Post by: Mr Mykiss on November 03, 2019, 09:54:31 AM
This is a stupid long story the directly translates to "I got lucky" but it starts pretty much the same as all others. I drew a rifle elk tag. Freaked out. Started planning.
I ended up with five trailcameras out for three months and two overnight scouting trips. I have limited time in the summer but I thought that my boots on the ground time would be better spent in the days before the season, not when the bulls were in their summer feeding patterns or in the peak of the rut. I started making an effort to eat healthy for the first time in my life and did a holy hell of a lot of step ups and a fair amount of running and lost 20#!! Some folks called me skinny but let’s be honest all that meant was that I was just less fat. Oh yeah, I also did some research on scoring bulls and using the “Base 200” method to get an estimate. It wasn’t about score, I wanted to have fun and have an adventure but I also knew that there was an opportunity to shoot a big mature bull so that was my goal.
On Thursday four days before season I met my buddy Dave to set up a wall tent around noon, I wanted it centrally located but within walking distance of a bomb diggity glassing spot a friend had shared with me, check. It was 30 degrees and spitting a few inches of snow but it was the wind gusts up to 30 made it pretty cold during tent install and out on the old glassing knob but we were able to turn up a bedded spike right before dark on Thursday. Having a wall tent for the first time in my life made it absolute luxury, giant cot, tables, stove and a stack of wood…what had I been missing all these years??!! A storm rolled in later that evening and my buddy John came in from his backpacking spike camp to let me know of a bull he saw and bugles that he’d heard on that morning.
On Friday, John woke up and hunted in the snow. Dave and I glassed from the spot, we saw the same spike that we had seen the day before, also saw a cow, yay.
Dave left mid-morning and John returned after trying, to no avail, to cut tracks in the wind and snow. John and I decided to go deer hunt/elk scout a few miles from the herd. We figured that the elk weren’t going anywhere in the storm and the last thing we should do was to charge into the herd two days before season and blow em out to God only knows where. I planned to hit a high point and see what I could glass up from about a mile away. Anyways, we hiked in and went our separate ways. I cut fresh tracks in the snow, kept my eyes up and moved slow. I attempted, and failed, to find a glassing point and stuck to creeping around in the timber. After the fourth time I cut a good set of tracks, handful of cows and a bull or two, I decided to back out and not push it. Everything looked so good that I just kept saying to myself that I could see a bunch of elk at any time and that is NOT what I wanted in close quarters without a gun in my hand and a valid tag.
Looking back the only good thing I did on this hunt was to actively prevent myself from doing something stupid….it’s a 24/7 job and I rarely succeed. Of course John heard bugles and I heard squat but we both agreed that we knew where elk were and isn’t that what mattered most?
Friday night brought snow and wind and my second luxurious night in a wall tent.
Saturday morning we ventured out to see what we could see from the glassing point and drink some coffee whilst doing so. We didn’t see squat because of the blowing snow but we did drink the coffee so I called it a win. Mid-morning a truck went past the tent to the glassing point and about 30 minutes later someone was outside out tent. It was Joe, another tag holder, his truck had died. He came in and warmed up and called his buddies and asked us if we could tow his truck to a better spot, better than the edge of a cliff in a snowstorm. I towed his truck to the top of the ridge and he came inside to BS with us. He was holding out for a 360 or better and had a lot of guys in camp helping him. He’d done his homework and put in the time, I believed he could do it. I told him I was here for a “big ass mature bull” which is what all my previous discussions on score had eventually come to. We exchanged numbers as I told him my plan to leave and come back and said that I’d appreciate real time updates from the mountain. Oh yeah, I’d been keeping a hell of an eye on the weather updates…they kept predicting 2-7 inches of snow and then it wouldn’t happen, we’d just get an inch or so. However about noon on Saturday it started dumping and I devised a plan. By then there was 6” on the ground and a predicted 18” that evening.
