We were within 500 yards at this time and crossed the stream onto his side of the mountain. After hiking an almost vertical rock face, we got to a fairly flat open aspen meadow.

We knew we were close so I started mixing in some estrous cow calls and chirps, which worked out perfect. We were then getting responding bugles off of cow calls so we were in his backyard. It began raining on us at this point, so we dropped the packs and put rain covers over the electronics and made the last stalk with only the bow and calls. I dropped the ball on this one by forgetting my camera, because I could have gotten some incredible shots. It took about an hr to close the final distance as we only hiked about 20 yards and then knelt to check wind and call. I started interrupting his bugles with my own and we could tell it was pissing him off because he became more aggressive. When the wind was right, FIL closed the distance to the very ridge he was on and I fell back to about 20 yards behind him, just below the ridgeline and began cow calling. We were within 70 yards. He bugled one more time and I interrupted him again and that was the final straw. He came down the hill pissed off and snorting. This was a man, a stud at least a 280" bull. FIL ranges at 45, draws and lets it fly. He misses by an inch, just under the belly. It was a tough shot as it was a severe angle up hill at about 45 deg. The bull runs up hill, so we call, and he stops, then a cow pokes her head up. I start soft calling and chirping very subtly and she begins to make her way down to us on a string from about 80 yards away. Well the bull does an about face and slowly starts to make his way back down again. I cant describe the adrenaline rush of benig in the presence of these magnificent creatures. The cow begins to flank us to the left to get our wind and before the bull gets back into range, FIL smokes her at 30 yards on a slight quartering too shot. She made it less than 40 yards and expired.

This is the from the cow's perspective when she was shot. I am standing right next to the bloody tree from above. FIL was hiding between the two aspens in the middle that fork up about 6" apart. He slung an arrow right through the middle of them. I was about 5 yards below that ridgeline calling.

We hike back to our packs and grab a bite to eat knowing the long night ahead of us. Skinning, quartering, taking neck roasts, loins, & straps took about 1.5 hrs. We left the bow and any unnecessary gear at the kill site along with my pack underneath its rain cover. We were 4.2 miles away from truck so decided to pack the entire load out in one trip. We began hiking at 9pm (precisely when it started raining) and got back to the truck at 1am. The days were comfortable at about mid-60's-70's but it got to low 40's at night, so we were cold as frick on the hike out being as that it rained on us the whole time. It's an experience I'll never forget and Im already excited to go back next year and take that bull. After that hike out, a beer never tasted so good.

In all, we hiked a total of 27.5 miles in 2.5 days.
The cow was shot with a Hoyt Nitrum 30 with Easton Axis 340 arrows and a 100 grain Ramcat broadhead. This is a devastating setup as you can see it punched through the front shoulder and penetrated to the fletching. I can include an extensive gear list if anyone is interested.

This post was edited on 9/29/15 at 6:22 pm