Holy smokes, experience of a lifetime. Dad was able to punch his Dayton tag!
My old man was raised an archery hunter, and hunted archery for many years, from that, he has the “kill the first legal animal you see” mentality. Because of that, he set his sights on any decent 5 point that he saw to fill his Dayton bull tag.
After scouting every weekend, we were able to locate a few really good quality bulls. So we focused on the main area where we had been seeing these bulls.
We had shown up a few days before the hunt and set up camp in a few inches of snow. A day before the opener we made our way to town to gather last minute (forgotten) supplies that we might need. There we learned that there was a storm coming in and the wind was going to be ripping. With that in mind, we put together a back up plan just in case the weather did come.
The hunt:
Opening morning, we woke up to new snow on the ground along with a snow/windstorm and could barely see 200 yards in front of us. We glassed the areas that we had been seeing bulls in and came up empty. We moved onto plan B, and instead of taking the easy way (by truck), we decided to walk through the forest to see if we could bump something, and never did. Once we arrived at the area we wanted to glass, we found a few cows on the ridge across from us. I had a hunch that there was still a bull with the herd. So I made my way down the hill to verify my gut feeling and found a smaller framed 6-point bull. I grabbed my dad by the shoulder and said, “there is your 6-point”. He quickly got down on his knees and glassed the bull, I could tell he was hesitant, but I reminded him of his 5-point goal. We were 675 yards away from the bull and with the storm, that was not shootable. So we slowly made our way down the side of the steep hill until, we were sitting 400 yards away from the bull. Dad took a long look and decided to pass on him. “With the bulls we had been scouting all summer, I don't want to pull the trigger on a smaller one just yet” he said. We then made our way back up the steep hill to the ridgetop and started on our way to the end of the ridge. 50 feet later, out of the corner of my eye, I seen some tan spots further down the opposite ridge, about 100 yards away from the main herd. I grabbed my binoculars and soon found out that I forgot to put my lens cover on and the binos were filled with water. After doing my best to clean them off, I raised and pulled them up onto a giant bedded down bull. Once again, I grabbed my dad's shoulder and said, “giant freaking bull”. He looked and said, “no, that's the same bull”. I grabbed the spotting scope, showed him the big bull, then showed him the other 6-point. And with a shaky voice he says, “lets go get him”. Again, at 675 yards with it now raining and hailing sideways, wind blowing so hard we could barely hear each other whisper, it was too far of a shot on such a trophy animal. We set a goal of 350 yards and worked our way down the steep hill. The bull had two cows right next to him that already has us pinned, we made a huge detour, and it took us close to 2 hours to get within 315 yards. At this point, my dad and I were both shaking violently with excitement. He found a good place to rest his gun, he raised his rife only to find that his scope cover also opened during our stalk and was filled with water, and oh boy, that was a panic. We got his scope cleared and waited for the bull to stand up from his bed. I was working on getting the spotting scope back out when we said, “it’s getting up, it’s getting up”! I grabbed my fogged-up binoculars and watched the bull. For the life of him, dad could not stop shaking to make a good shot. Dad was frustrated with himself, I calmed him down and said, “this is all part of hunting, it is okay, he is giving us a perfect broadside shot, I know you can do it, you know you can do it, adjust yourself, get comfortable and let’s kill this bull”. At that moment, I seen something in dad's eyes and I knew he was ready to make the perfect shot. He readjusted and said,” oh yeah, I got this one”. After hearing that from him, I started to shake even more and said, “kill him”. BOOM! Witnessing the perfect kill shot, I said, “ you hit him, you hit him”. I watched the bull fall and roll and roll and roll and slide until the horns dug into the mud and eventually held him from sliding further. I looked back at dad and he was in complete shock, threw him a giant high five and gave him a hug with the excitement to what he had achieved.
The recovery:
Now the work starts. Knowing where this bull is located, we knew we had a long and tough night ahead of us. While scouting, dad had met an excellent person that will forever be a friend. He called this stranger and asked him for a hand with packing this bull out. Without hesitation, he said, “absolutely”! We said we would work on the bull through the night, hang the meat, pack a load out and get the rest in the morning when it was safe. Our new friend agreed with our plan and was going to meet us at our camp in the morning. So, dad and I headed out and over to the bull. As we were arriving to the bull for the first time, I caught my dad at a complete standstill, he couldn’t talk, and I seen what appeared to be a tear in his eye as he stared over his bull. This is a moment I will never forget, sharing this moment with him was unexplainable. We worked on the bull until it was dark and until we figured it was unsafe to go any further, as we had been hiking since before daylight without any food break, we decided to head out. As we were approaching the gate, we seen two folks headed our direction, it was our new friend and one of his buddies coming to help. They stressed the cougar problem in the area and wanted to go back in and pack out another load to ensure we didn’t lose any meat. So, we did. These two guys hiked back in with us and took another load of meat out, leaving us with one final load for the next day. We finally arrived back at camp exhausted around 1030-11pm that night. As dad and I have done so many times before (helping others pack), we know the sacrifice our new buddies had made. We thanked our friends for what they done and will forever be grateful. Oh man were we exhausted, dad and I slept in a little bit the next morning (till 6am) before heading in for the last pack. After we started, it took us 5 hours to get the rest of the bull out that day. Once finished, the excitement came back as we celebrated.
We will forever be grateful for the help from our new friends. Thank you, guys! This was a hunt that I will always remember and hold near and dear to me. I am so blessed to have shared this moment with my dad.
Thanks to everyone that wished us the best and shared information. If anyone draws this tag, please PM me. I wish you all the best!
