This was the year that I dumped 10 preference points on a bull elk tag for game unit 76. I wanted the muzzleloader season for two reasons. First being that the season dates this year were September 10 - 17, which is pretty good timing for the rut, and archery success has eluded me thus far and I really wanted meat in the freezer when the season ended. Unit 76 is 600,000 acres that is surrounded by the continental divide on 3 sides and is also the head-waters of the Rio Grande Reservoir. 76 is thought to be the roughest, steepest unit in Colorado and I agree. I also think it happens to be the most beautiful part of Colorado I have ever spent time in, which is saying a lot. The following is a condensed account of this years hunt.(It was a great year for many reasons and I probably could have made this much longer.) I made two scouting trips in August to get familiar with the roads and begin developing a plan. I had contacted a few of the outfitters and had some idea of where their camps were and thus a few areas to avoid. I had also spoken with three other guys that had hunted this unit "do it yourself" style and had a few places in mind to look at. Here is how it shook out...
First scouting trip...
I drove into Crystal Lake, arriving well after dark, and hoping it didn't rain as the road was of the sort that could be very challenging if it got greasy. I spent the morning hours well above timberline glassing and saw plenty of elk but none in the immediate area. All the animals were several miles away, although there were tracks literally everywhere I walked. The afternoon was spent checking out Rito Hondo Res and then down to Rio Grande Res for the evening glassing. I drove to the west end of the reservoir and afternoon storms prevented me from being able to effectively glass the higher basins, above timberline. I camped on the west side of the RG Res that night and first light the next morning was able to see elk in many of the basins and bowls above timberline on Pole Creek Mtn. In fact, it was hard to count them all with 10x binos at that distance. They were apparent when broadside and "shining" in the morning sun but they would vanish from view when they turned as they were feeding. I could only verify that there were "quite a few"- as in 80 to 100 or more scattered around the top of the mountain. Very promising indeed. We watched them for a couple hours and then headed over to check out Fisher Mtn and Ivy Creek for the afternoon. It started raining shortly after noon and the electrical activity kept me from wanting to crest any high ridges so Fisher Mtn was out. We hiked up Ivy Creek maybe 4 miles or so and turned around when it seemed apparent that the rain wouldn't be letting up. We did see plenty of tracks in Ivy Creek and the farther up we went, the more we were seeing.
Second scouting trip....
The next weekend I was solo. Saturday morning I headed up to timberline on Pole Creek Mtn to spend the day glassing. Almost 4 hrs to pick my way to timberline up one of the drainages had me questioning the idea of coming off this mountain with a pack full of meat. Once to timberline I found a good spot to set up my borrowed spotting scope and began glass work. The mid-day viewing session was good and though the elk seemed to have moved westward I was able to locate a sizeable herd of 40-50 elk with 10 bulls. They were about 1.5 to 2 miles away, but with a scope I was able to see that at least 3 of the bulls were what I was after. And what I was after was simply a solid 6x6, mature, and hopefully in the 290-300 range. I watched this herd for a couple hours until the distant rumble of thunder became too distracting. I was nestled right into the southern crest of Pole Creek Mtn and know how quickly a storm can pounce when you can't see it coming until it is on top of you. I was feeling confident that this was going to be "the spot", come opening weekend. I bailed off the mountain and tried a drainage to the west of where I came up, thinking a bit more direct route down would be helpful if I needed to pack an animal off. Bad choice on my part. I was very near being cliffed-out at one point, about two thirds of the way down. The thought of how long I would be on that mountain with the birds picking on my busted-up carcass was creeping into my mind. Nothing like the heightened sense of situational awareness when in predicaments like that! Needless to say, there would be no repeating this route down with meat in my pack.
The hunt...
