mr. Perfect. I eventually got almost to the bottom near the river, and he was bugling his head off, and I was close, but I still couldn’t find him. I hadn’t used any of my calls yet, so I finally blew my bugle and he instantly responded back. Not only with a bugle, but a chuckle and then a lot of the growls and grunts that you don’t normally hear. I dropped all the way down to the river into a small hidden meadow where there was a wallow, and finally spotted his herd on the other side of the river; two cows and a spike that I could see, but I still couldn’t spot him. I blew my bugle again and realized that there was a clump of trees obstructing my view of him. I snuck all the way up behind the trees and could see him broadside about 40 yards up the 45 degree slope. He bugled again, and I bugled back and started raking the tree with my bow to try to lure him closer, but he didn’t budge. I realized I didn’t have much time, so I decided to try a shot. I drew, stepped out from behind the trees into the open, aimed, and let fly. I could see my arrow nock, and it looked like the arrow was flying for a perfect heart/lung shot. Going, going, going, then it just died. Arrow did a nose dive just before it got to him and went right under his chest. I instantly nocked another arrow, but by that time, I drew, he had turned away from me and was headed up the hill, bugling his head off. I was sick. The one I killed there in 2007 was ~275”, assuming I measured him correctly, and this bull was easily 325” or even 350”. I skulked back to camp after that and felt really sorry for myself.
The next few days were uneventful. No bulls were calling, sans Mr. Perfect. I pinpointed him and got close to him several more times, but never laid eyes on him.
We hiked out early Saturday morning, and he was bugling his head off, saying goodbye. Besides him and a few random distant bugles, we didn’t hear much all week. That is until we got out of the drainage we were in and back up on to Hamilton Mesa on Saturday. Once we got up there, we heard no less than 20 different bulls calling, and even managed to call a 6x6 in to about 100 yards. If we’d had more time, we would have dropped off the mountain and chased some of the bulls. It was Murphy to the extreme; every bull in the area was aggressive and calling on the day we were leaving, and they didn’t really call that much while we were hunting.
We did spot this very nice 9 point muley on the way out (only the second one we saw all week; the other was a spike). He was pretty stupid, since he just stood there and looked at us; wish I could find one like him at Meredith.
This is for ursus; first good print I saw all week, and it was on the hike out.
As we were driving out, I saw something run across the road in front of me, and I noticed that it wasn’t one of the random chipmunks/ground squirrels that live in the area. Not something you see much of anymore. Put him back down after the pics and he scurried off.
Oh, and Sean, you think you hate squirrels? You won’t really hate squirrels until you’ve dealt with pine squirrels. Little bastids bombarded my tent one morning by cutting cones in the tree above me, and then they bark/chatter/scream/yell/beetch when they see you in the woods and let everything in the near vicinity know that there is something there that they don’t like.
And here are the scenery pics, since I didn’t make the shot this trip.
I carved my initials into a tree back in 2007. This is what it looks like now; it reads “MT 6x6 2007”.
Random grave marked on the side of the mountain across from us; haven’t been able to find out anything about it.
Anyway, my buddy and I arrived at Iron Gate CG at about 6 a.m. on Friday morning. Caught about an hour of sleep, and hit the trail. His dad and dad’s friend had gone in a week before and all of our gear had been packed in, so we had only light packs. We did have to pick up a few supplies, since his dad had called us on the rented satellite phone to put in an order for several things. The packs got real heavy toward the end.
The weather was misty with intermittent drizzle, but the trail was in good shape. Right before we dropped off Hamilton Mesa to Beatty Meadow, a bull bugled right down the mountain from us. So we dropped off and went after him. He apparently heard or saw us, since we heard him take off a few minutes later. It was a good sign though, and we continued on. About the time we hit Beatty Meadow (halfway in), it turned into a full fledged light rain. And the trail turned to muck and slop. So we were pretty much soaked from the waist down and worn by the time we got to camp. It took about 8 hours to walk in. Downed a Mountain House meal, set up my tent, and hit the sack.
We slept in the next morning (Saturday), since it “rained” all night, but when we woke up, we discovered this:
It started to melt off pretty quickly, but the entire day it was impossible to hear anything in the woods, due to the consistent dripping of all the snow melt. That night I went to the top of the meadow at the saddle, but saw nothing but a lone coyote that I managed to lipsqueak in to 20 yards before he realized that I was the biggest, meanest, and most deadly mouse he had ever seen and high tailed it out of there.
