It was the perfect beginning to a season. My friend Jason was going to be here in a week to hunt and I got to leave my bow at home and be a full time caller!!!
Jason made the drive from West WA for 10 days of hunting. As luck would have it the day he drove over my buddies killed two 6x6 bulls in a Nasty spot and needed my help. I was committed to helping pack them out. One of them was the guy who writes my schedule :}} I told him to go hunting and I would meet up with him the next day. Jason said no way and chose to help us pack all day and skip a day of hunting
Unfortunately we couldn't get the horses to these bulls, but 6 of us managed to get them out that day.
Jason and I hit the ground running the next day well before day light. Just after day light we got hit with a nasty rain storm. It pounded us all day. We were both soaked. It made for a long night in the woods. We had heard one bugle on the way in, but couldn't make it happen.
The next morning we woke up to a wet blanket of slushy snow. We started working the ridge and trying to locate a bull. We got a bull to bugle and started working him. He shut up and we couldn't locate him again, so we decided to drop in the bottom to get some water.
After getting some water we began the climb out of the drainage. It snowing hard wet snow and we were both soaked to the underwear from the huck brush and mountain alder jungle. We heard a bull bugle and decided to get aggressive and not give him the chance to shut up. I cut him off every time he bugled and we kept working toward him. He was getting close and we were in a timbered mountain under mess. If there was going to be a shot it was going to be close. Jason was out in from of me 30 yds or so, and I saw the bull down through the timber headed his way. I lost sight of the bull for a few seconds and heard a bow go off. I heard the bull jump and I immediately bugled. I could see Jason was trying to get another shot at the bull at it was standing 30 yds away. A few seconds later I heard a loud crash and saw Jason pump his arms with excitement the bull was down.