My hunting buddy for this muzzleloader season burned 3 points to draw a cow tag in order to join me on this hunt. He ran into a set-back midway thru the summer that prevented him from training for the September hunt; severely sprained ribs from a fall off a horse can do that. In spite of this he still made the hunt and Saturday morning of the opening day found him above timberline on Pole Creek Mtn with me, glassing over 70 elk in one large basin at 800 to 1200 yards, Two of the many bulls were definitely in the 300 class and would be instant candidates for the tag in my pocket. We watched the many individual herds that were escorted by the two bruiser bulls and some nice 5x5's and one really cool 5x6 that would be hard to pass if he was in range. As the afternoon ran into early evening the bugles really began to get intense as the bulls were going pretty much non-stop. More elk were feeding up out of the several drainages from below and it was really quite a show. The 2 bigger bulls that had me drooling were always positioned with many eyes and noses between themselves and me. This above-timberline situation made for awesome viewing but it was quickly growing apparent that getting within range was not going to be easy. My "range" was 200 yards at the maximum with perfect circumstances; solid rest, verified range, and no cross wind. I had practiced at this range several times and my rifle could do it if I did my part. I was not going to risk blowing the herd by forcing a low probability stalk trying to get into range of the two big 6x6's and we enjoying watching the herd so much it was not actually a difficult decision. We had not seen another hunter all day and felt sure we were the only guys on top of the mountain. Thankfully, the pattern of afternoon storms had broken and we felt comfortable setting up camp in the jack pines right at timberline that night. It was so cool to be sparking the stove to heat water and setting up my shelter while bulls bugled within 300 yards of us. On the other hand, I knew setting up camp so close to the herd was potentially foolish but there was no way my partner was gonna put his pack on to back off. The dude was pretty much smoked but never complained once. We ate dinner and listened to the bulls and intermittent cow mews while talking about strategies to close the distance on one of the big 6x6's. The bigger of the two had 9 cows in his harem and the smaller 6x6 had 35-40 in his harem. I have to think that there is no way he would keep that many once the ladies started getting hot. He wasn't all that big either, maybe 300 or a tad less. We crawled into our sleeping bags after a Mountain House dinner and listened to non-stop bugling all around us. The night was quite calm and we could now hear bulls that were well below us, in the timber, as well as above us. What a place...
It sure wasn't difficult to get out of a warm bag when the alarm went off Sunday morning. The bulls had quieted down and I hoped that our close proximity had not caused the herd to move off. After a quick cup of coffee and waiting for enough light to be able to see well enough to hopefully not bump any animals, we made our way through the jack pines to the point that we were out of cover. We could see the majority of the herd had stayed in place over night and quickly picked out the two bigger 6x6's. They were still in position to make any sort of direct approach all but impossible without being seen so we got comfortable with the spotting scope and binos while waiting to see what they might do. The biggest bull and his 9 ladies were right on the skyline at the western-most edge of the basin and the other bull was tucked right into the deepest part of the basin with his 35ish cows all around him. We were about 800 yards from the big dude and 1500 yards from the smaller bull. An assortment of 5x5's and smaller bulls were on the edge of the larger herd and harassing smaller groups of 2-5 cows. Pretty much elk scattered all over the basin; same as the day before. We also had a large group of bighorn ewes that moved into the basin overnight. I counted over 30 but could not seem to locate any rams, which I thought was odd. We watched and discussed a strategy to try and circle around the bigger bull but it was becoming apparent that the winds were going to be a factor. Or at least the inconsistent, erratic nature of the wind was going to be a factor. We knew the weather forecast called for a front to be moving thru and we planned to be off the mountain that evening. My partners 82 year old father was staying in our base-camp for a few days and we told him we would try to be down Sunday evening to have a late dinner with him. About mid-morning, it seemed as though a switch was thrown. First, the cows began trickling towards one of the drainages that the larger basin fed into. The larger herd with the second-largest bull was moving down to this drainage as well and a constant stream of elk proceeded to leave the mountain top. The idea of trying to get into position for a shot on the #2 bull was tempting but the cover was so sparse and so many eyes working against us kept us in place. The bigger bull slid down the crest of the mountain, taking his 9 cows to the west and out of eyesight. He was beautiful, as he paraded down the ridge, skylined for us to admire. We would not see him again. Easily a 320ish bull. After the last elk in the bigger portion of the herd slipped into the drainage we attempted to follow the bigger bull and chased him over the ridgeline to the west. We covered maybe a mile and by the time we were in position to hopefully see him, we struck out. It was about 11 am now and we headed back to camp.
As we hiked back we talked about the effort that would be required to get meat off the mountain, if we put anything down where we currently were. It would involve a traverse of about 1.5 mile, above timberline, to get back to the top of the drainage we originally came up, and then a 2000 foot descent to the truck. The problem was the cliff bands from 30 to 80 or more feet tall that ringed the base of the mountain and I had already learned from a prior gamble when scouting that the risk of trying an unproven rout could be unacceptable. While we are making our way back to camp I am looking down into the drainage that we just watched over 40 elk go into and wondering if there is a cliff band somewhere down there, between us and the road we could see at the bottom. I was noticing the canopy of aspens that lined the creek at the bottom of the drainage. It sure looked to me that while steep, the canopy appeared uninterrupted the whole way to the bottom. Maybe we could get off the mountain taking this drainage and save the traverse. If so, it would make the decision to come back up a whole lot easier. And then if we should be fortunate to take a bull up here the pack out would be much less work. The gamble would be to find out two thirds of the way down that we get cliffed out and have to turn around and hike back out. The prior day had taken it's toll on Dave, and I wasn't sure if he would want to roll the dice on this little gamble. After talking it over, while breaking camp, he left the decision up to me. The certainty of knowing there were quite a few elk in the drainage made the decision for me and we were prepared to stay another couple days anyway. So down we went...
