AZ elk

Another archery season has come and gone here in AZ, and although we weren't the ones behind the string this year, we still had a great time up in the woods. We went up to help a young man - Christian - on his first archery elk hunt. He put a lot of time and effort into scouting and doing things right (36 days to be exact), and it ended up paying off for him in the end. He hunted for over a week, and had various opportunities during that time, but either he opted to pass on the bull, or something just didn't go as one would hope. My husband - Manny - was the caller for the hunt, and there were various people running the camera through out the 8 day ordeal (It was a fairly large elk camp!). Close to the end of the hunt, Manny was working a bull, I think it was like 6 x 11, (to my knowledge the never got video of this bull) and had him at about 100 yards when another hunter (unassociated with our camp) shot twice at the bull. He missed completely once, and hit the bull in the pedicle the second time. The bull left, and after questioning the shooter - who said he was unaware the bull was being worked - they went to see if they could get another chance at a bull before dark. But no such luck.
Even though calling bulls in was pretty tough, the bulls weren't really with cows yet for a majority of the hunt, and it was REALLY windy. They ended up sealing the deal at literally the last moment Manny was available to call for Christian. (I'll see if I can't get a copy of the video). Just before dark, they called a bull in to about 40 yards from Christian. He was at full draw for nearly a minute and a half before he took the shot. The bull didn't go far, but they gave him plenty of time. So after coming back to camp to eat some ribs, we all went back out to find him. The tracking was short lived, and ended with lots of smiles and photos.
Here's Manny and Christian with Christian's well deserved first archery elk bull.