My plan was thusly, it was pretty dammed clear that I wouldn’t be glassing a dang thing in this snowstorm, I’d go buy chains and spend the evening/morning with my family because with this weather I’d likely need a full week for this hunt. Killing two birds with one stone as it were. I had a plan but I knew it was risky. I either wouldn’t be able to drive after this storm hit or I needed to go get chains and risk being snowed out of my camp or having the snow damage the wall tent.
At noon on Saturday I knocked the snow accumulation of about 3 or 4 inches off the tent and loaded up the wood stove and dampered in down in hopes that it would melt enough of what was coming that the tent wouldn’t collapse.
I surprised the wife and kids with coming home but told her to remember this when I was still hunting a week from now!! I was checking the snotel sites, radar pictures and weather reports constantly Saturday night. Sure enough, the snotel site I was checking went from 3 to 18 in about 4 hours, it had dumped.
Sunday morning, I got a text from Joe on the mountain that said none of their trucks could leave camp and I should wait as long as possible to come back up. I was nervous about everything but I managed to wait until about 930 before I left. It was a crazy drive, there were hundreds of deer hunters bailing off the mountain and I don’t blame them. Funny thing is that it was 60 degrees and sunny all the way to the base of the mountain.
Things got real as soon as I hit the dirt road. There were five trucks stopped in a line because a trailer had jackknifed coming down the hill. We all kind of hung out together and exchanged stories. Some people were cutting wood, some had big bull tags and some were just trying to get back to camp. We all backed down to the pavement when the camper finally got free. All the rigs coming down had chains, some on all 4 tires. I spoke to folks coming down and one said that I “could be fine” with no chains and good tires…I went to putting on my chains.
The first truck started up the road when all was clear and promptly backed down 10 minutes later when a truck without chains carrying a wood splitter on a trailer got stuck and had to back down and move the trailer on the side of the road. It was a hairy drive all the way up to the top of the mountain with fresh packed snow and slick snow and half melted slick-as-all-hell snow.
On top, I ran into a rig with two chains backing up saying he wasn’t going down the road with only two chains, he was loading his stuff into a buddies rig that had chains on all four tires. Apparently there was a snowdrift that was sloping down off the road into one hell of a spot for a truck to roll. They said they had cleared the drift a little but that the back end could start slipping…downhill. I sent my wife one of those texts that said I really love her and the kids, just in case. I followed the truck with four chains and hugged the safe side away from certain death…or at least the inevitable loss of a truck. I made it through and it was “smooth sailing” from there on. I got to my turn off and it was almost as though nobody had driven that road, maybe one rig had gone in and out. That gave me a little fear of the unknown but I made it.
I got to a big camp down the road from mine just as they were loading up to leave for the week and come back during general elk season. I told them I had a left yesterday and where my camp was and that nobody had driven up there yet. A dude with an old, very lifted, very bad ass, suburban said he would break trail up to my camp and he did. He came back with the sorrowful look in his eyes and told me that the wall tent had collapsed, just as I had feared. I told them that’s OK as they kept apologizing for my situation. I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about it but I wasn’t angry or crying about poor me. I’d seen it coming and it happened and I had hunting to do, I could deal with the tent fallout later.
I told them of my plan to gather my hunting clothes and what gear I needed from inside the collapsed tent and go hunting in the morning as it was going be opening day and I had my backpacking tent with me.
I shoveled the snow off the top of the tent and I made a few trips back and forth from the tent carrying clothes and gear and piling that stuff in my truck and headed down the road. I decided to stop in and see another camp that I knew held another tag holder.
Good news travels fast in the mountains and camp one had already told camp two that my camp collapsed because as soon as they invited me in they said “We heard your tent collapsed” I gave them a look like “What in the world??!!” They laughed and said that they were in radio contact with the other folks. They advised me on long-distance shooting, said it would take 800 or 900 yards to get it done. It turns out that they had taken their bulls in past years on shots of greater than 900 yards. Well hell. It seemed as though I may have under trained with my practicing out to 500 and 600 yards. However I thought there still may be a chance that I could see a bull closer than 800 or 900 yards.