It was becoming apparent, at about the half-way point down that drainage, that we were probably going to be ok. We stopped and pumped water and discussed possibilities about where all those elk had gone. I had a feeling that they may have slipped more over to the west after gaining the timber as the grade where we were was more suited to goats and sheep. We could see evidence of the cliffs through the timber that we had fortunately found a notch through and figured we would drop down another few hundred feet and then start side-hilling it toward camp, to the east, At least we were in heavy cover for the middle of the day and could hunt our way all the way back to camp. The plan was to go slow, and cow call every 100 yards or so. We had been at this for maybe 30 or 40 minutes while following the creek and I was thinking about starting to the east and sidehilling toward direction of camp. And that is when I saw the tops of the aspens in front of me shaking. Violently.
I was only 50 yards or so from the aspens that appeared as though they were being ripped from the mountain and the first thought that went through my mind was "this is gonna be a rag-horn there is no way I am lucky enough for this to be a shooter". Wrong. The bull picked his head up and the second I saw his 5th and 6th points I knew he was bigger than anything I had laid eyes on outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. I waited for him to put his head back down before I turned around and motioned for Dave to freeze, as he was about 15 yards behind me and couldn't see what I was seeing. The bull was facing away from me and offered no shot so I was going to have to try and open the angle a bit, by moving to my left and up hill some. The bull was destroying the aspens and I took a few steps. Bull picks his head up and, I imagine, is looking for the cow he thinks is coming down the mountain. I have a tree between his eye and myself and I am thinking "stop looking at his rack and find his shoulder!" He is about 20 degrees to me and I want 45 for a shot, at least. He puts his head back down after a few seconds and I get a few more steps. I almost have the angle now and he doesn't know I exist. He is pulverizing the aspens again and then, when he lifts his head next, he does the unthinkable. He turns the last 60 degrees and is standing totally broadside to me at 50 yards.
The bull is down-hill from me but only slightly. He was positioned in such a way that I could only see the top two thirds of his vitals with a bit of ground swell covering the bottom third. The ideal spot on his ribs for me to place my shot was right at "dirt level". Due to this, I held a little higher on his vitals to give a bit of margin for error, as I was taking this shot off-hand. The last thought through my mind as I started squeezing the trigger was something to the effect of "please let this charge ignite"... (I had had a few squib/misfires during practice)
The shot went off and the smoke hung in the air. The charge had indeed ignited and as I recovered from the recoil the bull appeared totally unfazed. "How could I have missed him!" and "there is no way I am going to be able to reload without him seeing me.." raced through my mind. I just stood there watching him, maybe 2 long seconds elapsed but it certainly seemed much longer. Then his back legs started to give-out and when they did go the extreme grade he was standing on caused him to roll over backwards and literally cart-wheel down the mountain. Flashes of antler and bull hide and the white of his belly were all I could see through the timber as he rolled. It was a surreal moment, to say the least. When the commotion ceased I quickly began the reloading process, which is difficult when one is shaking as badly as I was. I was driving the bullet home when I looked back at Dave and whispered that I just shot a "huge bull". Together we began walking in the direction the bull had rolled and quickly saw him piled into a stand of pines which is likely the only thing that kept him from ending up in the creek.
As I stood near this magnificent animal I could hardly believe how the last 90 seconds had played out. This bull never made a sound and I must assume that he thought we were cows slowly coming down the draw. His antlers were heavy and sweeping, far surpassing my goals of a 300 class bull. This was, by far, my largest bull ever and it was wrapped in an amazing experience. A little hard work and a little luck came together on the south side of Pole Creek Mountain that Sunday afternoon. I couldn't have been more grateful.
