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Thank you Utah, we came back allot more heavy!
Well when my son called and excitedly told me he had drawn his UT elk tag I about fell over a couple months back. Because he had only been putting in for a couple years so I had him putting in for some of the best units possible.
He'd made a mistake in his application thou and applied for elk in the muley unit we put in for, the names sound almost the identical.
I didn't even know that this unit had elk! There were only two nonresident tags, he got lucky and drew the one random one. We found out it wasn't one of Utah's trophy units known for giant bulls. Actually this unit was the complete opposite. They manage it for only 140-170 head of elk in a huge unit. Giant muleys is what the unit is famous for. But we talked it over and said what the hell,you'll be hunting rutting bulls in fricken Utah with a rifle so let's go anyways! And the rest is history, so glad we went! He ended up with a real heavy older bull,almost a unicorn type bull in that area we've come to find out.
To tell you the truth after scouting before the opener we never saw or heard a single elk. So opening morning was like none I can remember, we were still at square one. We had only seen fresh track with a small herd that were fresh after all that rain on thursday.
So that was the area we were going to concentrate on. But to tell you the truth, that area is so much more beautiful and "elky" than I ever imagined! You would think there would be elk everywhere, it is the perfect habitat! But when we found out they manage that large unit for so few elk we knew we had our work cut out for us! We got lucky, when we heard that faint bugle we were like no way is that a real elk?! And it was followed up by a deep loud herd bull type bugle so we moved down the rim quick they were headed our way!! My son got to experience quite a show, 18 cows being taken care of by him and a satellite trying his best to get in on the action. They bedded across from us at 400 yds in the timber that we could see all the way around. We waited them out for several hours until they got on their feet. They had no idea we were there and he didn't know what hit him when he touched off that 160 gr accubond out of his 7mm Nosler.
And I got it all on video, a bit shaky because I did it free hand at the last minute but its better than nothing! What a great father son experience, so glad I got to tag along!
In the end putting in for the wrong unit was the best thing he could have done! Instead of having to wait 20 years to draw a coveted tag we got to go elk hunting together in beautiful country and you can't beat that!
Well when my son called and excitedly told me he had drawn his UT elk tag I about fell over a couple months back. Because he had only been putting in for a couple years so I had him putting in for some of the best units possible.
He'd made a mistake in his application thou and applied for elk in the muley unit we put in for, the names sound almost the identical.
I didn't even know that this unit had elk! There were only two nonresident tags, he got lucky and drew the one random one. We found out it wasn't one of Utah's trophy units known for giant bulls. Actually this unit was the complete opposite. They manage it for only 140-170 head of elk in a huge unit. Giant muleys is what the unit is famous for. But we talked it over and said what the hell,you'll be hunting rutting bulls in fricken Utah with a rifle so let's go anyways! And the rest is history, so glad we went! He ended up with a real heavy older bull,almost a unicorn type bull in that area we've come to find out.
To tell you the truth after scouting before the opener we never saw or heard a single elk. So opening morning was like none I can remember, we were still at square one. We had only seen fresh track with a small herd that were fresh after all that rain on thursday.
So that was the area we were going to concentrate on. But to tell you the truth, that area is so much more beautiful and "elky" than I ever imagined! You would think there would be elk everywhere, it is the perfect habitat! But when we found out they manage that large unit for so few elk we knew we had our work cut out for us! We got lucky, when we heard that faint bugle we were like no way is that a real elk?! And it was followed up by a deep loud herd bull type bugle so we moved down the rim quick they were headed our way!! My son got to experience quite a show, 18 cows being taken care of by him and a satellite trying his best to get in on the action. They bedded across from us at 400 yds in the timber that we could see all the way around. We waited them out for several hours until they got on their feet. They had no idea we were there and he didn't know what hit him when he touched off that 160 gr accubond out of his 7mm Nosler.
And I got it all on video, a bit shaky because I did it free hand at the last minute but its better than nothing! What a great father son experience, so glad I got to tag along!
In the end putting in for the wrong unit was the best thing he could have done! Instead of having to wait 20 years to draw a coveted tag we got to go elk hunting together in beautiful country and you can't beat that!
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