Big Archery Bull

[flyguide]

What a hunt.  This was a new one for me, a great tag on my home turf near Ellensburg.  Sounds easy right?  I thought so anyway, but found out otherwise once the season started.  My two best bowhunting buddies and I drew the Observatory tag, we have put in for several years and really wanted both the Goose Prarie or Peaches which I had drawn both in the past and killed bulls and had awesome hunts.  I live in Ellensburg and thought to myself, "man, wouldn't that be cool to hunt elk so close to home for once!"  I already knew the areas fairly well but not so much from an elk standpoint, mostly from shed hunting and trucking around with the family.  I scouted my brains out this summer putting hundreds,  maybe even a thousand tough miles on my rig driving and hiking really quirky little spots especially in the Umtanum unit.  I prowled this site a bit but didn't ask for information, I would have been embarrassed asking for help in my own backyard anyway.

We found some really cool elk country in some places that were very unsuspecting and were pretty amped about being able to hunt the Umtanum unit on this tag which doesn't have a general archery season.  Sounds good in theory right?  It is a tough unit.  There were a lot of bull tag holders on this side and although I wouldn't describe the pressure as "heavy" it was certainly a factor as most of the better zones in this unit are pretty well documented. 

I set up a couple of trail-cams and found some great little herds in some weird places, lots of pictures of cows, spikes, a  bear, a mountain lion, and even a few bucks.  No big bulls but I wasn't worried.  The bulls will find the cows.  Two days before season I set up camp with my 8 year old daughter and we stayed the night in the woods before she went back to school for the year, great daddy-daughter date.  I made her a Mountain House meal that she ate in bed and thought that was pretty awesome, hopefully she will always be that easy to take hunting and please.  We did some late night bugling and we did a road trip in the morning scouting and calling but were unable to locate any bulls.  Opening day arrived, same thing.  Up at 2 am - driving, bugling.... driving, cussing, no responses.   We hiked into a hot spot on opening morning in Umtanum and shared it with another well educated hunter, kudos to him for finding that zone.  We bumped a big herd in the dark just as it was getting light.  That was it.   No action.

That night we again tried another quirky little spot that we knew about and had 5 spikes feed and walk by at 25-60 yards, passed 'em up.  It was easier to do than I thought.  Good thing it was opening day because a few more days in and it would have been a spike soup double for Connor and I.  While we were on these spikes we herd some bugling.  I figured it was hunters, but just to check we walked over the hill and it sounded like World War 3 down there.  Bulls were SCREAMING at each other.  We debated hauling down there and making a play but it was opening day, we could get them in the morning.  We set up in the morning and it turned out these bulls were living in this little patch of hell down there and that is why they were willing to bugle.  You couldn't see 10 feet in places. 

We found a couple of rubs down there that were a little abnormal and saw some tracks that looked like a Moose had been there, at one point i muttered "we are hunting a BIG bull".  I felt a bit like Ahab pursuing Moby Dick at that point.  I wouldn't give up on this bull so we dedicated ourselves to that zone.  For 3 days we hunted this small patch of garbage with minimal action and when the elk would bugle they were not very responsive to our calls (which in the past have been proven to sound VERY sweeeeeet as proved by a garage full of antlers).  Finally we decided after 3 days to quit calling and wait along a saddle that the bulls had been using we nick-named "bull pass".  We got in at about 5:30 pm that night and waited for about an hour without making a sound.  There were two bulls we herd, Connor and I split up about 200 yards apart each of us above a bull.  The bull I was near bugled soft 3 times in the course of about an hour.  At about 7:15 I couldn't stand it anymore, I put a full frontal assault on. 

