Sunday, September 13, 2015 Elk hunt

Sunday, September 13, 2015 am. Sunrise: 6:55 am. Hunting opens: 6:25 am. Temperature: 38 degrees. Mostly sunny. Wind: SE 5-10 mph. We all went out as a group in the am. John split up and went up towards Pilot Knob. Greg and Josh teamed up and Scott and I were working together. Our plan was to head down to the chute and see if we could get in front of some elk as they worked their way back towards their beds. It didn't take long. we saw about 6-8 cows in the field on our way out, but we couldn't get Josh close enough for a shot. We then hurried over to set up in the chute. At 6:55 am, I could hear Craig cow calling and then I heard a bow shot. Josh ended up taking 3 separate shots at the same cow at 78 yards, but he kept missing high. The cow just kept coming closer and when she was about 25 yards away, she started to present a shot opportunity. I didn't feel comfortable, because she was between me and where Josh had been shooting. Come to find out later, Josh had only brought 3 arrows with him, so he was out of "ammo."  Just then, Scott took a shot at the cow with his muzzleloader. She took off down the hill and stopped at about 55 yards. I could tell she was hit, but there was nothing that I could do. At 7:10 am, I heard another buggle up the hill to the NE. I looked and here came a nice 5 x 4 bull. He stopped at 55 yards but was facing me. He stopped to smell where the cow was and then proceeded to walk down the hill towards where she had laid down. Craig was continuing to do some incredible mewing. He stopped behind an aspen tree at 45 yards and I drew my bow. He was walking at about 40 yards, and I whacked him. I felt good withe the shot and he took off back up the hill where he had come from. Craig came over to me, to find out what had happened. As I was explaining what happened, his cow got up. He took another shot at her through the brush. We all met up and decided to go and try and find Craig's bull. It didn't take long and we could smell a dead animal. I started walking into the wind, and I found his bull about 50 yards away. We decided that we were going to skin and haul the bull out in game bags. While Craig and Scott were working on that, we decided to look for Scott's cow. We followed blood for about 200 yards, but lost her. I think he hit her low in the brisket. After, we carried out Scott's bull, John and I decided to go and look for mine. We had a pretty consistent blood trail and found two huge spots of foamy red lung blood. When we got up to the plateau, I looked into a small thicket and saw my bull down. I was pumped. He had gone about 300 yards. My arrow had gone through a lung, deflected back and through the liver, back through the stomach and out the groin. Those 100 grain slick tricks worked their magic. John and I cleaned my bull and went back to where we had left Craig's bull. We met the boys, and got into Scott's Suzuki Samurai. Fortunately, we were able to get his truck to within 30 yards of my bull. We hooked up the winch and pulled him out whole. What an amazing vehicle. Totals: 9 elk. 8 cows and calves and 1 bull dead!!