Toutle Bull Success--Updated Story and Pics

[SilkWWU]

First and Foremost I want to say THANK YOU to all those people on here who gave me tips and directions on your hunts and successes.  It got me pretty motivated and excited for this hunt.  I did get to see some big bulls but never really had an opportunity on getting them.  Saw over 200 elk in total throughout the week and got to enjoy some good glassing and some longer shots, mine was the shortest shot out of our group at 284 yards with the longest at 500.  The stories of the other guys aren't that interesting except the in your face fun of one of our members trailing his elk through the reprod and walking right on top of him and putting a kill shot in at 20 yards when he tried to stand up.  We had 5 tags in our group, went 4/5 killed three spikes and a four point...if my dad could have stayed an extra day or two he would have tagged out as well.

So my goal going into this hunt was to hold out through Wednesday for a 5 point or better, then take the first bull I saw after that.  We had some really close calls throughout the week, but nothing that was huge, and a LOT of cows and blown hunts by ourselves and others.  On Tuesday night, one of the guys in our group (never shot an animal in his life) got the shakes and missed a very very makeable shot that made the tree behind the elk very unhappy, so I decided to go back with him the next night and see if we could get another shot at that bull.  After glassing for about an hour, we had about an hour left of light and he made an offer to push through the reprod and see if he could push anything out to me.  I set up on the landing above a clearcut with a perfect rest to where I could see three different clear cuts, and was able to glass some reprod across the way.  About twenty minutes in, I see some movement through the timber at the bottom on the cut across the way, I put the glasses on him and saw he was a nice little spike.  I thought about it as I watched him and realized that with twenty minutes left on my personal "goal deadline" that I would take the shot.  This being my first bull I was a little nervous but was definitely not shaking as I put my gun up on my rest and took aim.  I guessed he was at 325 yards as I didn't have a range finder with me.  (Turned out I was a little wrong when we ranged in the following day it was 284 yards) and touched off.  The Bull didn't move and looked around.  I touched off again and he turned and walked 10 yards to the right.  This is when i almost smacked myself in the head and realized I didn't account for the decline into the bottom of the cut.  My third shot rang true and he buckled and stood up and started to trot off.  I had a bad experience in my past with a monster mule deer and have the mentality to shoot until he's down so I hit him again and he went down.  He was trying to get back up and so I shot again before I calmed myself down and realized he was in his death throes and I needed to get over there and put a kill shot in him so he wouldn't suffer.  FIRST ELK DOWN!  But I wish the story ended there.

So at this point I still down see my buddy who was in the reprod so I run back down the road about a 100 yards to where I had parked my truck and was driving back around to the other side to put the kill shot in (I couldn't cross there as there was a sizable creek) I was looking for my buddy and did not see  the giant pothole in the middle of the road.  My truck hit it and died right there...Unbelievable.  At this point it's about 20-30 minutes left of light, I have a bull down, my buddy is in the reprod and we are 10 miles from camp.  *censored*.  Well first thing is first and I need to get over there and get a kill shot in and mark this animal so we can round up the camp crew and pack him out.  Lucky for me some guys in a Toyota show up and help us out.  Needless to say we didn't get back to camp until 9pm that night.  Crazy hunt.  First picture is at the kill site, and the other picture was taken on Friday, the last spike was killed Saturday afternoon so it wasn't on the jeep (which is our camp classic picture).

I will also note, the Toutle is a really fun unit, and there are some nice bulls in there, I just never was able to get on them, though I did see some nice bulls come out, nothing that was out of this world.  Now that I have the first bull monkey off my back, I can start to focus on getting a bigger bull every time I go out.  Shouldn't be too hard

[Jason]

Congrats!!

[Huntbear]

The Toutle is any bull??  Thought it was a branch antlered unit only?  Not accusing, just asking.

[grousetracker]

toutle is any bull , i heard that there was a lot of non hunters cruising the roads screwing up the hunts for others.

[SilkWWU]

Yup, Toutle is Any Bull, and the Coweeman and Lewis are branch antlered.  It says on the borders very clearly *NOW ENTERING BRANCH ANTLERED UNIT*  Though it wasn't that people were screwing up the hunt, it was that they didn't know the Toutle was Permit Only...   Regardless of the signs everywhere...

[hunterofelk]

Hard to fathom how some people don't read the regs. or miss all the signs!  Sounds like you made out good, big bulls eat tough and take up a lot of room on the wall.

[Bob33]

Too bad you couldn't reach an enforcement officers for the poachers.  Turn them in and you could possibly get 10 bonus points.  You might get a Toutle tag two years in a row that way.

"those people who hunt Toutle without tags are jack-offs."  Jack-offs AND also poachers.

[SilkWWU]

Too bad you couldn't reach an enforcement officers for the poachers.  Turn them in and you could possibly get 10 bonus points.  You might get a Toutle tag two years in a row that way.

"those people who hunt Toutle without tags are jack-offs."  Jack-offs AND also poachers.

Well I couldn't prove they did anything wrong, they had no elk in their car and I didn't see them fire any shots...Also...shockingly, I didn't see a warden up there?

[Bob33]

You're right: they could say there were hunting bear I suppose.  So they're still jack-offs, just not poachers.

Alas, the enforcement officers are spread too thin.

[rjm5]

Congrats Trav, glad you guys had a good hunt.

[SilkWWU]

Congrats Trav, glad you guys had a good hunt.

Thanks man, I wish you were closer, would have been sweet to have your expertise along.

[PacificNWhunter]

Congrats, way to get it done.

[carpsniperg2]

congrats thats great

[fc2038]

Congrats silk!  Glad you had fun. It IS really a fun hunt!

[THINK_N_ELK]

toutle is any bull , i heard that there was a lot of non hunters cruising the roads screwing up the hunts for others.

That's what happens when everyone wants the gates opened up.  Their is no one around to help prevent this.