As they lay

Not exactly where they lay but only slightly moved. Shot him at first light and hit just below spine and above the lungs. Spent the next 7 1/2 hours and 7 1/2 miles tracking him before I finally killed him about 100 yards above this 2-track road. Right before I killed him I heard a truck on the road below me as I was tracking him. Then it went quiet. Did not know it but they had stopped to put chains on. One of the guys said I see an elk up the hill and got his rifle out. His buddies thought he lost his mind as he was trying to get a shot on the elk and moving around. Right at this instant I finally caught up to the bull standing about 30 feet away in the junipers on this steep hillside. I shot him in the neck and he dropped out of sight. I heard crash..........bang.............crash............bang.............crash..............THUD as he hit right in the middle of this two track! All of a sudden I heard "Holy f@%&# did you see that. I could not see the road or these guys and I started down to them. I thought I should alert them to the fact that I was above them and not an elk so I yelled to let then know. I was bombarded with a lot of excited questions as I was coming down. Did you see his antlers (one sides really odd 5x2), did you see his ears. One was frozen off about 1/2 of it gone, the other has about 1/4 of it gone. At one point during my chase I saw where the bull tumbled and fell down the mountain in a spot about 3 miles away from where the picture was taken. He caught himself finally and kept going. I believe it was here when he did fall that he broke one of his rear legs at the hock and the bone broke and the hide split and the lower bottom of his one leg was completely gone.

I told them the story about my day and they graciously loaded me and my bull up into the back of their pickup and drove me clear around the mountain and up to the top on the other side of it to where I had parked. (Hunting alone.) Backed up to my truck and slid the bull into the back of my pickup. Someone coming along where I killed him and would see this elk gut pile just at the side of the 2-track and would say, man somebody got lucky. Somebody got really tired is what somebody got! This was a few years ago.
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This buck was 3 years ago I believe over on the eastern side of Montana. I shot a doe with my 6mm Ruger 1B single-shot at about 70 yards. There were several deer. When I shot she ran about 30 yards anddropped. There were several other deer including this buck that took off getting the heck out of Dodge. I was able to put another shell into the chamber and fire at this buck just before he disappeared behind some Junipers never to be seen again. He dropped on the spot. The doe died just out of sight from the buck and ended up being about 20 yards away from him. I pulled her up to where he was laying. Later I weighed my buck and with the formula they have for dressed weight and live weight I figured he was about 310 pounds on the hoof. You can see how much he dwarfs the doe.

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Had spike on the rt n a strange looking fork;maybe an inch long but 1 1/2” wide, on the left. Facing away, waited for him to put his head down, aimed just above the lt jaw line n it exited out the rt pedicle
F a bunch of headshots. Saw a nice WT in Montana just south of Missoula last year missing an entire lower jaw. Didn't have a deer tag so couldn’t put it out of its misery. Damn shame what people will do.
 
F a bunch of headshots. Saw a nice WT in Montana just south of Missoula last year missing an entire lower jaw. Didn't have a deer tag so couldn’t put it out of its misery. Damn shame what people will do.
Understand where ur coming from..:have had to shoot some like that myself.
I shoot from a bench inside my box, sand bags, known distances, n only certain ways…..
Not calling it hunting; I do that w my recurve n up ur way, it is what it is….
 
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