It’s been an incredible week that will be hard to beat! First, I wanna start by saying huge thanks to my wife and friend Austin, who immediately offered all their time, effort and resources for this hunt. Without both of them, it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun or successful. Secondly, I want to thank everyone who went out of their way to send me messages, DMs, PMs, texts and phone calls to tell me about bulls they had seen and give me the areas they were in. I was shocked at how many guys from not only here, but other forms of social media, were contacting me and trying to help any way they could. It was amazing and I truly appreciate it.
in 2011 I drew the same LE elk tag that I drew this year. I scouted a bunch for my hunt during the summer and found a lot of nice bulls but like elk do when they shed their velvet, they vanished. I didn’t know where they went to and had a hard time locating them again during the hunt. I killed a small 6 point on the last day of my hunt. although I cut a tag, it’s ate at me for 9 years on how it ended and I have wanted a do-over on that hunt, but knew it would be many years before that would be possible. In that time, I worked hard and understanding elk, the areas the summer, rut and winter in. I learned the unit well and figured out the better places elk like to be, away from most of the traffic. About 2017 I felt like I had the unit figured out. Then in 2018 it burned to the ground and i had to start over. Some things changed for the 2019 season because of it, but I adapted and found new places to hunt. Luck struck this year and I pulled a muzzy tag with only 3 points. When I drew, I felt very confident this time around.
I didn’t do much scouting this summer. Unlike my previous hunt in 2011, i understood most bulls I found in the summer would move before my hunt and all the info i learned would be useless. I did put up several trail cams in my “go-to” spots like I do every other year and checked them on occasion. I planned to scout hard the weekend before my hunt started. I had a few good bulls found right before the rifle hunt started, but knew the odds of them getting killed were very high, given their location and visibility. And as suspected, I was right.
The weekend before my hunt, I began my scouting, but not before I took a youth hunter out on the youth duck hunt and shot a quick limit of birds.
That night I headed to a spot that I’ve spend a lot of time in the last 5 or so years. If history repeats itself, there should be a good bull in there with some cows. My friend austin headed up higher to glass some other spots. That night I found the bull I ended up killing and 2 other decent bulls that I’d be happy with as well. All 3 I have trail cam pics of during the summer. We checked a few other places Sunday morning and decided to go give this bull one last look and make sure he’s still in the area and as big as I suspected. We found him again in the same place as the night before and both Austin and I agreed he was the best we had found and was worth trying to get in on in the morning.
we were up on the mountain early the next morning waiting for the sun to rise. Elk were screaming in all directions. My wife, who absolutely loves elk, has hunted them a bunch with me, but never in the rut. this morning was one I’m sure she will never forget. We made our way down to the ridge the bull was on the night before, and just before we got to where we could see, we heard him bugle. He was close! We circled around the ridge to get a better angle in to where he was and immediately got eyes on him. we closed to distance to what I felt comfortable shooting and set up for the shot. The next few minutes were pretty intense and exciting. Unbeknownst to me, my windage turret had some last minute fine tune adjustments by who we suspect was my 2 year old, the weekend before while he was in the back seat with my rifle after we got done shooting it. Once we figured out what the problem was, I hit the bull twice, dropping him in his tracks on the last shot. *Lesson to be learned here is: always double check your 0 on BOTH turrets every time you go to shoot.* usually I check them, but I got so caught up in the moment that I didn’t look. Won’t make that mistake again. As I walked up on my bull, I had a feeling that I’ve never had before. My wife said “you were like a little kid on Christmas looking at all the presents under the tree.”
He was everything we thought he was. Long beams, great mass, great tine length, wide. He had it all.
upon further inspection, we discovered that this bull had an antler tine from another elk, broke off and stuck in the side of his face, just below his ear. It was scarred and healed over, indicating that had been in him for at least a year.
the rest of the day consisted of getting everything packed out. It was quite the adventure. You always seem to forget how big these things are until you get another one on the ground, then you are quickly reminded of how much there really is to these animals. My brother came later that afternoon to help haul loads of meat out on his bike, back to the truck. It took us just a little over 12 hours from when he hit the dirt, to when we got back to the truck. When we got home we taped him out at 355. We figured he was a 350-360 bull. There was definitely no ground shrinkage when we got our hands on him. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share it with my wife and good friend.
The next day was spent at home trying to rest and recover from the day before, and get ready for the deer hunt that starts in the morning....