Mark Bailey, aka alchemyinvest here at MonsterMuleys.com, shared with us his 2008 elk hunting success on the Manti unit in Utah.

Mark writes, "This is the first mature bull I have ever harvested and wanted to thank my brother and others that helped me check this goal off. I’ve been reading several posts (in the hunting forums) about the elk hunting this year and the conditions were pretty much identical in my area. The elk were way more vocal this time last year, and I found this year that the cow herds were much smaller and scattered. I sat at water; I stalked in close to groups of cows, but never really ran into any branch antlered bulls until the last week. We ran into sheep a little bit, the stinging needle was high and the grass got dry and loud the last couple weeks. One thing I did notice was that some of the larger groups of elk were down in the lower draws of the canyons rather than being deep in the heads.
On Sept 5th, it was as if a switch went off. My brother and I started walking up a familiar ridge and decided to take it slow and hit the cow call every 100 yards. We hadn’t made it up the ridge 200 yards when we had a bull respond, he was probably 200 more yards up the ridge and just off the top. We dropped off slightly and started to get set up.
When we looked up, there were two cows about 75 yards away that had us pinned down. I thought for sure the hunt was over, but as I stood still my brother was able to sneak back the way we came. He hit his call again; the bull responded and had cut the distance in half. I saw antlers coming through the trees right at us. I drew back only to have the bull walk straight into me head on at about 10 yards. I held my draw and nerves long enough to count that he had 6 on each side. I had to have counted 10 times.
Finally, the bull started to turn broadside and I hit the release. Again, I want to thank my brother and the rest of our party for helping me accomplish this goal."