Hike and Hope: Searching for a Monster Bull Elk

A bull elk was screaming its head off barely 20 yards in front of me, but the junipers were too thick to see hide or hair. Ear-splitting bugles were punctuated by cracking brush and thudding hooves. My heart was thudding too. This was the thrill I live for each fall.

I held the Bear Alaskan XT compound bow in a white-knuckle grip. My Easton FMJ shaft was bouncing like a rubber ball atop the Trophy Ridge arrow rest.

Relax and calm down, I told myself.

Fat chance of that with a herd bull at point-blank range!

Seconds later, a cow elk scooted past, 15 yards to my left. Antlers flashed through a gap. The bull poked its nose out and bugled again. The rack rolled into view, and I relaxed just a bit. This was not an elk I wanted. The antlers were heavy, but all six tines were short. It was certainly a mature bull that would score more than 300 inches, but smaller than several I had already passed up.

The bull swaggered ahead and vanished in the undergrowth. Like a freight train moving away, the bugles got lower and fainter as he followed the cow.

Playing Favorites

I’m glad I don’t have to choose only one big-game species to bowhunt. But if I did, it would be elk. I love bowhunting every kind of North American big game, and I’ve been fortunate to bag all 29 species. But a bull elk combines every trait that could possibly appeal to a hunter. He’s big and beautiful. A mature male has magnificent antlers that commonly weigh more than 30 pounds. He is rambunctious and noisy during the rut, with bugles and grunts sending chills down your spine. He lives in breathtaking terrain, and his meat is some of the tastiest and healthiest on earth. On top of that, a wise, old bull is one of the most difficult creatures to bowhunt. Simply put, an elk is the complete package for serious bowhunters. In my mind, nothing else comes close.

Like most archery hunters, I was not picky when I started pursuing elk. My first was a small, 4x4, Montana raghorn, and I felt blessed to take it. As years passed, I raised my sights toward larger-antlered bulls. I also shot a few cow elk along the way, happy to fill the freezer with my favorite wild meat. Like my old friend, the late former Bowhunter Editor Dwight Schuh often said, any elk is a trophy elk!

However, also like Dwight, I value big elk antlers. Every set is a work of art, with no two exactly the same. An old cow elk can be tricky to bag with a bow, but so can a herd bull — and the bull carries awesome bone on its head!

I have one reason above all others to hike and hope for extra-large elk. It’s not to brag after success, and it’s not to hang another head on the wall. I like huge bulls because they are so darn difficult to locate and bag. That gives me more time in the woods before I fill my tag; more fun with my favorite animal before the hunting is over. Even when I do not score, I always have a great time.

Searching for Mr. Big

Last year, I finally drew a coveted Montana elk permit after six years of building non-resident bonus points. So, I cleared my schedule so I could hit the ground running. Montana’s six-week archery season begins the first Saturday in September. But I knew I would not have six weeks of prime elk hunting. Like most places, the elk rut in the Treasure State peaks in mid-September and peters out by early October. At best, I figured I’d have three weeks to locate and tag a dream bull.

My excitement over drawing the Montana tag was high for two reasons. First, I intimately knew the elk district I would be hunting. I had taken more than a dozen record-book bulls there over the past 20 years, but drawing a non-resident tag had become increasingly difficult. Like many parts of the West, my favored area was a checkerboard of public and private property, and I had permission to bowhunt ranchland bordering public sections. I have never paid for elk-hunting privileges in Montana, but I do have landowner friends who give me the green light to bowhunt.

Second, I was excited about an elk I had seen the year before. I was bowhunting Montana mule deer in 2023 when I spotted the largest bull elk of my life. The animal’s 6x6 antlers were too big to believe — a true “rump scratcher” with a rack I estimated would gross score more than 440 inches. My former Pope and Young world record typical American elk from the year 2000 grossed 432, and this bull looked bigger!

I watched that giant for more than 30 minutes and took a “fuzzy graph” with my smartphone from 300 yards, just to prove what I’d seen. Several elk-hunting friends were equally blown away by the size of that rack. The odds were against it, but I hoped I’d see the same bull in 2024.

I shot a nice archery elk in my home state of Wyoming in early September. That 6x6 fell in a difficult spot, and retrieval slowed my Montana plans. But I started bowhunting Big Sky Country on Sept. 11 and immediately began seeing sizable bulls. It seemed to be a good year for antler growth.

Over the next 10 days, I passed a dozen bulls inside 40 yards. The rut was cranking, and males were getting goofy. The landscape was littered with fresh antler rubs, tracks, droppings and wallows. Plus, the pungent odor of nearby elk permeated the air — pure perfume to any elk fanatic.

A massive but stubby-tined 8x8 nearly stepped on me one morning. As I watched him walk away, I wondered if I needed to have my head examined, as the bull would have scored more than 360 inches. But visions of last year’s monster kept dancing in my mind’s eye. I still had more than a week of prime rutting action and hoped 10 or 15 miles per day of hiking would show me an even better bull. That’s the risk/reward proposition of trophy hunting.