So as it were, the tag holder in that camp had decided that he was heading home the next day, Monday, opening day. I asked “Really?” He said yes that they couldn’t glass up anything with the storm, and that it would be better weather later in the week. Which was true, it was gonna be great weather mid-week and these guys obviously knew what they were doing as they’d been successful in the past. However, I was still planning on hunting the opener regardless of how many tents collapsed or where I spent the night. We wished each other well and I headed down the road again…slipping, sliding and spinning.
On the way I saw a really nice moose who was not intimidated by me or my truck. I wanted to hunt off the back road, off the back road, off the main road. Where I’d had on camera and seen some good bulls. What that meant was there were not trucks driving in the direction I wanted to go so the roads were just plain crap. I had planned on picking my non truck driving buddy up and bringing him to my camp to hunt with me. At this point I had too much to deal with and I didn’t know whether I could even get out to get him so I inReach’d him and said it was a complete *censored*show up here and a no-go at this point. I finally got where I wanted to be about 2pm before the opener. They’re just so happened to be one wall tent, standing, and one other truck. The guy must have heard me pull up because he came out of the tent as soon as I shut the truck down. I introduced myself and he was Bill. We discussed the storm, as I had with everyone else that day, and he invited me in to warm up.
I noticed a giant Bible, a stack of Bugle magazines and a pile of Salmon, Trout and Steelheader magazines. All this to say, I quickly evaluated Bill to be a pretty good guy. We shot the bull for a little while and I told him that I had a big bull tag and the wall tent collapse. I learned that he was just “holding down the fort” for a week until his son returned to hunt spikes on opening day.
After 30 minutes of conversation with Bill, from elk to snow to fish to fishing and fish biologist questions I told him that I had a small backpacking tent that I plan to set up and I asked him where to put it? Maybe I had a sorrowful puppy dog look in my eyes at the time, I don’t remember. He told me a few places I could camp, but in the same breath he invited me to stay in his wall tent.
I was so relieved. My previous two nights, and only two nights ever spent in a wall tent had softened me and I had grown accustomed to the luxuries of a warm tent with a stove in it.
Bill and I would get to know each other very well over the next few days and I will forever be grateful for his company. However that afternoon, the day before the opener. I piled my stuff into his wall tent, organized my clothes for the next day, organized some stuff in my truck to grab on the way out of camp in the morning, sent and inReach message to my buddy and wife, not mentioning the collapsed tent and my homeless situation to the wife.
We went to sleep about 7pm and I set my alarm for two hours before first light. The plan being to hike towards where I thought/knew there were elk. I’d basically spent the prior three days avoiding the area and it was now go time.
The alarm went off and finally it was here, a whole bunch of planning and trail cameras and eating healthy and step ups all had lead to finally going hunting, finally.
Off I went, and it was a real pain to hike in fresh snow. I imagine there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 inches, it could have been worse. It was not overly cold so the snow was not crunchy. To my benefit the snow had stopped falling about 24 hours ago so every track that I would see in the snow was an indication of an animal within striking distance. I began to cut fresh elk tracks a mile from camp, before shooting light but with snow on the ground I could see a good distance even in the “dark” so I pushed on working very slowly and inventorying the tracks. A few deer, elk, elk poop, four or five elk together, a mini-herd.
