One More Bull: Cherishing Another Elk Season

Prologue

Health issues have plagued me for years. Car wrecks when I was young and rheumatoid arthritis contributed the most. Countless surgeries have also led to steady decline. The seven spine surgeries were the worst. There are days I’m unable to get out of bed and go hunting. My buddies understand, but the guilt I feel when I have to back out is overwhelming. I hate letting friends down. Severe back pain makes hiking difficult at times, and all my buddies have seen me go down from a simple step in a low spot or anything that jolts my spine. Each time, I thrash around until I can get back on my feet. Working on animals, getting them ready to pack out, is also incredibly difficult.

All these issues came to a head on a backpack deer hunt in Nevada with my buddy, Jason Stafford. I was stuck in camp a few mornings with back pain, and when Jason shot a big muley and we packed it out, I was done. It was an emotional ride home, thinking about all the years and expense, building points for hunts across western states and knowing I was unable to do those physical hunts solo anymore. Financially, it is hard to justify the expense of tags and travel when there’s the possibility of spending half my time in a tent.

So, I’ve scaled back. I rarely hunt out of state now. When I do, it’s with a buddy who knows there will be times I’m unable to hunt and who is willing to do more than his share when it comes to hard work. I’m lucky to have those friends. Mostly, I concentrate efforts on my home state of Wyoming, where I can hunt when I’m able and don’t stress about the times I can’t. My passion is bowhunting elk, and for several years now, my mantra has been, just one more bull.

2022

I stretched out, exhausted, rain drops pelting my face. The hood of my blood-soaked rain gear prevented me from hearing or seeing well. I needed to be alert for grizzlies, but I was in too much pain and too tired to even care. My bull lay only five yards away and my pistol was under my rain gear, awkward to access. I had to get my act together.

I had hiked solo into this grizzly-infested, blowdown-filled hellhole before daylight and found some vocal bulls. This drainage was hard to access and required a three-mile hike and some serious vertical gain. I spent the morning playing cat and mouse with a big bull, but he escaped unscathed. Late in the morning, I did my best to relax, killing time until the elk got active again later on. I can never nap, so I just rested there staring upward at the clouds rolling in. It looked and smelled like rain coming.

Around 3 o’clock, the first bugle broke the silence. Same bull, same place I left him. After his next bugle, I hit him with some soft cow calls. It took awhile, but I had his attention and he was coming. Game on. I watched and had all the time in the world as he came the half mile. He stopped often and stared, but he kept coming. So did the rain. I had rain gear in my pack, but the bull was too close to risk retrieving it.

I had ranged landmarks all around me. He circled me but was close. The shot looked and felt great. He lunged and jumped over deadfalls and disappeared uphill into some young pines. The hill crowned and prevented me from seeing farther, so I settled in to wait. I sneaked over to my pack and quickly put rain gear on.

Evening shadows and the threat of more rain made me take up the trail sooner than I liked, but I found the bull quickly. He had died with his body remaining vertical, leaning against a large deadfall on a steep hillside. It would take a huge effort to break him down in that position. I got my tripod out and took a couple photos, but I needed to get to work. I’ve never had as much trouble. I could not move the carcass an inch with it pressed to that log. I skinned wherever I could and took meat off in chunks, not quarters.

That brings us back to the beginning. I willed myself to get up and keep working. I shuttled bags of meat away from the carcass, but it sure didn’t seem far enough. I used my Garmin InReach satellite communicator to send a text and GPS coordinates to my nephew, Sam, asking for help. He messaged back that he and his son, Westen, would head my way after work and would get to the parking area around 10 p.m. I said if my truck wasn’t there, I’d made it out and was going to camp so my wife, Carol, wouldn’t worry anymore. I loaded all I could carry and started the brutal, slippery hike out. My headlamp illuminated my truck long after dark. I dumped my pack in the bed and leaned on the tailgate, spent. Right then, I was sure my solo elk-hunting days were over. On the drive to camp, the rain quit. Before climbing into bed, stars were showing. I sent up a wish for just one more bull. I do it each year, but each bull comes harder.

