D
drcalderwood
Guest
I posted last week some photos of my bull.
http://www.monstermuleys.info/cgi-b...=show_thread&om=15395&forum=DCForumID12&omm=0
Now that my cousin has put together the video of our hunt, I figured I would tell the story a bit. Enjoy the video. I know I like it!
I had scouted out this area a ton over the summer in preparation for my hunt. I probably went scouting about 10 separate trips up there. The week before Labor Day I went up with my 7 year old son and we were woken up at 3:00 in the morning to a bull elk screaming and hollering. Turns out, I ended up shooting this bull (same canyon where we heard him, and we recognized his bugle. He had a very distinct bugle. High pitched). It made it pretty special for my son to look back and think that we heard him that night sleeping under the stars.
The buckets of rain that had fallen on this area made for a challenging and uncomfortable hunt. I don't think I ever remember roads being muddier or more slick than they were. If you didn't have chains, you weren't getting anywhere. The underbrush was just drenched with water and brushing up against it guaranteed that you would get soaked. I've never seen the forest around here that green in September. It felt more like I was in the Olympic mountains of western Washington. Hiking around those steep, 45% grade slopes felt more like a slip 'n slide. But, knowing that I was after a trophy bull made it all worth it.
Anyway, opening morning my cousin and I started out on the ridge and heard some bugling in the canyon below us that we had decided to hunt. We tried some calls, and he would answer back. He had a harem of cows, so he didn't want to leave them, but would call back every time. Over the course of a few hours we would cow call, locate him, and sneak in on him closing the distance each time. He was slowly feeding and pushing his harem to some deep timber to bed down for the day. We put the wind to our advantage and were able to position ourselves across the canyon from where we could hear him. At about 11:30 he bedded down with his cows and went silent. To this point we hadn't seem him yet, but knew he was the herd bull because we had seen about 5 satellite bulls hanging around the outskirts.
We decided to wait him out, knowing that he was there. At about 2:00 he started to talk again. Now there was a second bull bugling back. The second bull wouldn't respond to cow calls, just bugles (because he wasn't the herd bull), but the big bull we were after was still responding to us. We thought the other bull might be bigger because he had such a deep, throaty bugle. I know, you can't judge the size of a bull by the bugle, but we still wondered. We could only catch occasional glimpses of the second bull, but we knew he was big. We held out though in hopes of the herd bull.
At about 4:00 his cows started to trickle out of the pines and down into some aspens where we could catch glimpses of them. He began to work them back into the trees and he finally stepped out into the opening at about 630 yards away. We were so excited to see a gorgeous, big bull like that. I didn't feel comfortable shooting at that distance so we waited as he slowly made his way down the hill. That was the longest 30 minutes for me. I was panicking that he might duck back into the pines and out of view, but fortunately for us he continued on down towards an opening that was just over 400 yards away. We got a kick out of watching him rake the trees, bugle, and push his cows back into the trees.
After about 30 minutes, once he finally arrived at that spot at 400 yards, I pulled the trigger. I shoot a .300 ultra mag, 180 grain bullet. I can't believe that I didn't stop him in his tracks. You'll see from the video that I hit him 3 times, all good hits, but that beast was still able to get up and walk. Unbelievable how tough those guys are.
I measured him myself and got a score of 328. I'm sure it's wrong, but he is at the taxidermist right now and I should have a better idea of the accurate score in a few weeks. Either way, I'm super pumped to get him. I love his width and his cool front tines how the turn up at a 90 degree angle. I went into my hunt hoping for a 340-360 bull, but said I would be ecstatic with anything over 320. He's not the biggest bull on the Wasatch, but I am happy. Above all else, I loved being able to actually hunt and not have to worry about throngs of other hunters pushing the game around. We were able to implement strategy and call back and forth with that bull. That to me was the most fun. My cousin and I had an awesome time, and I owe him big time for helping me to pack it out and for filming it. He's a stud.
We also were able to recover one of my bullets. It had entered behind the shoulder, passed through all the vitals and stopped right in the hide on the opposite side.
For those of you that are familiar with the ballistics of a .300 ultra mag, you can appreciate the amount of energy this bullet displaced in that elk. The fact that we were able to recover it in the hide is impressive.
We ended up not even being able to use the horses we brought. We shot him down in an area that was too steep and densely forested for the horses to access him. The ground was so muddy and slippery on that steep slope that they couldn't get a firm footing while descending. They started to freak out and my cousin and I were in a rodeo for a few minutes trying to get them to calm down. So we tied them up at the top of the ridge and did it the old fashioned way. We packed it out ourselves. Good thing we are young and in shape.
http://www.monstermuleys.info/cgi-b...=show_thread&om=15395&forum=DCForumID12&omm=0
Now that my cousin has put together the video of our hunt, I figured I would tell the story a bit. Enjoy the video. I know I like it!
