Somehow, I knew my first bull elk would be killed this way.
Sure, I could wax about how great skill as a hunter finally helped me bag a bull after hunting for a decade in Montana.
But truth be told, it was dumb luck.
Now I've always been a meat hunter. And when it comes to filling the freezer, there's no better prize than an elk — any elk. You just get so much of that high quality game meat that it's hard to pass up cow elk, so I've almost always shot the first legal wapiti I've crossed paths with. In my case, that's always been a cow, which is not to say that the four elk I've killed weren't because of hard work.
I've walked, literally, hundreds of miles in the mountains, climbing ridgelines and slinking through timber. I've trudged through waist deep snow, stayed out in bitter cold and reached the car many times well in the dark.
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And I've drug elk out, in quarters mind you, more than four miles, including last year's slog that had a decent uphill section.
Darn it, if anybody's earned a bull elk, it's me. But sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, as I found out a couple weeks ago.
With the temperatures more akin to mid-September than well into November, I had no expectations of running into a bull while getting out. I figured they were all holed up with the mountain goats at some crazy elevation to avoid hunters. And from what many hunters were saying, there simply weren't a whole lot of elk around, although they were killing a few.
But a group of Pennsylvania hunters told me about a spot where they'd killed a couple cows earlier in the week.
I walked up the road that topped out skirting a long, broad meadow. After sitting for half an hour I continued creeping down the road before turning around and retracing my steps with about 20 minutes of legal shooting time left.
Then I spotted three bulls about 500 yards away walking right down the center of the meadow. The lead one appeared to be a decent bull, followed by a spike and a small raghorn. The bigger bull was looking right in my direction and I was certain he'd already spotted me.
I immediately sat down and watched as the bulls continued marching closer. Looking at my watch, I had a mere 10 minutes left that I could shoot. Some tall grass in front of me provided decent cover and miraculously they hadn't seen me.
Unbelievable.
The bull ended up stopping broadside just 80 yards away. When I centered the crosshairs right behind the shoulder, it looked like a picture from a scope ad. One crack of my .300 Winchester Short Magnum and the bull just stood there, wobbling.
I didn't want him to run into the timber so I shot him again. The bull crumbled in his tracks.
Being in known grizzly country, I sang a ridiculous "hey bear"song while quartering the bull and moving the meat away from the carcass.
Two buddies and I arrived in the meadow at first light the next day and the meat was untouched. The road made for a cakewalk of only about a mile-and-a-half and my meat, and trophy rack, were in the vehicle before 10 a.m.
For years I've heard people say that once you kill a nice bull elk, all you want to do is go for a bigger one. But that's not the case for me; I've always vowed that once I got a nice bull, I could hunt cows for the rest of my life.
Yet as fortune has it, some season the first legal elk I come upon will again be a bull. At this pace I figure he's due in about another decade.
Reporter Nick Gevock may be reached at nick.gevock@mtstandard.com.