The sun came up and it was finally shooting light, on opening morning!! It was another mile and a few more sets of tracks later that I heard a distant cow call. I remember being very excited just to know that it was in fact hunting season and I was in fact into elk!! I kept my eyes up as I move forward towards the sound a few more cow calls. Maybe 100 yards away appeared a cow and calf, I froze. I was in a bad spot to get a shot with heavy brush and blow down between me and the elk. When the cow and calf disappeared from view into some brush to feed I quickly moved forward over a downed tree, took a knee, and got my gun on my trekking poles. Instantly a few more elk began to show, single filing into a clearing 170 yards away. I saw several more cows, and then there they were the first bulls of my hunt, two spikes. The spikes began feeding my direction and as if I had drawn it up, they were 30 yards or so and then moved downhill into my right, still very close but all I could see where their antlers moving as they fed in the brush right next to me. I kept watching opening where the elk were entering the clearing, as most of the herd had filtered passed me. There was a raghorn that came out last. I was excited when I first saw a branch bull, a few seconds later I was disappointed that it was just a raghorn but this was all exciting nonetheless. One of the spikes fed back across my face and behind some bush to my left where I couldn’t see him, almost too close for comfort. I remained dead still. The spike quickly headed back from where he came minute or so later and down to my right with the rest of the herd. I contemplated taking pictures with my phone of various members of the herd, but then managed to pull myself together and remind myself that this was in fact a big bull hunt and I shouldn’t be screwing around. So I did just that, I kept a close eye on the opening 170 yards away sometimes through my scope sometimes through my binoculars but I was always hoping there would be a big bull trailing this herd.
I don’t know exactly how much time went by it may have only been one or two minutes. But I remember watching that distant opening and having my mind blown, to pieces. The brush to my left, where the spike had fed and hidden for a minute, had been blocking a big bull from my view. I know this because a big giant mature bull elk came out of nowhere and took three or four steps through the opening right in front of me and was again behind some brush. I mentally freaked out and lost all concept of reality but yet somehow kept myself from being overly dumb. Looking back I could have stopped him as soon as I saw him but then I would have had to make a snap judgement on whether to shoot or not and he would have likely been looking right at me which would make it impossible to judge him and also opens the door to an elk staring you down at close range, always no bueno.
I had spent so much time trying to figure out what a big bull was and how do you score them and judge them, all that did me absolutely no good in the three seconds that I had to judge this bull. The reason I couldn’t scream “shooter!!” in two seconds was that he didn’t not have any tines which were abnormally long or would otherwise jump out at you to say wow he’s got giant…fourth or fronts or thirds or a really long main beam. So as I let him walk in front of me and then into the brush to my right I remember thinking about telling my friend “I just passed on a 330 6 x 7, are you happy???!!” This is the friend who would argue “Eat this tag or shoot a giant!!” to which I’d reply “Big ass mature bull!!”
Luckily having yet again somehow managed to not do anything dumb I was afforded another look at this bull as he fed into a clearing 90 degrees to my right. I made the first move I had made in 10 or 15 minutes by checking the elk surrounding me and then quickly spinning my trekking poles and gun to my right 90. The bowl was down in some big timber but I could now look at him. As I mentioned he did not have any outstanding points, but, he did not have any that appeared short. I remember, and this is a conversation that goes on in only a few seconds, thinking about the collapsed tent the fact that I was now homeless, the amount of snow on the ground, and the fact that this bull to fit exactly what I had been telling everybody I would be looking for on this hunt but more importantly what I wanted from this hunt…a big ass mature bull. So I took one last look at his front times and said to myself, “I think those are almost out to his nose” and I decided to shoot.
I had practiced out to 600 yards regularly and received help from many people on my lack of shooting skills. However this shot was more in the 80 to 90 yard range, so I felt confident I could make it. The bull was feeding broadside and then away from me, then broadside, then away. I remember switching the safety off, on, off, on, off. He eventually went broadside with no obstructions and held still.
When I squeezed the shot off everything stopped. There was no sound and no movement, especially from the bull. I chambered another round and again focused behind the shoulder, this time a little higher, when the second shot broke the big bull hit the snow and everything remained dead still and silent.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done until I went over to look at the bull. He was massive, a big ass mature bull. We spent the next two days together. I quartered him and caped him and took a quarter back to the tent where Bill was waiting. I told him “We did it!!” I showed him a few pictures and told the story. I was dead tired and we ate and spoke of elk and family and life just as we had the evening before and went to bed early.
