June Bulls In Pennsylvania Elk Country

Winslow Hill Bull

 When I first began going to Pennsylvania Elk Country in 1995 it was a much different place than it is today with little in the way of food plots planted for wildlife. There was some planting at the Dents Run Viewing Area and a portion of The Saddle and the plot behind Busy Bee Campground were usually mowed sometime during the summer. Back then my summer elk filming usually consisted of taking a tour around Winslow Hill and out to Hick's Run or Driftwood and to Medix Run in the mornings and evenings. Since many fed elk and there were few food plots, the elk were attracted to the feeding and the green lawn grass. As a result  many of the bulls were to be found in the lawns eating the grass and nibbling on the  flowers.

Today there is a lot of high quality forage in elk country and there are a lot more elk than in 1995. Now it is relatively common so see large bachelor  groups of bulls feeding in the food plots while they are less likely to be seen in town.

During my June trip, I saw two bulls along the road on Winslow Hill every day. The first was the 6x6 at the beginning of the post and the second is the bull below.

Largest Bull Seen on Winslow Hill

At this juncture I am not going to speculate on the number of points on the rack.  A point must be at least an inch in length to be counted and this bull has a lot of points that are still too short to meet that criteria. Some are on the borderline and may become long enough or they may not.

I spent most evenings on foot in remote areas and sometimes did not get back to the vehicle until well after dark.  As usual I concentrated on taking video and carried a Panasonic FZ2500 on the tripod for that purpose, and a Canon 1DXMKII with the Canon 100-400mm IS II  in a camera bag to take still images.

One evening I walked back a field road and came upon a fine bull.  After taking video I put the still camera in action and captured several frames.

5x5 Bull Pauses From Feeding

5x5 Bull Scents For Danger

5x5

This bull  is currently a 5x5, but looks like he will be at least a 6x6 and possible a 7x7 when antler development is completed. A bit later I found a bachelor group  sharing a food plot with a solitary cow.

Bachelor Group and Cow Share Food Plot

I saw two more similar bachelor groups that evening, but the photo below was taken on the following evening when I didn't find nearly  as many bulls overall on the same walk, but found more of them together so I suspect these were some of  the same bulls concentrated  in one place.

Seven Rack Bulls-One Spike

On Friday morning the last day of the trip I drove the roads around Benezette before leaving for home and photographed the largest bull of the trip. In this case the images were taken from the tripod with the old Canon 500mm f4.0 IS and the 1DXMKII.

Mature 7x7

Mature 7x7-A Different Angle

It will be interesting to see how much larger the bulls have grown if I am able to go back this month.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.