# Michigan Elk Hunt, 2021 Season



## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

At that point, I was tagged out with my own hunters, so I started helping other guides fill their remaining tags.

On the first afternoon of the October session, I was helping another guide with one of his cow hunters, Tom, as the guide wasn’t able to hunt that evening.

I had a small group of cows with a 5x5 bull, that had been using one my corn fields pretty regularly for about a month. I estimate the bull to be a five year old bull. He is a nice, heavy horned bull, but just too young yet to consider pursuing. That was good for him, but his girlfriends were fair game. The plan was to watch over the corn field for the evening, hoping they would come out for an easy shot, or make a move if we needed to get in front of them before dark.

Around 7:00pm we looked across the valley to the West, and saw the bull by himself and thought, “okay, where the heck are the cows? They are always together!”

I had enough time to take a picture of him through my binoculars at about 600 yards.










The bull disappeared for awhile, maybe ten minutes or so, and the next time he popped out, sure enough, the cows were with him. It was obvious that they weren’t in any hurry to come to the corn field, and we were getting closer to dark, so we bailed from our lookout and ran back to the truck. We had to move two properties over to get to where the elk were. Luckily, through very generous landowners, we have permission to hunt that property for elk as well.

So we get to the property, jump out, get the gun back out of the case and get it loaded up, and start sneaking around a big grassy knob toward where I had last seen them. Unfortunately, the first one we ran into was the bull, whom proceeded to stare and bark at us the entire way, as we tried to sneak around him to a small bowl I suspected the cows were still in.

Finally, we found them, and after a couple of quick repositioning efforts, we were finally able to get a good look at a cow. Tom made good on his end of the deal, and shortly after we walked up on a really nice cow down.


















That would conclude my September season this year. The group was able to connect with a ton more animals, but I just don’t have time to go through them all. It was a beyond successful fall hunt for us and I certainly appreciate all the hard work these guys put in for their clients.

I’ll start working on December soon, thanks for following along this far.


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## Baraga-Need Guide (Jun 16, 2004)

December stories Scott???

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

Baraga-Need Guide said:


> December stories Scott???


I haven’t forgotten about these. I’ve been horrible keeping up with this, this year. Sorry about that. I’ll get to them here soon.


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

@Invisible - quit “liking” and start typing! 😂


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

Opening day of the December elk season was certainly one to remember. We saw weather variations that we would have just never expected. I believe I changed my clothes 3 times during the day, adding and shedding layers as it went from foggy and cold, to hot, to rain soaked thunderstorms with lightning and back to cold in the afternoon. Not to mention 50mph winds and trees falling all over in the woods.

The state land we started off hunting had a herd bull with about 25 cows that had been pretty visible, a little too visible, in fact, as they had drawn a lot of attention from other hunters. The bull was still bugling quite a bit, so he wasn’t difficult to find. We babysat them all week, but the amount of other hunters and guides in the area just kept increasing as opening day approached. As it turned out, they were mostly all road hunters whom ended up moving along without connecting, which is typical for that particular area. Looking at the kill maps, we can account for every animal harvested there, with the exception of one, which was a DIY hunter that killed a cow that we walked right in front of him. 

I watched the big herd walk into a section of woods the morning before season, but as much as I willed the bull to shut up, he just kept screaming, moving his cows to safe bedding knobs. It was evident they were feeling the pressure of the constant trucks driving the roads in the area, as their core area just kept shrinking.

When opening morning came, we moved into the area before daylight, checking to see if the herd came out of the block we last saw them in. We didn’t have them coming out of the block, so we started off checking the clearcut I had last seen them in at shooting light. The herd wasn’t in the clearcut, and hadn’t been back out to it during the night. This was a result of the unbelievable amount of hunters now in the area, so I decided I would just start in on the tracks where I saw them the morning before. I can’t stand being in my truck during elk season, and passing 30 other trucks on two tracks is not my idea of a good time, so I couldn’t wait to get off the roads and start hunting.