Sunday we got up and crossed over the river to the mountain on the other side of the river and heard several bulls bugling. One bugled fairly close to us, but we weren’t able to get him to respond. Later in the day, we heard one back across the river from us, but he sounded so good, we thought he was another hunter, especially after a guy on a horse towing a packhorse showed up on the trail right afterwards and we heard no further bugles. The bull sounded like he was straight out of a bugling contest at a hunting expo. Remember this.
That evening we went down the meadow from our camp to see if we could pinpoint any bugles. We heard a few distant ones, but the only close one was the perfect one that we heard earlier. As we were heading back up the meadow to camp, we saw something moving across the meadow about 100 yards up the hill from us. One quick glimpse was enough to realize that it was a bear, and we broke into a run to get up the hill a bit to get a closer look. The bear had dropped into a depression, and we thought it was just ambling across the meadow, but we got about 20 yards and came face to face with a running bear, about 25 yards in front of us. He saw us, and immediately dived into the woods. The quick look we got included short legs and little ears, i.e. BIG black bear. He was sleek and stout. Definitely a trophy for anyone that might have a bear tag (not us).
Monday was pretty uneventful. Bulls weren’t bugling, sans Mr. Perfect right at dawn and dusk. Lots of walking and calories burned on our part.
Tuesday was pretty quiet in the morning. I went out about 3 p.m. and headed down the ridge that we were camped on and into the woods, which was about two miles long. About a mile in are three consecutive meadows that are about halfway up the ridge from the river below. I decided to stop in one of them and just wait to see if anything would call later in the evening. About 5 p.m., I heard a faint bugle directly below me. I started down the mountain towards it, and every once in awhile, I’d hear another bugle, and I was definitely getting a lot closer. The longer I chased him, the more convinced I was that it was Mr. Perfect. I eventually got almost to the bottom near the river, and he was bugling his head off, and I was close, but I still couldn’t find him. I hadn’t used any of my calls yet, so I finally blew my bugle and he instantly responded back. Not only with a bugle, but a chuckle and then a lot of the growls and grunts that you don’t normally hear. I dropped all the way down to the river into a small hidden meadow where there was a wallow, and finally spotted his herd on the other side of the river; two cows and a spike that I could see, but I still couldn’t spot him. I blew my bugle again and realized that there was a clump of trees obstructing my view of him. I snuck all the way up behind the trees and could see him broadside about 40 yards up the 45 degree slope. He bugled again, and I bugled back and started raking the tree with my bow to try to lure him closer, but he didn’t budge. I realized I didn’t have much time, so I decided to try a shot. I drew, stepped out from behind the trees into the open, aimed, and let fly. I could see my arrow nock, and it looked like the arrow was flying for a perfect heart/lung shot. Going, going, going, then it just died. Arrow did a nose dive just before it got to him and went right under his chest. I instantly nocked another arrow, but by that time, I drew, he had turned away from me and was headed up the hill, bugling his head off. I was sick. The one I killed there in 2007 was ~275”, assuming I measured him correctly, and this bull was easily 325” or even 350”. I skulked back to camp after that and felt really sorry for myself.
The next few days were uneventful. No bulls were calling, sans Mr. Perfect. I pinpointed him and got close to him several more times, but never laid eyes on him.
We hiked out early Saturday morning, and he was bugling his head off, saying goodbye. Besides him and a few random distant bugles, we didn’t hear much all week. That is until we got out of the drainage we were in and back up on to Hamilton Mesa on Saturday. Once we got up there, we heard no less than 20 different bulls calling, and even managed to call a 6x6 in to about 100 yards. If we’d had more time, we would have dropped off the mountain and chased some of the bulls. It was Murphy to the extreme; every bull in the area was aggressive and calling on the day we were leaving, and they didn’t really call that much while we were hunting.
We did spot this very nice 9 point muley on the way out (only the second one we saw all week; the other was a spike). He was pretty stupid, since he just stood there and looked at us; wish I could find one like him at Meredith.
This is for ursus; first good print I saw all week, and it was on the hike out.
As we were driving out, I saw something run across the road in front of me, and I noticed that it wasn’t one of the random chipmunks/ground squirrels that live in the area. Not something you see much of anymore. Put him back down after the pics and he scurried off.
Oh, and Sean, you think you hate squirrels? You won’t really hate squirrels until you’ve dealt with pine squirrels. Little bastids bombarded my tent one morning by cutting cones in the tree above me, and then they bark/chatter/scream/yell/beetch when they see you in the woods and let everything in the near vicinity know that there is something there that they don’t like.
And here are the scenery pics, since I didn’t make the shot this trip.
I carved my initials into a tree back in 2007. This is what it looks like now; it reads “MT 6x6 2007”.
Random grave marked on the side of the mountain across from us; haven’t been able to find out anything about it.
