cool 6 x club

buckmark · Oct 30, 2011

Hey guys long time reader but first time poster. I thought you all might be interested in this story. Because of my work schedule this fall I haven't been able to hunt at all so I usually get on MM and live vicarously through the stories you guys post. Anyway my cousin had a controlled elk tag for a unit in Idaho, all fall he has been telling me how much time he has spent scouting this unit, he would come back and tell me how he has seen several Elk, and there were two that he would be happy with, they were in the same herd! Choice #1 was a large 6x7, he told me he felt like he was a 350+ bull, he showed me a couple of pics he took through a spotting scope with a cell phone so it was hard to tell, but he did have all the makings of a great bull, I never dare say how big until the tape is on the bull but he was big, he named him godzilla. Choice #2 was a unique bull, he was perfect 6 point on his right side and a club on his left, he saw him several times during the Rut and he would never bugle just chuckle, so he was coined the name chuckles. So opening day of his hunt came and he hadn't seen either bull for over a week, he was getting nervous they had moved out or the Archers lucked out. Opening morning he was able to locat Godzilla for about 2 minutes but was never able to be in position to get a shot off before he was gone for good. He never saw him again. My cousin was with several of my relitives they had 6 tags to fill!! After hunting for 4 straight days and filling 3 tags most everyone had to be back for work. On the last day of the hunt around 2 pm I was sitting at my desk at work and I got a call, "hey man can you sneek away from work and go hunting with me?" I hadn't been out once all year so it didn't take long for me to make that decision and it was about the only day I could do it, so I told him I would meet him in about 20 minutes and we would give it one last try. Little did I know what we would get into, he hadn't been looking for about 3 days so we were just hoping to luck out. On the drive up he told me we were after chuckles, he said i'm pretty sure he is still alive and I have a feeling he is back in his old stomping grounds. We were sitting on a ridge glassing the canyon that he last saw the Elk in about a 5 days prior, sure enough we started seeing cows, they were casually coming out to feed. We waited patiently in hopes that a bull was with them, after watching them feed for about 30 minutes I finaly got a glimpse of an Elk in the tree's, he was slowly feeding towards the cows, I told my cousin I found your bull, he finally pulled his head up so I could get a good look at him he was hard to see in the trees but what I did see I could tell he was a good bull, I told him he was a good bull and not to screw this up, as he was trying to get set up and guess about where he would appear in the clearing he asked me what he looked like, I said all I saw was his right side and he was a nice 6 point, he asked if I saw his left side, I said no, he said that's because he doesnt have one it's chuckles! We had him ranged at just under 600 yard, I would never dare shoot that far because I dont do a lot of long range shooting, but my cousin does a ton of it and has a long range gun set up for this very moment. Finally chuckles came out in the clearing and spent some time beating on lonley pine tree broaside, he slowly squeezed off a shot and Elk scattered!! Chuckles went down hill but din't seem hit, I watched him head into some thick trees and didn't see any blood on him and he didn't seem hit at all no limp or anything, lucky for us he wasn't to spooked! About 15 minutes later the cows feed back into another clearing, then it took another 30 minutes for chuckles to show himself, this time at 460 yards, he wasn't hit and was causually feeding towards the cows, about 50 yards below them, as we were preparing for a shot he decided he was tired and layed down broad side, after about a 15 minute debate on weather to shoot him in his bed or not (all we could see was his head, neck, and his whole back) just didn't have clear shot at the vitals although there wasn't anything blocking his vitals but a couple of aspen leaves, we knew it would be dark soon and so after some minor ranging and calculating, he sqeezed off a shot, chuckles head dropped and legs went into the air he was done!!! After a brief celebration my cousin was in disbelief, he said chuckles is dead unreal!!! It was really cool to see hard work pay off he spent countless hours watching these two bulls and was able to put the hurt on one. thanks for letting me tag along and Congrats!!! here are some pics he is a reagular respectable 6 on one side and a huge club on his other its about the size of a mini basketball pretty cool to see in person.