I took my cow hunter, Kyle, along with my bull hunter, Seth, and started working across the clearcut toward the tracks from the morning before. We cut the tracks, following them up into the woods, and it wasn’t long at all before we met the herd head first, moving back up into their bedding area for the day. We stayed with the herd, trying to pick out a clean shot at a cow, which proved extremely difficult in the fog and tight cover. Anytime we’d get a lane with a cow in it, another animal would step in front of, or behind it, nullifying the opportunity. Meanwhile, the herd bull, a big 6x6 I knew of from September, started bugling. Seth had a few glances at him but was having the same issue as Kyle with the cows. We were within 100 yards of nearly 30 elk, and just had to keep with them, without blowing them out of the thick cover. They were safe from litany of road hunters in the center of the block, so that’s exactly where we wanted to keep them. It was just a matter of picking out a clean shot at a lone animal through an eight inch wide gap between trees. We would try to get on an animal, and by the time Kyle or Seth and I got on the same page, it would move, or another would move into the lane. The herd would move, and we would move with them. Getting a clean shot at the bull would be just about impossible, given the amount of animals, but we knew where he was from his almost constant bugling. If there was ever a time I wanted to be able to actually speak to an animal, and tell him to just shut up, he was only making things worse, this was it. Eventually he was going to call in another hunter, which would have surely been winded and blown the whole situation to smithereens.

I don’t know how long we were with the herd in there, but eventually we had them caught again. The fog was settling in more heavily, at times closing off our view of the herd. I pointed out a lane to Kyle and told him to just watch that lane, a big cow was walking left to right, about to step into it. Kyle and I confirmed we were on the same lane and I watched as the cow neared the opening. It worked out perfectly as she first stuck her head in the lane, and stood there for a minute or so. This allowed Kyle and I to confirm we were once again looking at the same animal, in the same lane. There were no other animals in front of, or behind her. I told Kyle to get ready, I was going to stop her when she put her shoulder into the small gap between trees. Finally, she stepped forward. I cow called as she was moved into view. She stopped broadside with her vitals centered in the opening, looking at us. Kyle made one good, clean shot, and the whole herd exploded, taking Kyle’s cow with them.

We waited a few minutes, as I wanted to be sure the rest of the herd had moved out of there before searching for the cow. We knew she went north, but didn’t know exactly how, or even if, she was hit. We moved up to where the herd was at the shot, and started to work the outside edges to make sure she didn’t break away from the herd. We were only up there a couple of minutes when Kyle started to whistle. He had walked up and found his giant Michigan cow elk. There wasn’t a drop of blood leading up to her, but she was only about 50 yards from where he shot her.

The best part about this, is Kyle and his wife were expecting their first child in January. Getting him back home to help her as soon as possible was my first priority. Kyle had an action packed morning, while sharing in his hunt with a couple of his buddies, who were there to help with the drag out. We had them back on the road heading home to his wife on day one, which is exactly what I was hoping for.


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## wishiwashuntin (Sep 27, 2007)

Awesome. Thanks again for the help a couple of years ago with my son.


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## Baraga-Need Guide (Jun 16, 2004)

C'mon guys!!! We need more tales for those of us not fortunate enough to have been out there with you!!!

Surely someone has great stories???

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk


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## Invisible (Sep 3, 2008)

Baraga-Need Guide said:


> C'mon guys!!! We need more tales for those of us not fortunate enough to have been out there with you!!!
> 
> Surely someone has great stories???
> 
> Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk


