Dan Jordan (aka ElkManDan) shared his elk hunting success in the forum. He posted the following....

"Utah General Archery Elk - Well this year I found myself without any good archery elk tags in my pocket and no friends or family with LE tags to help out with so it was back to the Uintas for me. I had been fortunate the last several years to either have a good draw tag or a friend to help out on a LE hunt. 2012 was the last time I put in any serious time on the general hunt but I was excited to get back up there and see if I could pull it off on the general hunt.

The hunt did prove to be a difficult one for sure. Between the warm dry weather and all the added pressure that was up there this year thanks to the new multi-season tag. Elk were just hard to come by and we had very little rutting action.

Finally on the 6th of Sept I had 2 bulls fire up about 5PM. One bugled down and to my left and another bugled down and to my right. I didn't waste any time trying to get into the middle of them and intercept them. I got to them right after they met up with each other. one bull quickly decided he wanted nothing to do with the other and headed straight my way in the thick trees. I heard him coming and I was pinned down in an area of thick downfall with nowhere to go. He appeared 35 yards away just below me and the other bull was coming right behind him I was at full draw and cow calling at every little window as he made a semi-circle right around me. He wouldn't even acknowledge my calls as he was just focused on getting away from the other bull. He was a nice 6 point and the one on his tail was also a nice 6. Once the other bull came into view I swung my bow over to him and started cow calling to try and stop him. neither bull would pay any attention to my calls, they were so focused on each other.

Finally at the last opening on the back bull I threw out a bugle with my diaphragm call and he slowed down. That is all I needed He was quartering towards me slightly and still moving but I was able to get a shot off. I watched the arrow disappear but it hit a bit higher than I would have liked which made me a little nervous.

The bull took off crashing into the thick trees and soon I heard wheezing. I heard a couple small branches snap and then it was quiet. I figured that he walked off slowly but knew with the wheezing that I got at least 1 lung. After about 10 min I decided to sneak up to see if I could see my arrow and blood. No arrow and no blood was seen in the immediate area the bull was standing when I shot so I started following his tracks just to get to the first blood where I would sit and wait for another 30 min before starting tracking. 10 yards later I looked up and there my bull was laying25 yards away dead, head straight up in the air with his head against a tree.

I feel fortunate for sure to have taken this bull on the general hunt. I've taken a few good bulls over the last few years but this one, although smaller than the others, was special to be able to get him up in that area where the hunting is so tough.

Luckily I was able to get some help up there to get him packed out with horses as I was about 5 miles in. It saved me a ton of work."