Before bed I had inReach’d my buddy who I’d earlier neglected to go pick up and made a plan to pick him up as far up the mountain as he could go at 7am so at least he could get in on the quarter packin. However, it rained cats and dogs that night on top of the snow, more than an inch. The next morning I fired up my rig and promptly slid off the road 100 feet from camp and had to dig myself out. Again, I inReach’d him and said it was a no-go. I packed elk back and forth in the snow all day and wore myself quite a little trail. With the rain and snow it was a mess with slush and puddles. It rained all morning but eventually cleared and I was now just wearing a T-shirt and using a pack frame. I kept getting heavier and heavier on my trips and I was telling Bill that I didn’t know whether I could do it in one more trip. I didn’t notice this at the time but looking back when I came in with my third load that day something was different about him.
Bill was wandering around camp and doing this or that and lacing up his boots and doing various things. But when I went to head off for another trip Bill said, “I guess I’d better go with you and carry those backstraps” Bill had earlier told me that he was due to get a hip replaced as soon as hunting season was over and that his knees were shot. However this 60 something warrior had likely been planning for a while to help out the homeless guy who’d taken residence in his tent. This made all the difference as Bill and I headed out. I took the cape and head and he took the backstrap and tenderloin bag and we got it done. I spent my third night with Bill and the next morning we both loaded up and headed home, him for a day, me for good. I cannot express how appreciative I am for all of his hospitality. In fact, when I was initially thanking him, fifty times, for inviting me into his tent other than “Giving me someone to gab at” he also said “Well isn’t that what a guy should do?”. What an awesome dude!! Dave met me to take down his wall tent or what was left of it and I told him I’d do whatever needed to be done to fix it.
I am thankful for so many people that helped me on this hunt and the overall experience.
Bill for being a life saver and great guy, my buddy and his son who helped me set cameras, Dave who loaned me a wall tent so I could destroy it and helped me set it up and take it down and cooked me a steak, hunt-WA folks with whom I exchanged PMs with and spoke to on the phone and gave me encouragement before the hunt, everyone who offered to pack out quarters even though I was snowed in, David that fixed my scope and coached my shooting, fellow tag holders who we’re all positive and we encouraged each other to blast a big one, everybody on the mountain who was just there to help their fellow man, friends who replied to my stupid elk hunting texts for 4 months (even though one of them loathes elk), my wife for everything, former tag holders, fish biologists (that help out way more than wildlife biologists), John the fearless deer hunter/elk scouter. I was basically just the “trigger man” for this hunt, the real credit goes to everybody else. I apologize to the bull because looking back I failed to get any pictures that showed his face so I look like a straight horn hunter…which is not the case.
Post by: Boss .300 winmag on November 03, 2019, 10:15:30 AM
Post by: huntnfmly on November 03, 2019, 10:20:15 AM
Post by: 270Flat on November 03, 2019, 10:47:11 AM
Post by: wsucowboy on November 03, 2019, 10:49:35 AM
Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
Post by: trophyhunt on November 03, 2019, 10:50:31 AM
Post by: hunting4sanity on November 03, 2019, 10:56:16 AM
Post by: ghosthunter on November 03, 2019, 11:26:30 AM
Post by: TVHunts on November 03, 2019, 11:30:38 AM
Post by: cbond3318 on November 03, 2019, 11:32:52 AM
Post by: elkrack on November 03, 2019, 11:35:42 AM
Post by: The scout on November 03, 2019, 11:36:46 AM
Post by: CackleBird98 on November 03, 2019, 11:38:04 AM
Post by: CaNINE on November 03, 2019, 11:51:04 AM
Post by: Buckhunter24 on November 03, 2019, 11:55:28 AM
Post by: blackveltbowhunter on November 03, 2019, 12:12:34 PM
Post by: Pinetar on November 03, 2019, 12:30:38 PM
Post by: ridgefire on November 03, 2019, 12:49:26 PM
Post by: X-Force on November 03, 2019, 12:59:33 PM
You definitely knocked it out of the park for a hunting experience.
Post by: Hoythunter on November 03, 2019, 01:29:03 PM
Post by: branches on November 03, 2019, 02:09:57 PM
Post by: 92xj on November 03, 2019, 02:26:50 PM
Post by: Widgeondeke on November 03, 2019, 03:39:40 PM
Congrats on the successful hunt :tup:
Post by: idaho guy on November 03, 2019, 04:12:02 PM
Post by: Dan-o on November 03, 2019, 04:16:09 PM
Fantastic bull, by the way.
