Well 2016 elk season ended quick for me. Got it done at 745 Saturday morning and haven’t had the time to sit down and get these posted. This is my first bull and I could not be happier. He sure isn’t the biggest one ever but I’ll never forget it. Couldn’t thank a couple guys in our group, @Gus and Chris more for the help on butchering the bull once he was on the ground. On to the story.
My hunting group and I had been scouting this area since May. We thought we had a good inventory of the bulls and animals in the area and were feeling good with our plan of attack. A buddy texted Gus that he had seen a bull in the heart of the area we were hunting at 1 pm Friday afternoon. That got us even more excited. We all met up at 530, with a total of 6 guys in our group. Gus, Chris and I, my dad, his friend Scott, and Chris’ friend Trent. We made a plan of attack to have the guys not as familiar with the property hunker down and watch trail coming out of a heavily used area, and Gus, Chris and I would go and walk the opposite ridge to see if we kicked something up.
Gus jumped off a ridge, and Chris and I continued to walk up the road a bit more. Chris thought he heard a couple twigs snap around the next bend, but we couldn’t see anything. Another ten feet down the road got us around the bend, and I got eyes on a lone cow. The cow was a bit skittish, likely from other hunters pushing from an adjacent property, but not totally spooked. Eventually she crossed the road, about 110 yards away. As Chris and I drop our packs, Gus had gotten my text that we were on elk and had gotten about 20 yards behind us at this point.
As Chris and I go to make a move on the cow, a deep bugle comes ripping out of the timber, and here comes the rest of the herd. 20-25 animals ended up crossing the road ahead of us. Mostly cows and calves, but we could see three bulls. The herd bull was gnarly guy, all sorts of points, but was out at 150 yards and didn’t give us a shot. As we had just settled into position to shoot, a cow notices us but doesn’t bust. Chris almost whacked that cow, but we decided to wait as long as possible to kill a cow since we had bulls close. We were within 30 yards of some cows, and they were mewing and talking. The herd bull was bugling and pissed at the satellite bulls coming too close.
The herd bull kicked this bull out off the main herd towards Chris and I. We both saw him coming and pulled up on him, but he stopped perfectly behind a tree from my point of view to completely block his vitals. Chris has a good bead on him, but as he’s about to pull the trigger, the bull takes a step and a half forward, and we switch with who has the better shot.
At this point, the bull is about 65 yards out and quartering away, with his front leg forward. I was kneeling and was steady, and lit off a shot. Chris immediately said “You hit him hard, you hit him hard”, and I see him try running off. But he was dragging his eye guards in the dirt and was slowly quickly. The herd busted and made all sorts of noise so we couldn’t hear him fall.
We jumped into the timber and found where he ran, but didn’t see him on the ground. Then we see a bull run off into the timber 100 yards out that looked totally healthy, and Chris and I looked at each other like, “What the hell”? For about 5 seconds, all was quiet, then we heard one twitch off to our right about 15 yards away. We jumped over real quick, and there was the bull. He had fallen into a tall patch of ferns and was dead. He hadn’t gone 50 yards from where he was his, and was dead in under 30 seconds. I had been very confident in the shot, and it was a perfect double-lung shot. A 295 grain Copper Belt Aero-tip bullet in front of 100 grains of Triple 7 powder sure did the job. I quickly started to work on the bull, and once Gus and Chris had figured out that the herd had busted, they came back and helped me out. The bull was processed and out of the woods by 1245.
This was combination of heavy scouting, luck and teamwork, and I couldn’t be happier with how this all transpired. I killed my first elk, a cow, in the same vicinity last year, not 500 yards from where this bull died.
The next day, Sunday, I tried to help the rest of the group get an elk, and spent the evening hunt with Gus. We ran into a very nice bull, not 50 yards from the carcass of my bull, but couldn’t seal the deal because of shooting light running out.
All in all, it an incredible hunt being in a herd of that many animals while they were talking and rutting, and having a few hundred pounds of the best game meat on the planet! Can’t wait until 2017.