 Ok. I’ll bite. My oldest son was fortunate enough to draw a December any elk tag this year. His initial reaction to winning Michigan’s outdoor lottery was underwhelming, to say the least. I have an annual tradition of getting up and checking the results for my wife, our kids, and myself. I was punching in numbers and getting the typical “sorry about your luck” results until I came to our son, Seth’s. His, much to mostly my delight, was very different than the rest of ours. I immediately called him. His response was a tepid “really? Cool. Could you call Mr. Connell for me?” And he got back to work. 
He called back a few minutes later, babbling and hyperventilating. Reality has caught up with him. He would continue his giddy fast talking throughout both summer and deer season. His typical excitement about chasing deer was on the shelf this year. It seems that having an opportunity to hunt a Michigan bull occupied the majority of his brain. I sure didn’t blame him.
Opening morning here in southern Cheboygan county came with fresh snow, and a still morning with the temperature in the single digits. Ok, that’s a lie. If you read Scott’s first December post, then you’ll remember that we were in for some strange weather this day. 
Seth, his sister, and myself jumped in my truck as the rain was doing a good job of turning our nice snow to thick slime that morning in the dark. I managed to make it a whole mile from our house before the slimy snow covering an icy road proved to be more than I could navigate. I introduced the front end of my truck to a maple tree at 5:30 in the morning.









I wasn’t real excited about my truck, but I was agonizing over possibly ruining the opening morning of Seth’s once in a lifetime elk hunt. My daughter, the rational one at the time, suggested that I take a breath and call Scott. This proved to be an excellent idea. The lousy road conditions had him running a bit behind schedule. So Scott Connell’s northern Michigan taxi service swung by and picked Seth up to go hunting. 
Taking care of the tow truck and catching up with the rest of Seth’s elk fan club was a good bit easier knowing that he would not miss out on hunting that morning. I’m going to stop typing at this point. Scott will do a great job sharing his story of this season, and I don’t want to steal any of his thunder. Speaking of thunder, the turkeys were gobbling at it later that Saturday morning too. The weather really was absolutely bizarre.


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

Well, since the tags are coming out tomorrow, I figure I have my championship belt of procrastination on lockdown for one more year. It’s probably time that I finish up with my December hunts, so I don’t get even farther behind going into a new year.

My hunting partner, Jake, was able to get back on the herd after we shot, and tag a cow for one of his clients, so we started off with two cows down right away. After getting the cows taken care of, I grabbed my second cow hunter, Jim, before Seth, Jim and I jumped on a lone bull track that a member of our group had found that morning. It was going into a good block, one that not many people like venturing into. I figured we’d have a good chance of having him to ourselves once we got on him.

We worked our way into the block and eventually caught up with the bull up on the backside of a bedding knob. He appeared to be a very nice bull with a kicker sticking out his top left side. I figured him to be a 6x7, based on what I saw. We couldn’t quite get him lined up in the scope for Seth, but I had been keeping in communication with Jake, whom was positioned ahead of us on a known exit route from this particular set of bedding knobs. The bull rolled off the backside of the knob and played almost perfectly into Jake’s hand. Jake’s bull hunter was able to get a shot on the bull, as he moved away from us, so we pulled off the track and moved over to their position.

As it would turn out, we would end up spending most of the rest of the day following this bull, trying to get another shot on him, as he was hit high through the backstraps. Seth and I caught him once, after about 7 miles of pursuing him, but weren’t able to get a shot. It was at that point that I realized where the bull was actually hit, so we took him to the next road and left him for the night. I told Jake that the bull was going to be just fine, but they had to follow the DNR protocol regarding wounded elk. As it would turn out, the bull crossed over into private overnight and the gig was up. The DNR released his hunter to keep hunting… more on that later.

While we were enduring that extended rodeo, I asked one of our other guides to take my cow hunter, Jim, and go jump on some cow tracks that were right in the thick of all the road hunters. These tracks must have been driven over 100x throughout the day, but nobody thought to get out of the truck and follow them, I guess. We knew they hadn’t come out of the block, so it only made sense to go in after them. 

It wasn’t too awful long before they caught up with the small herd of cows in the center of the block, feeding on acorns. They picked out a big cow and Jim did an excellent job of holding up his end of the deal in close quarters.

It was well after dark by the time we got her checked in with the DNR, but it was worth the long, exhausting opening day with three cow tags punched.


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

Knowing what direction the big herd went after Jake was done with them on day one, I thought we may be in good shape for the second morning. They had headed West, into private land, which I have permission to hunt.