The next five hours were spent carefully quartering and deboning the meat. The research invested in caring for meat in warmer temps as well as being prepared really payed off. We submerged the meat in the creek, after placing it in heavy duty plastic "contractor" bags to cool. The next morning when we returned to start packing, the meat was cold enough to make my hands hurt as I was placing it in TAG bags for the haul out. This bull has turned out to be the best eating elk I have ever enjoyed and I can only attribute this to the thorough cooling that the creek afforded.
I had the rack and skull bleached for a Euro style mount and the man that did this kindly put a tape to the antlers for me. 344 was what he came up with but regardless of score it is likely the biggest bull I will ever take and the hunt will be tough to top. At least until I can start hunting with my children.
First scouting trip...
I drove into Crystal Lake, arriving well after dark, and hoping it didn't rain as the road was of the sort that could be very challenging if it got greasy. I spent the morning hours well above timberline glassing and saw plenty of elk but none in the immediate area. All the animals were several miles away, although there were tracks literally everywhere I walked. The afternoon was spent checking out Rito Hondo Res and then down to Rio Grande Res for the evening glassing. I drove to the west end of the reservoir and afternoon storms prevented me from being able to effectively glass the higher basins, above timberline. I camped on the west side of the RG Res that night and first light the next morning was able to see elk in many of the basins and bowls above timberline on Pole Creek Mtn. In fact, it was hard to count them all with 10x binos at that distance. They were apparent when broadside and "shining" in the morning sun but they would vanish from view when they turned as they were feeding. I could only verify that there were "quite a few"- as in 80 to 100 or more scattered around the top of the mountain. Very promising indeed. We watched them for a couple hours and then headed over to check out Fisher Mtn and Ivy Creek for the afternoon. It started raining shortly after noon and the electrical activity kept me from wanting to crest any high ridges so Fisher Mtn was out. We hiked up Ivy Creek maybe 4 miles or so and turned around when it seemed apparent that the rain wouldn't be letting up. We did see plenty of tracks in Ivy Creek and the farther up we went, the more we were seeing.
Second scouting trip....
The next weekend I was solo. Saturday morning I headed up to timberline on Pole Creek Mtn to spend the day glassing. Almost 4 hrs to pick my way to timberline up one of the drainages had me questioning the idea of coming off this mountain with a pack full of meat. Once to timberline I found a good spot to set up my borrowed spotting scope and began glass work. The mid-day viewing session was good and though the elk seemed to have moved westward I was able to locate a sizeable herd of 40-50 elk with 10 bulls. They were about 1.5 to 2 miles away, but with a scope I was able to see that at least 3 of the bulls were what I was after. And what I was after was simply a solid 6x6, mature, and hopefully in the 290-300 range. I watched this herd for a couple hours until the distant rumble of thunder became too distracting. I was nestled right into the southern crest of Pole Creek Mtn and know how quickly a storm can pounce when you can't see it coming until it is on top of you. I was feeling confident that this was going to be "the spot", come opening weekend. I bailed off the mountain and tried a drainage to the west of where I came up, thinking a bit more direct route down would be helpful if I needed to pack an animal off. Bad choice on my part. I was very near being cliffed-out at one point, about two thirds of the way down. The thought of how long I would be on that mountain with the birds picking on my busted-up carcass was creeping into my mind. Nothing like the heightened sense of situational awareness when in predicaments like that! Needless to say, there would be no repeating this route down with meat in my pack.
The hunt...
My hunting buddy for this muzzleloader season burned 3 points to draw a cow tag in order to join me on this hunt. He ran into a set-back midway thru the summer that prevented him from training for the September hunt; severely sprained ribs from a fall off a horse can do that. In spite of this he still made the hunt and Saturday morning of the opening day found him above timberline on Pole Creek Mtn with me, glassing over 70 elk in one large basin at 800 to 1200 yards, Two of the many bulls were definitely in the 300 class and would be instant candidates for the tag in my pocket. We watched the many individual herds that were escorted by the two bruiser bulls and some nice 5x5's and one really cool 5x6 that would be hard to pass if he was in range. As the afternoon ran into early evening the bugles really began to get intense as the bulls were going pretty much non-stop. More elk were feeding up out of the several drainages from below and it was really quite a show. The 2 bigger bulls that had me drooling were always positioned with many eyes and noses between themselves and me. This above-timberline situation made for awesome viewing but it was quickly growing apparent that getting within range was not going to be easy. My "range" was 200 yards at the maximum with perfect circumstances; solid rest, verified range, and no cross wind. I had practiced at this range several times and my rifle could do it if I did my part. I was not going to risk blowing the herd by forcing a low probability stalk trying to get into range of the two big 6x6's and we enjoying watching the herd so much it was not actually a difficult decision. We had not seen another hunter all day and felt sure we were the only guys on top of the mountain. Thankfully, the pattern of afternoon storms had broken and we felt comfortable setting up camp in the jack pines right at timberline that night. It was so cool to be sparking the stove to heat water and setting up my shelter while bulls bugled within 300 yards of us. On the other hand, I knew setting up camp so close to the herd was potentially foolish but there was no way my partner was gonna put his pack on to back off. The dude was pretty much smoked but never complained once. We ate dinner and listened to the bulls and intermittent cow mews while talking about strategies to close the distance on one of the big 6x6's. The bigger of the two had 9 cows in his harem and the smaller 6x6 had 35-40 in his harem. I have to think that there is no way he would keep that many once the ladies started getting hot. He wasn't all that big either, maybe 300 or a tad less. We crawled into our sleeping bags after a Mountain House dinner and listened to non-stop bugling all around us. The night was quite calm and we could now hear bulls that were well below us, in the timber, as well as above us. What a place...
