Hunna_wunna
Member
- Messages
- 19
Let me start out by saying 2023 has not been my year. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s fair to say that this year hasn’t been easy and there has been some major setbacks and as October was rolling around, it wasn’t looking to get better anytime soon. September 26th came and I was headed home from work, on my way to pick up my daughter from daycare when I got a call from the DWR office. My assumption was they were calling to collect my harvest data for the 2023 archery deer season, I had been lucky enough to take a nice 4 point buck on a general season unit and would have gladly given them my harvest survey. But this call was different… the lady on the other end of the line asked if I would be interested in a reallocated mid season elk permit that had just been returned. I hadn’t rifle hunted in over 12 years since I had switched to archery while I was still in high school and there was only 12 days before the hunt, but being that I only had 2 points and this year had been headed in the direction it had been, I figured this was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’d be a fool to turn it down. I didn’t have much time to scout, really, I had no time. I had an idea of where some decent bulls were hanging out but hadn’t been on the mountain since I had killed my archery buck a few weeks prior. The Thursday before the hunt I was able to get on the mountain and start laying eyes on some potential bulls. Disappointment started to set in as turning up anything 320” or bigger was seeming to be a lot more difficult that anticipated. Friday came, the day before the opener, and I wasn’t having much better luck. We had set our sights on a 6 point that had weak g5s, and didn’t have much mass, but we figured may push the 330” mark. The morning of the opener we spent our time on a ridge line glassing the area this bull had been running, when we got eyes on him a little closer than the day prior I just couldn’t justify pulling the trigger this early into the hunt… we knew that despite what little we had seen, there had to be some better bulls around. We spent the rest of the day and night hiking into some new country, exploring, glassing, and calling but with little luck. The next morning, we repeated this process. Hike, call, glass, repeat. We weren’t getting many results and reality began to set in… maybe with the multitude of spike hunters, the tail end of the rut, and a hard winter, we just weren’t going to turn up anything worth getting too excited over. After all, I only had 2 points and getting to shoot a 330” bull wouldn’t be the worst story to tell people. Then it happened. We were glassing a new small area around 5 pm when 6 cows worked out of the tree line, I could see there was a bull tucked back in the trees but we couldn’t tell how big he was. I got set up on the cows, 676 yards. I felt good about the shot and was confident in my abilities as well as the guns capabilities. He stepped out and it didn’t take us long to decide that this was a great bull. We watched him walk his cows for 2-3 minutes before I had a good shot, 664 yards now. I squeezed the trigger, and wouldn’t you know it, a miss. The bull was unfazed, so I gathered myself, lined up for another shot and… miss. At this point I’m feeling far less confident than I was 5 minutes ago. The bull still unfazed, is just watching his cows at this point. I line up for a third time, pull the trigger and the bull immediately collapses right where he was standing. A perfect shot had just dropped this bull, all of the hiking, the glassing, the conversations and debates were all over now. I had killed a great bull, on a reallocated tag, with 12 days of prep with 2 points! We celebrated shortly, called for back up and immediately got to the bull for pictures. I couldn’t ask for a better group of friends and hunting partners to make this happen. He ended up going 349” with his broken g3, unbroken and symmetrical go around 357”.