After making our early morning rounds checking our options, we moved over to check one of my planted corn fields on the private land where the big herd had headed to escape the public land pressure of day one. Since I only had Seth with me in the truck, I called Jake and told him to head that way in case we had an opportunity at a cow. Upon arriving at the property gate, we waited until a few minutes before legal shooting hours to start our approach to the field on foot. We crossed the fence into the property right at legal shooting hours and moved up to a knoll to survey the field.

There are times, as a guide, where you royally screw up and make an easy situation more difficult than it has to be. This morning, for me, was one of those times, and I knew it as soon as it all unfolded. You see, when we crept over that knob, it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in December. The bugling herd bull from the morning before was herding about 25 cows around the corn field like it was mid-September.

Seth was going to get his chance at the bull that made the hair on the back of our necks stand up. This time, however, there was no dense fog or a thick jungle of tree trunks like the first morning, but a clear, wide open corn field on a perfect morning. It was almost too good to be true.

I calmly moved Seth up into position for a shot. Since we had one herd bull and 25 cows, I wanted to knock the bull down first, and Jake’s hunter could take his pick of the cows. Again, I just thought to myself, this is too good to be true, as I turned to my right to see the cow hunter standing 15 yards back behind the knob, when he was supposed to be next to me.

In the process, my cool, calm demeanor changed, and I excitedly tried to get the guy up to the berm, thinking we were going to kill two animals right off the bat. When my demeanor changed, and the guy started moving up, Seth’s super easy, well rested position changed as well, as he awaited my go ahead to shoot.

The cows picked their heads up and looked our way, the cow hunter stepped on something that made too much noise, and I finally just told Seth, now on about level 7/10 in excitement, while I was on about 9, to go ahead and kill the bull. He took a 260 yard shot, which I’m sure missed entirely as I saw snow fly immediately in front of his barrel at the shot. The herd moved West, and Seth immediately jumped up from prone and settled in again on the bull.

Bottom line, I got greedy, thinking I was guaranteed to fill two tags, and had it not been for Seth bailing me out with a 330 yard, off the knee follow-up shot, we would have walked out of that corn field with a goose egg. This was all because I tried for two when I should have taken one and saw what happened from there.

We watched the bull go into the SW corner of the field with the herd and move off across the creek. I knew he was hit, but did not know to what extent, or where he was hit. We sent Jake and his cow hunter on their way and we gave the bull some time before we returned to take up the track.

As it turned out, the bull split from the herd almost immediately after crossing the creek, and doubled back into the thickest stuff he could find. We found six beds in about 75 yards and heard him get up and move off out of the sixth. We stopped immediately and elected to suspend the track to give him a night to lay back down after getting bumped.

This would prove to be a great move, as we took the track up the next morning and were able to follow him uphill into the next thickest country he could find. As we were getting closer, taking his track step-by-step, a fresh bobcat track from the night before was backtracking the bull. That was the moment I told Seth, “Your bull is dead here somewhere. This cat already found him.” We rounded a corner as I looked to my left, in the only opening in a jungle of pine trees, there he laid.

I’ve walked up on a lot of dead elk, but this one was different. I’ve tracked them to bail my hunters out from poor shots, but this one my hunter bailed me out from a bad decision. The relief I felt as I looked at that bull was like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In this guiding thing, I continually learn from my mistakes, and I’m fortunate that this mistake worked out fine,by exercising a little patience. 

By the time we got the bull out of the woods, we had Seth’s entire family there to celebrate, which made it even more special. They had undoubtedly been on pins and needles all night, but to see them all enjoy the moment was humbling to say the least. Not only that, this bull absolutely crumpled and flattened out my jet sled. His body was absolutely monstrous, and even dragging him a short distance to the neighbor’s trail was a strenuous task.



























I know Invisible has more of the family photos to add, as those really show the sense of accomplishment that we all felt after the shot & tracking job.


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## sparky18181 (Apr 17, 2012)

Every year I check the site for the results. I think I’m just gonna wait until I get back home in a week and see if I got drawn. Man I hope this is the year.


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

sparky18181 said:


> Every year I check the site for the results. I think I’m just gonna wait until I get back home in a week and see if I got drawn. Man I hope this is the year.