The clear skies meant one less hardship for Sam and Westen. They were already saving my back, as well as the elk meat. Sam said they began hiking about 11 p.m., and they were back to the truck with heavy packs of meat and antlers around 3 a.m. Thankfully, no grizzlies were on the carcass yet. They got to town, put meat in our freezer and the rack in the backyard, then got home just in time to shower and go to school and work. I love those guys!

2023

Carol and I left camp for an evening scouting/hunting trip. We glassed several herds of elk, and I decided to focus my morning hunt the next day on one with the largest bull. A clear and calm morning greeted me. I heard a faint bugle from camp, but passed, wanting to lay eyes, and maybe hands, on the bull from the night before. Again I was hunting solo, but I had a list of friends to text when I needed help. I drove a few miles to where I’d need to hike. Pack on and bow in hand, I started my hike up the mountain. Some wolves howled and several bulls answered. Unbelievably, when I crept up to the first clearing, the bull I wanted was directly below me. The thermals were wrong. Hurriedly, I nocked an arrow and came to full draw. I guessed 50 yards and shot. I heard a loud crack and was convinced I’d just shouldered him. Damn! He crashed through trees and thundered off. I never heard him fall.

To give it some time, I hiked to a glassing knob and looked over the whole mountainside above and below me. Frost blanketed everything and while glassing bulls, I saw their steamy breath each time they bugled. Wolves still howled occasionally. The rising sun touched the far peaks and I felt so fortunate to be on the mountain another September. Please, just one more bull.

I hiked back and took up the trail. The bull’s path was easy, splayed hoof prints in the duff and overhanging tree limbs destroyed. I didn’t look for the arrow much, thinking I would find it whenever it dislodged from his shoulder. A hundred yards in, I found first blood. It was spotty at first and then became obvious. The bull climbed a small hill, stopping several times, evidenced by crimson puddles. My hopes morphed into confidence. From there the trail was all sidehill and finally led down into a thick bedding area. I knew this place well, and knew I’d find him there. I’d also found plenty of fresh bear scat. I loosened my pistol in its holster and quietly descended into the dense bedding area, littered with deadfalls. I paused at the bottom, listening. I heard the bull cough and, with binoculars, saw him still on his feet, but wobbly. The spot was choked with branches, and with no chance to snake an arrow to him, I backed out. He would be right there or nearby when I returned, hopefully with help.

Once back up on the ridge, I texted my friends Adam and Mary Miles. Mary responded right away, saying they’d meet me in camp in three hours. Once there, we ate a quick lunch and drove back up the mountain. We hiked in on the blood trail so they could analyze it, too. We eased into the bedding area, looking, listening and smelling for bears or the bull. The intensity was high, like every time we take up a trail in grizzly country. It was difficult to see even 20 yards. Where the bull had been standing there was blood on logs everywhere. He had fallen a few times. Thirty yards farther, Adam spotted an antler; a horizontal one. The bull had died right there. The arrow had entered through the rear of the shoulder blade and exited out the front of the other shoulder. I guessed I had only hit the near lung, thus the long blood trail. My emotions ran high as I put my hands on him. One more bull.

Epilogue

A few years back, Adam and Mary had to shoot a charging grizzly here, so that was on everyone’s mind as we started to work. Adam had also lost his first bull to a grizzly less than 400 yards from where we were. A sow and cubs came in on us as we were skinning it. So, as we started to work now, Mary held legs, bagged quarters and kept watch. Once we were done, we packed the first load 300 yards up the hill and stashed it in the shade. Back to the bull we went, and then we packed that load all the way out to the truck.

We returned the next morning. Adam and Mary still had elk tags to fill. We hunted briefly, trying for any cooperative bulls, but we didn’t find any. Before going for the rest of the meat, we carefully glassed where we’d left it yesterday. It was undisturbed. Mary and I each packed a quarter and Adam packed the head and antlers. Later that evening, when it was just Carol and I in camp, watching the sunset, I mentioned how difficult the pack out had been.

As the sun went down, I thought about my upcoming back surgery at the Mayo Clinic and about how I’d have to convince the doctors to shape me up so I could hunt again for just one more bull.

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