It sure wasn't difficult to get out of a warm bag when the alarm went off Sunday morning. The bulls had quieted down and I hoped that our close proximity had not caused the herd to move off. After a quick cup of coffee and waiting for enough light to be able to see well enough to hopefully not bump any animals, we made our way through the jack pines to the point that we were out of cover. We could see the majority of the herd had stayed in place over night and quickly picked out the two bigger 6x6's. They were still in position to make any sort of direct approach all but impossible without being seen so we got comfortable with the spotting scope and binos while waiting to see what they might do. The biggest bull and his 9 ladies were right on the skyline at the western-most edge of the basin and the other bull was tucked right into the deepest part of the basin with his 35ish cows all around him. We were about 800 yards from the big dude and 1500 yards from the smaller bull. An assortment of 5x5's and smaller bulls were on the edge of the larger herd and harassing smaller groups of 2-5 cows. Pretty much elk scattered all over the basin; same as the day before. We also had a large group of bighorn ewes that moved into the basin overnight. I counted over 30 but could not seem to locate any rams, which I thought was odd. We watched and discussed a strategy to try and circle around the bigger bull but it was becoming apparent that the winds were going to be a factor. Or at least the inconsistent, erratic nature of the wind was going to be a factor. We knew the weather forecast called for a front to be moving thru and we planned to be off the mountain that evening. My partners 82 year old father was staying in our base-camp for a few days and we told him we would try to be down Sunday evening to have a late dinner with him. About mid-morning, it seemed as though a switch was thrown. First, the cows began trickling towards one of the drainages that the larger basin fed into. The larger herd with the second-largest bull was moving down to this drainage as well and a constant stream of elk proceeded to leave the mountain top. The idea of trying to get into position for a shot on the #2 bull was tempting but the cover was so sparse and so many eyes working against us kept us in place. The bigger bull slid down the crest of the mountain, taking his 9 cows to the west and out of eyesight. He was beautiful, as he paraded down the ridge, skylined for us to admire. We would not see him again. Easily a 320ish bull. After the last elk in the bigger portion of the herd slipped into the drainage we attempted to follow the bigger bull and chased him over the ridgeline to the west. We covered maybe a mile and by the time we were in position to hopefully see him, we struck out. It was about 11 am now and we headed back to camp.
As we hiked back we talked about the effort that would be required to get meat off the mountain, if we put anything down where we currently were. It would involve a traverse of about 1.5 mile, above timberline, to get back to the top of the drainage we originally came up, and then a 2000 foot descent to the truck. The problem was the cliff bands from 30 to 80 or more feet tall that ringed the base of the mountain and I had already learned from a prior gamble when scouting that the risk of trying an unproven rout could be unacceptable. While we are making our way back to camp I am looking down into the drainage that we just watched over 40 elk go into and wondering if there is a cliff band somewhere down there, between us and the road we could see at the bottom. I was noticing the canopy of aspens that lined the creek at the bottom of the drainage. It sure looked to me that while steep, the canopy appeared uninterrupted the whole way to the bottom. Maybe we could get off the mountain taking this drainage and save the traverse. If so, it would make the decision to come back up a whole lot easier. And then if we should be fortunate to take a bull up here the pack out would be much less work. The gamble would be to find out two thirds of the way down that we get cliffed out and have to turn around and hike back out. The prior day had taken it's toll on Dave, and I wasn't sure if he would want to roll the dice on this little gamble. After talking it over, while breaking camp, he left the decision up to me. The certainty of knowing there were quite a few elk in the drainage made the decision for me and we were prepared to stay another couple days anyway. So down we went...