:tup: :tup: :tup:
Post by: 10mmg on November 03, 2019, 05:27:00 PM
Post by: MtnMuley on November 03, 2019, 05:37:50 PM
Post by: TheStovePipeKid on November 03, 2019, 05:50:52 PM
Post by: huntnphool on November 03, 2019, 05:51:14 PM
Post by: Sutherland on November 03, 2019, 06:50:10 PM
Post by: SuperDave on November 03, 2019, 07:19:37 PM
Post by: Brushcrawler on November 03, 2019, 07:41:38 PM
Post by: SWHUNTER on November 03, 2019, 07:44:43 PM
Post by: hard hunter on November 03, 2019, 08:08:27 PM
Post by: Gentrys on November 03, 2019, 09:18:56 PM
Post by: HUNTINCOUPLE on November 04, 2019, 07:48:22 AM
Post by: HikerHunter on November 04, 2019, 08:41:17 AM
Post by: WAcoueshunter on November 04, 2019, 08:43:43 AM
Post by: 2MANY on November 04, 2019, 10:16:27 AM
Thanks for sharing.
Now get us some fish coming please. :)
Post by: sjhgraysage on November 04, 2019, 12:45:42 PM
Post by: DOUBLELUNG on November 04, 2019, 01:00:37 PM
Post by: fishngamereaper on November 04, 2019, 01:05:02 PM
Post by: archerykraze on November 04, 2019, 04:51:38 PM
Post by: mikelonsford on November 04, 2019, 05:21:14 PM
Mike
Post by: Birdguy on November 04, 2019, 08:05:48 PM
Congrats to you, and so great you could meet some genuine good people along the way :tup:
Post by: Sawtooth on November 05, 2019, 10:35:17 AM
Post by: Machias on November 05, 2019, 01:01:29 PM
Post by: Igottanewknee on November 05, 2019, 10:40:15 PM
Post by: csaaphill on November 05, 2019, 11:32:51 PM
Post by: huntnnw on November 06, 2019, 12:59:37 AM
Post by: Axle on November 07, 2019, 06:16:01 AM
Post by: Johnny Doe on November 12, 2019, 11:34:09 AM
Glad I didn't have to whoop your butt over that one!
Congrats on a GIANT my friend! Well earned!!!
Post by: Mr Mykiss on November 13, 2019, 08:04:04 PM
What about a thank you to the guy who said, "you better shoot a giant or eat your tag!" :chuckle: :chuckle:Remember that time I texted you when I thought you’d be disappointed in my 320 bull...? Turns out I’m not that good at scoring stuffs...
Glad I didn't have to whoop your butt over that one!
Congrats on a GIANT my friend! Well earned!!!
Post by: Ironhead on November 13, 2019, 08:51:25 PM
Post by: Karl Blanchard on November 13, 2019, 08:58:45 PM
Post by: Johnny Doe on November 18, 2019, 02:39:04 PM
Couldn't stay off the trigger for a bigger one :dunno:
:chuckle: :chuckle:
Post by: Moose Master on November 18, 2019, 08:28:32 PM
Post by: Jgill19 on November 23, 2019, 09:24:53 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 23, 2019, 09:46:34 PM
Post by: Alex4200 on November 24, 2019, 05:05:03 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 24, 2019, 07:45:46 PM
What about a thank you to the guy who said, "you better shoot a giant or eat your tag!" :chuckle: :chuckle:Remember that time I texted you when I thought you’d be disappointed in my 320 bull...? Turns out I’m not that good at scoring stuffs...
Glad I didn't have to whoop your butt over that one!
Congrats on a GIANT my friend! Well earned!!!
Ok, unless I missed it... has anyone actually put a tape on that bull? Looks bigger than 320" to me...
Post by: rosscrazyelk on November 25, 2019, 04:55:53 PM