I had scouted out this area a ton over the summer in preparation for my hunt. I probably went scouting about 10 separate trips up there. The week before Labor Day I went up with my 7 year old son and we were woken up at 3:00 in the morning to a bull elk screaming and hollering. Turns out, I ended up shooting this bull (same canyon where we heard him, and we recognized his bugle. He had a very distinct bugle. High pitched). It made it pretty special for my son to look back and think that we heard him that night sleeping under the stars.
The buckets of rain that had fallen on this area made for a challenging and uncomfortable hunt. I don't think I ever remember roads being muddier or more slick than they were. If you didn't have chains, you weren't getting anywhere. The underbrush was just drenched with water and brushing up against it guaranteed that you would get soaked. I've never seen the forest around here that green in September. It felt more like I was in the Olympic mountains of western Washington. Hiking around those steep, 45% grade slopes felt more like a slip 'n slide. But, knowing that I was after a trophy bull made it all worth it.
Anyway, opening morning my cousin and I started out on the ridge and heard some bugling in the canyon below us that we had decided to hunt. We tried some calls, and he would answer back. He had a harem of cows, so he didn't want to leave them, but would call back every time. Over the course of a few hours we would cow call, locate him, and sneak in on him closing the distance each time. He was slowly feeding and pushing his harem to some deep timber to bed down for the day. We put the wind to our advantage and were able to position ourselves across the canyon from where we could hear him. At about 11:30 he bedded down with his cows and went silent. To this point we hadn't seem him yet, but knew he was the herd bull because we had seen about 5 satellite bulls hanging around the outskirts.
We decided to wait him out, knowing that he was there. At about 2:00 he started to talk again. Now there was a second bull bugling back. The second bull wouldn't respond to cow calls, just bugles (because he wasn't the herd bull), but the big bull we were after was still responding to us. We thought the other bull might be bigger because he had such a deep, throaty bugle. I know, you can't judge the size of a bull by the bugle, but we still wondered. We could only catch occasional glimpses of the second bull, but we knew he was big. We held out though in hopes of the herd bull.
At about 4:00 his cows started to trickle out of the pines and down into some aspens where we could catch glimpses of them. He began to work them back into the trees and he finally stepped out into the opening at about 630 yards away. We were so excited to see a gorgeous, big bull like that. I didn't feel comfortable shooting at that distance so we waited as he slowly made his way down the hill. That was the longest 30 minutes for me. I was panicking that he might duck back into the pines and out of view, but fortunately for us he continued on down towards an opening that was just over 400 yards away. We got a kick out of watching him rake the trees, bugle, and push his cows back into the trees.
After about 30 minutes, once he finally arrived at that spot at 400 yards, I pulled the trigger. I shoot a .300 ultra mag, 180 grain bullet. I can't believe that I didn't stop him in his tracks. You'll see from the video that I hit him 3 times, all good hits, but that beast was still able to get up and walk. Unbelievable how tough those guys are.
I measured him myself and got a score of 328. I'm sure it's wrong, but he is at the taxidermist right now and I should have a better idea of the accurate score in a few weeks. Either way, I'm super pumped to get him. I love his width and his cool front tines how the turn up at a 90 degree angle. I went into my hunt hoping for a 340-360 bull, but said I would be ecstatic with anything over 320. He's not the biggest bull on the Wasatch, but I am happy. Above all else, I loved being able to actually hunt and not have to worry about throngs of other hunters pushing the game around. We were able to implement strategy and call back and forth with that bull. That to me was the most fun. My cousin and I had an awesome time, and I owe him big time for helping me to pack it out and for filming it. He's a stud.
We also were able to recover one of my bullets. It had entered behind the shoulder, passed through all the vitals and stopped right in the hide on the opposite side.
For those of you that are familiar with the ballistics of a .300 ultra mag, you can appreciate the amount of energy this bullet displaced in that elk. The fact that we were able to recover it in the hide is impressive.
We ended up not even being able to use the horses we brought. We shot him down in an area that was too steep and densely forested for the horses to access him. The ground was so muddy and slippery on that steep slope that they couldn't get a firm footing while descending. They started to freak out and my cousin and I were in a rodeo for a few minutes trying to get them to calm down. So we tied them up at the top of the ridge and did it the old fashioned way. We packed it out ourselves. Good thing we are young and in shape.