3 times we had attempted to call this bull in and each time he hung up, every time we backed off and played patiently.  We have a joke in our hunting clan called "let's hurry up and kill 'em"  because every time we try that we flush 353 days of physical and mental preparation down the toilet in about 6 minutes.  I waited until it was almost dark in this nasty timber and moved into his zone, I bugled weak after an estrus cow call right from his bed and he started raking and rolling rocks down the hill.  I don't know if he was doing it with his horns or feet but he was rolling rocks while raking and thrashing but  no more bugling.  He didn't come, the clock was ticking.  I vowed to stay in that patch of timber until I couldn't see a single pin. and it was a long ways from the truck by headlamp and dead fall standards.  Still getting darker.  As he raked I moved up another 50 yards, same drill, this time it got quiet and I heard the "crunch crunch" of a bull moving in!  He had better hurry, getting darker.  He came out, black mane first followed by some massive headgear.  His head went down and I thought, what is he going to feed?  Nope, he started raking the heck out of the ground and thrashing!  I came to full draw, leveled and waited making sure to breath to keep my blood flow healthy because I was going to be drawn for a while.  He raked then made the turn towards me from 30 yards, 25, 20 still chest on, no shot, can't take it, 15 yards, finally at what was later determined to be 11 yards I zapped him while walking as opened up to a quartering on angle.  All hell broke loose he turned ran 30 yards, coughed moved another 5 yards and tipped over just barely out of site!  He went about 40 yards.  When I shot I was in a kneeling position behind an old growth log, from that perspective this bull looked as big as a wooly mammoth.

This is a huge bull, I never thought I would top a 330-340 bull that I shot in 2009 but somehow I did.  God is good.  To me at least, I can't speak for my hunting buddies whom are awesome elk hunters and unfortunately didn't tag out.... yet.  There is still 2 hours of season left.  I got pretty damn lucky.   I knew we were on a big bull but I was expecting a 300-320" type bull.  This bull is enormous.  The body to the 57" main beams. 

Overall, the Observatory is a pretty freakin' tough tag.  The success rate in the past for bulls on this hunt is 7.9% which I checked after we drew.  The Manastash unit gets hunted very hard, the Umtanum doesn't have a lot of elk distributed throughout the unit.  I would probably put in for it again because I live in the valley but compared to the Goose Prairie and Peaches hunts I would put the level of difficulty at a MUCH higher level.  We scored my bull over a cup of whiskey in the garage at 365 gross, 357 and some change net.  It will shrink but I am sure we got it close.  Thanks to anyone that read this entire post, yea it is long. 

I got pretty lucky, my friends that know me though realize that I eat, sleep, and breathe archery elk hunting.  I run ultra-marathons, shoot, scout, and am pretty frickin' ridiculous when it comes to preparation.  I even have a 3-D range at the lodge where I am a fly fishing guide!  They say it was all me, not this time.  I am truly blessed to have killed a bull like this.  I have to say that while it is great to kill a bull like this I am more proud of 9 days in the backcountry with no bull last year but sometimes when opportunity meets preparation you get lucky.  I got very lucky this year. 

[Huntbear]

Wow!  Congrats on a pig!!!!!!!! 

Am in Eburg as well.. although I rifle hunt...  You did that tag proud!!! 

[Jason]

Awesome!! congrats man!!

[runamuk]

Congrats.......gorgeous bull.....

[ellensburgpo]

Congrats...I don't think there are any "gimme" archery tags...heck of a bull.

[fishngamereaper]

Awesome story man...congrats...There are some killer holes up there I found when I used to live over there...looks like you did your homework.
 

[boneaddict]

Great write up!   Beautiful trophy!  Thank you for taking the time to share your hunt.

[muleyslayer#1]

Good job Nice Shot

[deerhunter_98520]

Now thats a bull of a lifetime congrats!

[adamR]

Great story and an awesome bull, congrats!

[DRENALINJUNKIE]

Great bull!! Congratulations!  Sounds
Like you put in the time and effort.
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

[X-Force]

Great story! Great Bull!!!

[boneaddict]

AND.......   Thank you for a really cool HUNTING thread.

[SemperFidelis97]

Sounds like a hard earned bull, fantastic write-up thanks for giving us the great story.

[remington300mag]

Awesome Bull! Jealous as Heck over here! Great story too......Loved reading it!