With 15 long years waited the draw results were soon to be posted. I was sitting at work and checking my account balance every spare moment I had. My bank opened at 0900, so at 0915 I checked again and noticed a deficit of 280!
The first call I made was to my Dad! He shared in my excitement and we later learned that he had drawn the tag as well. With much deliberation and research we decided that it would be smart to turn one of the tags back in, instead of trying to find two quality bulls in one hunt. Being the great dad that he is, he opted to turn his in. This would move him to 16 points for next year.
We made one three day trip scouting in late July. It was a twelve mile horse ride through some of the most remote and beautiful country that I have ever seen. The weather was hot, and we did not see any bulls. We did manage to find large groups of cows and calves. The next trip was planned for the last week in August. This trip was more eventful, and we were able to locate a handful of bulls, but not any that got me excited. Final preparations were made and plans adjusted. We arrived in the unit 4 days prior to the season opener. My dad, brother and I headed in, and were prepared to stay the entire hunt (13 days total including 4 days scouting). Because we planned on staying so long, we had a ton of stuff to pack. We had three horses, one to ride, and two to pack. That meant that my brother and I were walking the 12 miles into camp. Here is what I was packing on the hike in. This Full Curl pack is loaded down!
We wanted to scout a ?plan B? area, so we hiked approx. 5 miles in, and camped in a canyon that had peaked my interest. There was very little elk sign, and we only heard one wimpy sounding bugle in 12 hours. It was a very pretty canyon, but we pressed on to our ?plan A? area.
After camp was set up, we set out to check some of our favorite areas. It was like night and day compared to the last spot we camped. There were bulls bugling in every canyon we went to! We saw a lot of bulls over the next couple of days, but still no shooter.
Thursday evening prior to the hunt, it was like someone turned off a light switch. The bulls stopped bugling and rarely came out of the dark timber. Pretty discouraging that soon before the season opener. Friday afternoon the rest of my party arrived in camp, two of my great friends and my awesome wife!
The camp was now complete and we were ready to get down to business! We scouted that evening and saw bulls, most of which were in the 300 class range, here are a few of them.
Opening morning found me without a hitlist! I was kind of discouraged, because I wanted to have my bull found prior to the season opener. This country is beautiful and can be glassed for hours, which is what we did, because there was not one bugle to be heard.
After we regrouped opening afternoon we learned that B-dub had seen a bull he thought we should have a better look at, so that evening I went into the canyon to get a better look. I found him right off, in the bottom of a deep dark canyon. I saw that he had really large fronts, but a weak back end. This bull messed with my mind, because I knew that he was not as pretty as I wanted him to be, but those huge fronts were sucking me in. I decided to sleep on it. 0500 the next morning came around and we were off on the trail to the large fronts bull. There was one steep climb up to get atop the canyon where he lived. With my party in tow we were hiking up the steep face. I looked to my left and saw a lone cow on the close ridge line. I motioned for everyone to stop as I crept forward to look into the meadow below her. There I saw a bull. I raised my bino's and saw that he had big fronts and a nice back end. I thought that it was the big fronts bull that we were headed towards. I was impressed with how pretty he was, so I dropped the hammer at 196 yards! Everyone was shocked that I had shot, and they had not even seen the bull that I was shooting at.
As we approached the bull I quickly realized that he was not the Large Fronts bull, but it was a much prettier bull. He has a big back end and a sweet downturned eyegaurd. I couldn't be happier with this hunt or this bull.
A huge thank you everyone who helped by giving me advise, pointers, or information (you know who you are), and to the people who sacrificed their time away from family and work to help me on this once in a lifetime hunt! Thank you to my Dad, Mom and especially my wife. Without you this hunt would not have been possible!
}}-SLIVER-->
The first call I made was to my Dad! He shared in my excitement and we later learned that he had drawn the tag as well. With much deliberation and research we decided that it would be smart to turn one of the tags back in, instead of trying to find two quality bulls in one hunt. Being the great dad that he is, he opted to turn his in. This would move him to 16 points for next year.
We made one three day trip scouting in late July. It was a twelve mile horse ride through some of the most remote and beautiful country that I have ever seen. The weather was hot, and we did not see any bulls. We did manage to find large groups of cows and calves. The next trip was planned for the last week in August. This trip was more eventful, and we were able to locate a handful of bulls, but not any that got me excited. Final preparations were made and plans adjusted. We arrived in the unit 4 days prior to the season opener. My dad, brother and I headed in, and were prepared to stay the entire hunt (13 days total including 4 days scouting). Because we planned on staying so long, we had a ton of stuff to pack. We had three horses, one to ride, and two to pack. That meant that my brother and I were walking the 12 miles into camp. Here is what I was packing on the hike in. This Full Curl pack is loaded down!
We wanted to scout a ?plan B? area, so we hiked approx. 5 miles in, and camped in a canyon that had peaked my interest. There was very little elk sign, and we only heard one wimpy sounding bugle in 12 hours. It was a very pretty canyon, but we pressed on to our ?plan A? area.
After camp was set up, we set out to check some of our favorite areas. It was like night and day compared to the last spot we camped. There were bulls bugling in every canyon we went to! We saw a lot of bulls over the next couple of days, but still no shooter.
Thursday evening prior to the hunt, it was like someone turned off a light switch. The bulls stopped bugling and rarely came out of the dark timber. Pretty discouraging that soon before the season opener. Friday afternoon the rest of my party arrived in camp, two of my great friends and my awesome wife!
The camp was now complete and we were ready to get down to business! We scouted that evening and saw bulls, most of which were in the 300 class range, here are a few of them.
Opening morning found me without a hitlist! I was kind of discouraged, because I wanted to have my bull found prior to the season opener. This country is beautiful and can be glassed for hours, which is what we did, because there was not one bugle to be heard.
After we regrouped opening afternoon we learned that B-dub had seen a bull he thought we should have a better look at, so that evening I went into the canyon to get a better look. I found him right off, in the bottom of a deep dark canyon. I saw that he had really large fronts, but a weak back end. This bull messed with my mind, because I knew that he was not as pretty as I wanted him to be, but those huge fronts were sucking me in. I decided to sleep on it. 0500 the next morning came around and we were off on the trail to the large fronts bull. There was one steep climb up to get atop the canyon where he lived. With my party in tow we were hiking up the steep face. I looked to my left and saw a lone cow on the close ridge line. I motioned for everyone to stop as I crept forward to look into the meadow below her. There I saw a bull. I raised my bino's and saw that he had big fronts and a nice back end. I thought that it was the big fronts bull that we were headed towards. I was impressed with how pretty he was, so I dropped the hammer at 196 yards! Everyone was shocked that I had shot, and they had not even seen the bull that I was shooting at.
As we approached the bull I quickly realized that he was not the Large Fronts bull, but it was a much prettier bull. He has a big back end and a sweet downturned eyegaurd. I couldn't be happier with this hunt or this bull.
A huge thank you everyone who helped by giving me advise, pointers, or information (you know who you are), and to the people who sacrificed their time away from family and work to help me on this once in a lifetime hunt! Thank you to my Dad, Mom and especially my wife. Without you this hunt would not have been possible!
}}-SLIVER-->
