We hunted 62 and got a decent bull. I'll write up and include some pics here once I've recovered!

So, I owe the thread a hunt recap....

My buddy, Sam, and I hunted outside of Pagosa Springs, CO this year for our first archery elk hunt. As always, I had done months of e-scouting and researching, but got lots of invaluable information from our board Pagosa resident, cupofjoe04 (as well as this thread's OP, LEJ - may the username RIP). A special THANK YOU to both of those guys for their help.

We got "lucky" in that we arrived at our chosen area right after the snow storm came through CO and Northern NM, so lots of hunters had cleared out from the area. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up our pop-up camper in a light rain/drizzle and cooler temperatures.




The next morning we set out just before daylight, hunting along a trail with the ultimate goal of getting to a basin that I really liked and wanted to hunt (spoiler alert: I was right about this basin ). Along the way we threw out a few location bugles, but got no responses.



Around 11:00 am we stopped to take a little break and heard what sounded like a terrible, lazy bugle. We called back, and exchanged a couple bugles with this bull over the next 30 minutes or so, but ultimately decided to sit down and have lunch. From what we could tell, he was on a ridge 400-500 yards away across a really steep drainage from us. In order to get over there we would have to go up and around the top of the ridge/drainage. After lunch, we hiked around the top of the drainage and got on the ridge where we had heard the bull earlier. During this hike through the downfall and snow, I saw my first wild black bear as well. He was feeding through the deadfall about 100 yards away from us, and I don't think he ever knew we were there.

The view at lunch. The bull in question is on the closest ridge out in front of us.



When we get to the ridge, we look over the other side and into a huge meadow and spot a couple cows and, ultimately, a herd bull with them. The bull was bedded in the sun, and the cows were in various stages of bedding/feeding around him. We were about 200 yards from them at this point. Our plan of attack was for me to get in position just below the top of the ridge and for Sam to drop back and call to the bull. I now realize this wasn't a great idea, because there's no way the bull was going to leave his cows to come check on us when we were that far away. When Sam started calling, the bull stood up, rounded up his cows, and they all started moving away from us through the bottom of the meadow, ultimately headed over the next ridge.

The only thing I could think of at that point was to follow them, so we quickly started running down the ridge we were on after them. As we would bugle at him, he would bugle back, but we could tell he was getting farther away from us. Suddenly, there was a loud bugle from behind us (on the back side of the ridge, away from the herd). It sounded very close and caught us off guard. I immediately nocked an arrow and took about five steps to the top of the ridge to peek over. When I looked over, there was a bull standing there looking at me, less than 20 yards away! I was slightly obstructed from his view by a small bush, which was good because the adrenaline caused me to take 3-4 tries to clip my release on my D-loop . There was no need to range him, so I drew and shot. The shot hit him behind his left shoulder and he turned and ran downhill. I had just arrowed my first archery bull, on my first day of archery elk hunting!

Sam was watching, but had dropped back a little to call and could not see the bull or my shot. After a few shocked faces when I told him I shot, we took off again after the herd bull, with Sam in the lead now. As I walked away from where I shot, I thought I heard a crash and felt really confident that my bull was dead. We chased the herd bull for another couple hundred yards before we decided we might want to take care of one bull before we end up with two on the ground (4.5 miles from the truck), so we turned back and revisited my shot location.

At this point it had been about 20 minutes, so I eased up to where the bull was standing when I shot. There I found a whipped up sapling and a bedding spot. He was definitely the bull we were trading bugles with earlier in the day and hadn't bothered to get up from his bed. When we came running/bugling down the ridge, it was enough commotion to make him jump up and bugle (kind of a "shock-gobble", I guess). There wasn't any blood where he was standing, but I stood looking down hill and could actually make out his brown body against the white snow and trees about 50 yards away!

Here's a pic as we approached...



And some grip-n-grins...






We got him quartered up and into game bags, which took longer than expected because he had fallen against a big log, as you can see in the pics. I loaded up my pack with a shoulder and the head, and Sam took a hindquarter and one backstrap (he figured he would take a backstrap now in order to lighten the second load). We hung the rest of the meat in two small trees. The packout started at 8:00 pm and ended up being one of the hardest physical things I have ever done (and I have packed out two other elk before this). It was dark, and we had about 1/2 a mile through the deadfall you can see in the pics, and then about 4 miles on a muddy, slippery trail. We got back to camp at 3:30 am, and by the time we laid down to sleep it had been a full 24-hr day.

We spent the whole next week trying to get a bull for Sam, but ultimately came up empty-handed. We located another bedded bull with cows on Monday, but the wind spoiled it for us as we closed to about 100 yards. Other than that, we had a hard time even FINDING elk, which seemed to be a prevalent issue among everyone else we talked to at the trailhead. Luckily we had already filled one tag, because the weather warmed up, the elk shut up, and the hunting was very hard the remainder of our trip.

Still, it was a great trip with some great memories! And even though I spent hours cursing the deadfall, both during the packout and the rest of the week, I'd go back up there right now if I could.

Oh, we also had a bear visit our coolers in camp (I had ice in them but the drain plugs open to let water out). RTIC latches ARE NOT bear proof, as you can see below. Luckily he couldn't get the cooler open because it was on the front of the trailer under the pop-up.

Oh, and I would bet my house that isn't the first cooler that bear has broken into... that's some surgical disassembly right there.


*edit to add* Sorry bkf... I just realized i replied to your post on accident

Last day of the hunt here in Wyoming Before heading to Montana and filled the tag with a Cow elk at 510 yards and once we got up to her we were glad I took her as Looks like someone had shot her in the lower leg and she survived it But had a good infection below the leg.