So Close…

On Sept. 22, it happened. I was easing up a draw, two miles from my pickup, when a cow elk appeared 300 yards away. Soon, two dozen cows and calves were feeding in a basin choked with grass. I crouched behind a bush. A bull was certainly nearby.

I nearly fainted when the herd master stepped out. This was the elk of my dreams, and very possibly the same one I had seen the year before. His back “whale tail” tines were more than two feet long. The fourth tines were easily 30 inches. The third tines, often the shortest on a rack, appeared to be even longer. The brow and second points were 20 inches or more. Evenly matched, 4-inch seventh points sprouted near the ends of impossibly long main beams. When the bull turned, I guessed his antlers were more than 50 inches wide.

I prefer not to call to really big bulls, especially when they are tending cows. If they don’t simply ignore your best bugles and grunts, they frequently move the other direction. Sure, monster bulls occasionally come to calls, but not very often. I’m happiest when my target elk never knows I’m there. I’d rather sneak upwind or crosswind, bide my time and hope to get close.

Half an hour later, I was in heavy timber, just 30 yards from the colossus. Cows and calves were fanned in a semi-circle in front of me. The wind was perfect. But try as I might, I could not find a clear shooting lane through the trees. The morning was warming, and the herd was drifting uphill to bed. I followed to the fence line of a ranch I did not have permission to hunt and watched the bull jump it. He turned broadside at 35 yards in the wide open, posed a few seconds, and trotted away. I never saw him again.

Many years ago, a cantankerous “traditional archer” took me to task in print for killing a moose with one shot from 38 yards. It was clearly nonsense to criticize such relatively close shooting, especially on a critter with a chest cavity two feet in diameter. Official Pope and Young statistics show roughly 40 percent of record-book elk and moose are shot beyond 30 yards, and many beyond 40 yards. Modern archers worth their salt with a compound bow should easily keep broadhead-tipped arrows inside a 6-inch circle at 40 yards. A mature bull elk’s vital heart/lung cavity measures about 16 inches across. So, if you know the distance by using a rangefinder or well-practiced eyeball estimation, a 35-yard shot should be a piece of cake.

My 70-pound Bear Alaskan compound shoots 488-grain arrows at 270 feet per second. From 20 yards, I can routinely hit a 1.5-inch bull’s-eye. On my 2024 Montana elk hunt, I was using 125-grain, 4-blade Magnus Stinger broadheads. These heads are shaving-sharp from the package. The result is a big and lethal hole. I knew the combo of flat trajectory, 80 foot-pounds of arrow energy and a deep-slicing broadhead spelled death to any broadside and stationary elk inside 50 yards. I was ready if I found a giant bull on the legal side of the fence!

Satisfying Second

Elk hunting was spotty the next six days. I saw a few bulls and passed up two medium-sized 7x7s at less than 30 yards. One was all by itself, feeding with no cows in the vicinity. One day, I did not hear or see any elk. The rut was winding down, and I wondered if I had waited too long.

Sept. 29 arrived with a cloudless and pale yellow dawn. The weather was in a warming pattern, with the previous day topping out at 87 degrees. That was not helpful for the bowhunting.

I eased along a hillside as vague shapes of trees and bushes popped into sharp, early-morning focus. The sun rose over ragged peaks, and I spied a waterhole I was planning to watch 200 yards ahead. With the heat and lackluster rut, I was hoping a bull might wander in for a drink.

A deep, two-note bugle split the air from a nearby ridge. I hustled ahead and hunkered behind a thick box elder. My rangefinding binocular said the water’s edge was 35 yards away.

Minutes later, a lone cow elk ambled out of the trees. She stopped, stared and slowly circled. Finally, the old biddy dropped her head to drink. Two minutes later, she was gone.

Ten minutes dragged by, and I was already sweating in my camo shirt; no more bugles, no more elk. The sun climbed and beat down, imbuing the air with serious heat. It promised to be another scorching day.

Without warning, a rock rolled to my left. Tan hair flickered through the trees, and then the glint of antlers. I crouched even lower and raised my 10X binocular. A large antler popped into view beyond the trunk of a pine.

The bull swaggered out and walked directly to the pond. Unlike the cow, he was on a mission. My heart was pounding as I glassed his perfect, 7x7 rack. All 14 points were impressive, and the second tines were amazingly long. The bull quartered sharply away and dropped his nose to drink. I drew in a flash. There were no second thoughts about this one!

The arrow smacked the bull’s flank and vanished toward the far shoulder. The bull wheeled and dove into a nearby draw with the loud clatter of hooves. I knew he was mine.

Soon, I was standing over the third-biggest elk I’ve ever taken. He had covered 225 yards in seconds and collapsed. The Magnus head was poking out the off shoulder, slicing liver and both lungs along the way.

Months later, the rack was officially scored at more than 403 gross inches and more than 386 net, and it received an award at the 2025 P&Y Club convention in Glendale, AZ. It wasn’t the mega monster I’d hoped for, but in this case, second best suits me just fine!

Chuck Adams is a longtime Bowhunter Contributor, 2008 Archery Hall of Fame inductee and one of the most prolific big-game bowhunters in history.

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