So after a sleepless night we get up and head back to the mountain. We arrive at sunrise and slowly make our way up. Not hearing any bugles or seeing elk we go to the shot sight. Briefly look for arrow, no luck.
Pick up the blood trail and try to guess the direction he went. We gridded the easy part first with no luck.
Screen shot of my tracks a 1.5 hr into the search. OldFussnFeathers is filling in the gaps.
Once we finish up the easy part we dive into the big timber. This is the Tim er we had 3-4 bulls bugling in their bed. We knew it would be thick but we weren't prepared for how thick it was.
The plan was to flank each other, track our trail and try to cover as much as possible. 5 mins into the search we loose each other. It's thick, trails everywhere and the blow downs could hide an elephant.
If you blink you'd miss it. If you looked left and took a step, you'd miss what was laying on your right.
I did find something dead, although he had been dead for a long while.