[petey]

That afternoon Ryan told me of a spot where he was riding horse and the bulls were bugling last Friday. I said, “yeah right” but I was game for anything. He told me it would be an honest 2 hr hike to get into elk, but what the heck. I’d already covered 40 or so miles on public by now. By now the thermometer is reading 75 degrees and it’s noon! I didn’t think to bring my bugle tube, heck it’s November man, so I borrowed his power bugle, grabbed my cow call, packed up my day pack with extra clothes and started out on a hike in my t-shirt! It was up the whole way of course, half of which was mostly spots of juniper bushes, small pine and mostly sage. The higher I got, the heavier the timber got and the fresher the sign got and the colder it got. Things were looking good, and I had now put on my final layer of clothing. I hit an old access road and ran into a small herd of muledeer doe. 5 mins of glassing them here comes two gorgeous bucks, one that went all of 180”. As I walked higher I came to a posted sign almost at the top of the mountain and saw two smaller signs with their back to me. As I looked at those signs it said “You are not entering the National Forest”. Whoops, I had just walked the length of the forest, so I headed back down past the big bucks, which were still there and left out a bugle. I figured, what the heck, it’s worth a try. Five minutes later I left out another bugle and got an answer about 300 yards from me. I’m thinking “is that what I think it is?” I bugle again and get an immediate response back from a growler. I start heading down the hill towards him, the only problem…of which I had not mentioned to this point, the bull is just inside Yellowstone Park boundary. I get to a nice open area and the bull is bugling and coming. Now this isn’t like my experiences in archery, he’s bugling, but not rutting bugling. He’s just letting me know where he is and that’s mighty fine by me, b/c he’s heading my way. Cows are calling all around me, it’s getting towards the final shooting light and out he pops. A beautiful 6x6 about 340’s range and I put my crosshairs on him and say “boom” to myself. For not only was the bull in my crosshairs, but so was the Yellowstone boundary line marker, 10 yards in front of him. Here I am, 40 yards from a bugling bull in November, with a rifle and this sucker hangs up just on the other side of the boundary line. Some cows cross over the line down wind of me and the woods come unglued. I did not hear a bark but it sounded like about 30 elk in that herd. My bull ran another 200 yards inside the park and let out a farewell bugle. I now have a 2 hr hike out of the timber to the trailhead in the dark with a minimag that doesn’t have the strongest of batteries in it! Oh, I only saw two sets of grizzly tracks on my way up, but I was not worried of bears or cats…..my only concern, a pack of wolves of course. I can handle one critter at a time trying to eat me, but not 4 or 5 or 10. What an awesome hunt that day though! A bugling bull called to 40 yards, scoped, but couldn’t take a shot. It was well worth the 4 hr round trip hike.