So far, its elk: 1; good guys: 0. We got up at 0330, left camp around 0415 and hiked up the hill to where we wanted to be by 0430. As soon as we had enough light, we moved in to the timber. We thought we heard a distant bugle and that was exciting. As soon as I had good shooting light, my buddy let out a good locator bugle, but it went unanswered. No matter what, the bulls just weren't talking.
We eventually split about 50 yards apart and sat cow calling. After about 30 minutes, we got up and my buddy picked up movement across the drainage heading our way. He whispered "bull...spike.". He backed off and cow called while I got ready, trying to decide how badly I wanted to fill my tag 2 hours into the season. At just over 50 yards away and with no shot, the spike saw something he didn't like and trotted casually away, not overly worried. We covered some ground, but nothing but a couple of fresh tracks and a pile of fresh elk scat. Time for lunch, a nap, and a new game plan.