It was becoming apparent, at about the half-way point down that drainage, that we were probably going to be ok. We stopped and pumped water and discussed possibilities about where all those elk had gone. I had a feeling that they may have slipped more over to the west after gaining the timber as the grade where we were was more suited to goats and sheep. We could see evidence of the cliffs through the timber that we had fortunately found a notch through and figured we would drop down another few hundred feet and then start side-hilling it toward camp, to the east, At least we were in heavy cover for the middle of the day and could hunt our way all the way back to camp. The plan was to go slow, and cow call every 100 yards or so. We had been at this for maybe 30 or 40 minutes while following the creek and I was thinking about starting to the east and sidehilling toward direction of camp. And that is when I saw the tops of the aspens in front of me shaking. Violently.
I was only 50 yards or so from the aspens that appeared as though they were being ripped from the mountain and the first thought that went through my mind was "this is gonna be a rag-horn there is no way I am lucky enough for this to be a shooter". Wrong. The bull picked his head up and the second I saw his 5th and 6th points I knew he was bigger than anything I had laid eyes on outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. I waited for him to put his head back down before I turned around and motioned for Dave to freeze, as he was about 15 yards behind me and couldn't see what I was seeing. The bull was facing away from me and offered no shot so I was going to have to try and open the angle a bit, by moving to my left and up hill some. The bull was destroying the aspens and I took a few steps. Bull picks his head up and, I imagine, is looking for the cow he thinks is coming down the mountain. I have a tree between his eye and myself and I am thinking "stop looking at his rack and find his shoulder!" He is about 20 degrees to me and I want 45 for a shot, at least. He puts his head back down after a few seconds and I get a few more steps. I almost have the angle now and he doesn't know I exist. He is pulverizing the aspens again and then, when he lifts his head next, he does the unthinkable. He turns the last 60 degrees and is standing totally broadside to me at 50 yards.
The bull is down-hill from me but only slightly. He was positioned in such a way that I could only see the top two thirds of his vitals with a bit of ground swell covering the bottom third. The ideal spot on his ribs for me to place my shot was right at "dirt level". Due to this, I held a little higher on his vitals to give a bit of margin for error, as I was taking this shot off-hand. The last thought through my mind as I started squeezing the trigger was something to the effect of "please let this charge ignite"... (I had had a few squib/misfires during practice)
The shot went off and the smoke hung in the air. The charge had indeed ignited and as I recovered from the recoil the bull appeared totally unfazed. "How could I have missed him!" and "there is no way I am going to be able to reload without him seeing me.." raced through my mind. I just stood there watching him, maybe 2 long seconds elapsed but it certainly seemed much longer. Then his back legs started to give-out and when they did go the extreme grade he was standing on caused him to roll over backwards and literally cart-wheel down the mountain. Flashes of antler and bull hide and the white of his belly were all I could see through the timber as he rolled. It was a surreal moment, to say the least. When the commotion ceased I quickly began the reloading process, which is difficult when one is shaking as badly as I was. I was driving the bullet home when I looked back at Dave and whispered that I just shot a "huge bull". Together we began walking in the direction the bull had rolled and quickly saw him piled into a stand of pines which is likely the only thing that kept him from ending up in the creek.
As I stood near this magnificent animal I could hardly believe how the last 90 seconds had played out. This bull never made a sound and I must assume that he thought we were cows slowly coming down the draw. His antlers were heavy and sweeping, far surpassing my goals of a 300 class bull. This was, by far, my largest bull ever and it was wrapped in an amazing experience. A little hard work and a little luck came together on the south side of Pole Creek Mountain that Sunday afternoon. I couldn't have been more grateful.
The next five hours were spent carefully quartering and deboning the meat. The research invested in caring for meat in warmer temps as well as being prepared really payed off. We submerged the meat in the creek, after placing it in heavy duty plastic "contractor" bags to cool. The next morning when we returned to start packing, the meat was cold enough to make my hands hurt as I was placing it in TAG bags for the haul out. This bull has turned out to be the best eating elk I have ever enjoyed and I can only attribute this to the thorough cooling that the creek afforded.
I had the rack and skull bleached for a Euro style mount and the man that did this kindly put a tape to the antlers for me. 344 was what he came up with but regardless of score it is likely the biggest bull I will ever take and the hunt will be tough to top. At least until I can start hunting with my children.