If you’re planning on DIY hunting, that would be fine, but you may be severely limited on guide selection by waiting that long to check the results. Typically most of the better guides are booked up pretty quickly.


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## sparky18181 (Apr 17, 2012)

srconnell22 said:


> If you’re planning on DIY hunting, that would be fine, but you may be severely limited on guide selection by waiting that long to check the results. Typically most of the better guides are booked up pretty quickly.


You re right Scotty. Wasn’t thinking about that


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## sparky18181 (Apr 17, 2012)

srconnell22 said:


> If you’re planning on DIY hunting, that would be fine, but you may be severely limited on guide selection by waiting that long to check the results. Typically most of the better guides are booked up pretty quickly.


Unsuccessful. Again. But I did get a bear tag. Two years in a row


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

sparky18181 said:


> Unsuccessful. Again. But I did get a bear tag. Two years in a row


On that note, you should have waited for the packet to come. May have changed the outcome! Congratulations on the bear tag!


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## sparky18181 (Apr 17, 2012)

srconnell22 said:


> On that note, you should have waited for the packet to come. May have changed the outcome! Congratulations on the bear tag!


You re a funny man Scotty. Someday. Someday


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## srconnell22 (Aug 27, 2007)

For the first two days of the hunt, an old friend of mine who was my neighbor growing up, was doing all day sits in a pop-up blind overlooking an older clearcut. I placed the pop-up there because it was on public land, between a bedding knob on private land and a corn field I had planted on a different piece of private land. There were a small handful of bulls using this clearcut as a travel corridor to get between the two locations, so I asked Jamey to wait it out until one of them showed in daylight. With all of the pressure on the public land around him, I thought it would just be a matter of time until one of those bulls showed up in front of him. 

There were a couple of bulls in particular we were trying to get a look at from this vantage point, so before the hunt I gave Jamey the run down of what was there, and sent him pictures of the bulls I wanted him to take if the opportunity presented itself. One bull in particular was of special interest. He was a super heavy horned six point that I had plenty of trail camera pictures of, but only saw one time in the fall, but that was not during any of the fall seasons. 
































So for two days, Jamey sat there all day and watched absolutely nothing. I assured him that they would be there, they were using it every night, right after dark. The snow would show their tracks crossing back into the bedding knob in the morning before daylight. They were just making a circle every day, and he was in the right spot, we just needed colder temperatures to get them on their feet earlier. Jameson’s spirits remained high, and he held his position.

It was mid day on day 3 when I received a phone call from one of the other guides in our group, Brad Martin, that they had just killed a bull, and there was another known shooter with the group. He had them sectioned down and asked if Jamey wanted to come hunt him. I was working on Seth’s bull, so I called Jamey and told him to get up and go and where to meet . If it didn’t work out, he could come back and get back in his position at least two hours before dark. Knowing what bulls he was leaving, he was hesitant to go, but I assured him the one he was going after would be one he would be proud of.

It was sometime during the gutting and dragging phase of taking care of Seth’s bull when I got the text message “dead bull” from Brad. A message like this makes my stomach turn, without knowing for sure what that “dead bull” was, and trusting my hunter’s once in a lifetime tag with someone else is not exactly my cup of tea, but our team does a great job in these situations and that is the beauty of being part of a group with one common goal, to fill all of the tags with respectable animals that the hunters can be proud of.

In this case, they were able to sneak in on the group of bulls bedded down and had plenty of time to find the right one. When the bull stood up out of his bed, Jamey laid him back down right in it. The bull was a monster 7 point that I later scored at 335”+. I couldn’t have been happier for Jamey as he had put in the time and effort waiting on the other bulls, never complaining one time about the conditions or the lack of sightings. He appreciated the opportunity and was just there to enjoy the ride. 


























As for the bulls crossing the clearcut he was watching diligently for so long, they promptly showed up in broad daylight the morning of day four, the first morning I didn’t have anyone sitting in that blind overlooking the clearcut…

Full disclosure: there were expletives involved in the viewing of this picture for the first time.


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