Fall always brings back a flood of memories

Fall always brings back a flood of memories

Tommy Allen
Tommy Allen
Tommy "Fall is here! Not officially but, the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder. If you're an outdoorsman, this might be your favorite time of year. Salmon are hitting the fall run, elk are just beginning to rut, and upland bird season is just around the corner. Matt, what's fall mean to you?"

For me, Fall always brings back a flood of memories, but one of my favorites comes from a few years ago with one of my good buddies. We had been getting skunked all season and we were kind of on the fence trying to figure out if we should stay home or just go try our luck one more time. Finally we decided let's just do it! So we took the last weekend off in Oct. to see if we could change our luck.

We gathered up 6 of our best mountain horses and hit the trail. We got into camp with just enough time to set up the wall tent and feed the horse before putting in a short evening hunt. We had a few bulls answer our calls but we didn't have enough daylight to put a stalk on anything. The next morning we woke up to about 3" of fresh snow. I thought this was going to be our day, but we just couldn't get anything to work. We had a few more bulls bugling but they just wouldn't come all the way out.

Our last morning didn't go as planned, we got a later start that we wanted and the snow was melting fast. We hurried down to a clearing and starting bugling. Within just a couple minutes, we had 3 bulls answering us. We set up behind a big bull pine tree and waited patiently as 2 bulls came into sight. They finally got within 100 yards and it was the Classic 1,2,3 shoot! It didn't take me long to realize, that was a day I'll never forget.

I had a hard time letting my buddy bring the bugle at first, I figured we were too late for the rut but what I didn't realize was those bulls have what some guys call a 2nd rut. Tune in tomorrow when we get a hold of one of our experts in the field to explain why those bulls were bugling at the end of Oct.

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