People quit their jobs in the name of September elk hunting. While September no doubt holds a special place in my heart, it’s November that really took hold of me years ago regarding elk. Those words would have never left my lips as a youngster, but things change, and here we are. I love bowhunting bulls in November, but not just anywhere. It’s doing it in my home state of Arizona that changed my tune. And November 2025 solidified that.

Scouting Late Season Elk

My scouting began immediately after I found out I drew a late archery bull tag in Arizona. Well, my e-scouting at least. My onX Hunt App quickly started to resemble a Christmas tree with all of the brightly colored pins I was dropping. I wanted to focus on finding glassing points and reliable water sources. Another important factor was finding stalkable terrain using satellite imagery along with topo lines. Broken country and topography are keys for spot and stalk bowhunting.

During boots-on-the-ground scouting, I found a nice 6×6 bull right off the rip. He still had about nine cows with him, but I knew that was going to change as my hunt progressed and he’d eventually move. My hope was that he’d stick around long enough for me to have a proper go at him.

The Opener and the Plan

Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson said it best, right? Well, that’s pretty much how my opening day went for my Arizona elk hunt. I had relocated the 6×6 the night before. He was now alone, which was great—fewer eyes for us to contend with on an approach. What I didn’t expect was to see a hunter sitting right above where the bull was the previous evening. This mucked everything up, and we didn’t see that bull again until days later.

This pattern continued for the next few days. We’d find a bull, then be graced with the view of someone else going after them. Thankfully, because of e-scouting, we had backup areas, and it didn’t take long to find more elk.

In a different spot, we glassed four bulls right before dark. The problem was that they weren’t in play due to a piece of private land I noticed on my map. Using the Line Distance Tool, I could see that they were well within the .25-mile rule (i.e. don’t shoot within .25 miles of a boundary you don’t know you can cross when it comes time for recovery). A bummer, but a positive sign for the future and a solid plan to come.

But You Can’t Control the Weather

Over the next seven days, Mother Nature decided she was going to bless Arizona with all of its annual rainfall. No joke. That’s not an exaggeration. And it didn’t just rain. We were getting socked in, so visibility dropped off the map. Thankfully, we’d get 30-60 minute windows of visibility and less rain. The Hunt App’s Weather feature came in handy here in terms of planning amidst the fog and rain. We could see the hourly increases and decreases of forecasted rain throughout the day.

A Close Call

At this point, my friend had to head home for work obligations, so it was now just me and my brother. Mirroring our routine from the last few days, we glassed for about 30 minutes at first light before another wall of rain came at us. Only this time, I located two bulls that looked like they were fixing to bed down for the day. The rain hit, visibility ceased to exist, and we went back to camp to wait until the evening, when it appeared the weather would pass.

Our plan was to post up on a ridge just above where we last saw the bulls and wait for them to get up to feed. From there, we’d make our final approach. This worked out perfectly. We caught one of the bulls coming up out of a bottom, waited for him to break his line of sight to us, then we booked it. In no more than 15 minutes, we were staring at the bigger of the two bulls at 75 yards.

With a tree right in front of me and the bull quartering to, I just didn’t have a shot before the bull decided he’d had enough. My brother couldn’t shoot either because he was holding a camera filming. Close, but no cigar, and it was the last encounter I’d get with my brother before he had to head home a few days later.

Going It Alone

Now solo, I had the next four days to put an arrow through a bull. I pored over onX Hunt, thinking about what to do next. Those four bulls we saw near the private land early on kept creeping into my mind. I knew they had to drift away from that property eventually, so I decided to make another run in there. Everything worked out great, besides my miscalculation on which ridge I needed to be on. The bulls were in the right spot, but I was not. Morning couldn’t come soon enough after that quick five-mile jaunt for the evening.

Early Start

I left my truck an hour before light, and through the whole hike, I had a good feeling. It just felt like it was going to be a good day, whether I shot a bull or not. As I crept my way out to the drainage the bulls were in, I spotted a tan body in the bottom. There they were, working their way up to bed down. I marked my location with a Waypoint for reference, then made the loop around to get on top of them. This is thick country, and everything looks different once you get over there. Having the Waypoint of where I saw them from comes in handy.

After some poking around, I got my bearings and found one of the bulls almost immediately. He was bedded down, oblivious to my presence and right across a small cut from me. With a great wind, I crept my way down to get closer.

It’s Now or Never

As I crawled through the dense oak brush, my mind ran wild with hope. It had been 10 days of bowhunting elk in the cactus-choked deserts of Arizona, and now I had a bull bedded 135 yards across from me and oblivious to my existence. You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet. Each time I scooted forward, that hope elevated more. Soon, all that separated me from drawing my bow was a lone pine tree. Peeking out from the side, the bull was looking my way. “It’s now or never,” I told myself.

Coming to full draw, I was calmer than ever. I locked my pin mid-body on him and slowly pulled through my shot. My hinge release broke, and I heard that magical sound all bowhunters yearn for. THWACK. The bull ran off, and then my nerves set in.

I was hopeful that everything went smoothly on the bull’s end because it felt great on mine. Those feelings turned to reality when I found my arrow just beyond where the bull was standing. It was coated in lung blood, and exactly 41 yards away, according to onX Hunt, my bull lay motionless. I did it. From there, I sent a Waypoint to a few very gracious buddies. In no time, we were packing elk meat. My preconceived notions about the day were correct: It was indeed a good day.

Expectations

Through the years, I’ve learned that expectations can either make or break part of your mental game in the field. For this elk tag, I didn’t have many expectations other than having a choice time with my brother and a good friend, who were also tag holders. Aside from that, I wanted to give it my absolute all and leave nothing on the table. In terms of an animal? It was spike to 350 or bust for me. The goal was a fun hunt and a great camp with hopefully tasty elk meat at the end of the trail. And that happened in strides. Next November can’t come soon enough.