As this year’s hunting season is now upon me, I’ve realized just how long I’ve procrastinated my bull write up from last year. Since tomorrow is opening day for archery elk and I have a tag, I’d better write up my story from last year. Before I get into the details of the hunt, there’s a couple things to know. This October I’ll be 28 years old and I’d like to think I’m not superstitious about hunting, but that’s not necessarily true. When my buddy and I were in high school, we started a tradition called “give to get.” Essentially we decide prior to a hunt what we’re willing to give up if we’re successful. For example, if the Good Lord blesses me and I fill my deer tag, I’ll give up drinking beer for 6 months. We try to choose something to give up, start doing, or focus on in exchange for the filled freezer and lifelong memories. If we don’t fulfill our give to get, we feel it could come back to haunt us in future hunts.
With that being said, my last year’s give to get was to do a full write up of my bull hunt on here. I find myself being a constant viewer or taker of information and stories on here. I truly enjoy this forum, but never really contribute much myself. So I thought if I choose this as my give to get, I’ll be forced to share.
Those of you who hunt western wa for
elk know it can be difficult to hunt public land due to the number of hunters, me being one of them. However about 4 years ago, my wife and I were approached about buying raw land, recently logged, in our dream location on the outskirts of Eatonville. We were 22 and 23 years old at the time and buying land was a long shot, but we scrounged up everything we had and made it happen.
We knew that building our dream home wasn’t going to happen for some years because of finances. So we stayed in our rental and decided all of our extra money/time would go towards getting our newly acquired property ready for elk hunting. Our land borders private
timberland where hunting elk is illegal, but elk numbers are healthy. So we were excited and hopeful that we might be blessed with an opportunity during elk season.
Fast forward to 2021 and our property has come a long way since we bought it. We built a tree stand and spent numerous hours spreading grass seed, removing invasive brush, burning slash piles, and SO much weed eating.
Up until this point, I had only helped my wife and Dad hunt elk on our property. Even though we have a tree stand, the following situations were spot and stalk. My wife missed a bull with the muzzleloader her first season and the following year had quite the experience with her bow (that story for another day). My Dad hunted 2 muzzleloader seasons and had an opportunity on a
7 x 7 bull. He was using a brand new muzzleloader and had the bull at 90 yards dead to rights. Pulled the trigger, cap went off, muzzy didn’t fire. The following year he decided he’d shoot a cow, he got within range, shoulder punched her... and she didn’t die. Now, I could elaborate on each of these stories, but ultimately for both of them, they had multiple opportunities on elk, and were unsuccessful in filling their tags.
I was alongside both of them for each of these hunts either calling, ranging, or simply another set of eyes. I desperately wanted my wife to be the first one to harvest an elk because she put in countless hours of manual labor getting the property ready to hunt. I also wanted to share the joy in my dads success because he’s the one who raised me to love hunting and laid the foundation of knowledge within me about nature and conservation.
As disappointed as I was neither one of them harvested an elk, I was grateful for the amount of opportunities they both had. I considered it a win that we were able to prepare our property to hold elk during the archery and muzzy seasons.
Long story short, 3 years of elk hunting, no dead elk. In 2021 I decided I was going to hunt the muzzleloader season on our property. This was my first time hunting here with my own tag in my pocket.
I wasn’t able to take the whole season off of work to hunt, so I would do short morning hunts before work and do an evening hunt as soon as I got off. The first 5 days of the season were very slow and I was seeing elk but had no opportunities on a bull or cows. I took Thursday off of work to go to the Seahawks v. Rams game, so that gave me a little bit more time in the morning. I had been hunting from our tree stand and decided I needed to change it up since I had more time. I covered myself in elk piss and took off on foot, hoping to see the bull and cows that had been hanging around after dark.
I hiked up to a high spot for a good vantage point to glass. I saw a group of cows on the neighboring property with a rag bull who was fired up! I did some calf calling and he was very interested. He rounded up his cows and starting heading right towards me and back onto my land.
When the herd got to 120 yards the cows started acting goofy and began making their way to the timber. The bull lagged behind them but stopped at 120 yards broadside. I didn’t have time for a rest or to get completely comfortable. So I took a free hand, standing shot at him. I was immediately blinded by the smoke and panicked. I dropped to a knee to try and see under the smoke. I couldn’t see the bull but the cows were taking off. I ran forward through the smoke and tried to focus on reloading. As soon as my speed loader came out of my pocket, I dropped it and it spilled. I then heard a gurgly bugle coming from the bull and I knew he was hit.
I finally got eyes on the bull, he was down and taking his last breaths. I wanted to give the bull ample time to die so I took a few minutes to calm my nerves and called my wife to let her know. I hiked back to get some proper pack out gear. My wife, Dad and I went back to the elk to cut it up and get it home.
It was a bittersweet moment to share with both people who mean the world to me. We enjoyed the moment and recalled all the elk encounters that got us here. Then we had to get busy since we had a football game to get to!
This was not my first successful elk hunt, nor my first bull, or the biggest elk, but it was just as memorable as those “firsts.” I’m very thankful, happy, and extremely blessed for the opportunity and the success.
Thanks for reading, best of luck to you all this hunting season. Stay safe!
