NW MT bull

Took you long enough to post pics, I got that picture in my email last week! Congrats!
 
It’s a true pig. A once in a lifetime bull, killed in NW MT, not known for producing these types of animals. They are here; they just live out their lives in the dark abyss of devil’s club, alder and false huckleberry, under a canopy of spruce and subalpine fir, never to really be seen. Sometimes we are lucky enough to see them when winters are bad enough and food is scarce, they will grudgingly venture down to the foothills in search of food. Usually found in the form of mooching from cattle on private land. But for most, they just find a wind-swept ridge and lay there all winter like mountain goats.

I have seen this bull the last two winters, even have one of his sheds. He wasn’t this big. I think the wet spring and tremendous feed this summer really blew him up. I believe he is about 7 or 8 years old, maybe older. Nobody I know of had ever seen him before Thanksgiving. But now, I found him in the same spot I have killed my previous 3 elk, in the last 3 seasons. I do not know what brought this beast out of wherever he has spent the previous years of his life. But this spot, “my ridge”, “my spot”, “the killing timber” is getting spooky the way it is producing bulls for me. I call it my ridge because as far as I can tell, nobody else hunts it, I mean, really persistently hunts it. It isn’t some death march, it isn’t nasty steep, even my kids have walked up the hill to get to some of my kills. Yet road warrior after road warrior drive right by the hill, I think, because it’s “a hill”, and you have to go up and over the top. I have hunted it the same way for 12 years now. Once I figured out how the wind blows and the game moves in there, it has been unreal. 4 bulls in the last 4 years, 7 out of the last 12 years. We are talking about one small patch of timber that a guy can cover quickly in a morning. There is one good way in to hunt it, and I very rarely deviate from that path. I know every trail, every pile of scat, and every new wind-broken bow on the ground, every track, new and old. I do see a rare human foot track, but they screw it up by hunting it, in what seems to be the obvious way, but it’s not, and they blow it all up for the day.
 
I didn’t get much hunting during archery, due to work. It didn’t matter, as elk were absent from all my spots, including my ridge. Rifle season came and still no elk. My old job ended on October 18th, and my new job would start Nov 5th. I had two good weeks to find a bull. I did kill a lion, and then things went quiet for a good week, no matter how far I walked or where I went, there were no elk. On Halloween, I found myself a few miles south of my ridge in an area where wolves frequent(I had just about given up on elk), figure I will try to complete the predator trifecta. A long day of nothing again. Nov 1, I hit my parking spot, below my ridge, sitting there in the dark, waiting for a little more light, as you are hunting the minute you leave the truck here. I watch no less than 3 trucks drive by. It is just light enough to see the trail without a headlamp. My cab light is illuminating the ground next to my truck, in the mud, next to my foot, is a track. Whaaa? Could it be? Holy crap, it is, an elk track. Fresh. They have come back! There were tracks all over the road, up the trail, on the hill, and in the timber. Piles of scat right next to the tree I put my stand in and on the trail in front of a small stick blind I have. Undoubtedly it was yesterday morning. And where was I? Cheating on my spot, looking elsewhere.

I do my walk, then my sit. No elk, then back in the evening, still nothing. Did I miss them? Are they miles away? Were they just passing through? No way. They will be here. Up the ridge, it is second growth larch and birches, dog hair thick, they are there I tell myself, they feel safe there. It is impossible to approach them in it and they know it. That is why I wait them out, in the killing timber, between the regen and where they feed. I went back Friday morning, still nothing. Mornings are most important here, I have never shot anything in the evening here. I know I am down to one more sit on Saturday.

I get to my blind in the timber, sitting quietly, thinking more about having to head for Helena the next afternoon to start a new chapter of life. I eventually contemplate the reality, nothing is coming. It is about 10 am, if it’s going to happen here, it always happens by now. So I get out of my blind, get the feeling back in my butt cheeks, and head for the truck. But, then I look over up the hill, toward “the peninsula”, sometimes they hang up in there; I will just poke my nose up there and see.
 
In the spirit of full disclosure, and the embarrassment it causes, I deviated from my open path which would have brought me to within 50 or 60 yards of this beast and a chip shot, to crunching my way through the peninsula and blowing him out. I heard a heavy hoof, looked up to see a big dark antlers running for the clear cut. After doing the “Last of the Mohicans” re-enactment to get to the edge of the hill to see the bottom of the cutting unit, I got there just to see him go into the SMZ in the creek bottom. Then by some freak miracle, instead of running up the creek bottom to sure safety, he plowed up the other side into the clear cut opposite of me to where he stopped near 300 yards from me. I felt like I had time; he was standing there across a creek drainage, in the open, looking back, wondering what just interrupted his morning, slight quarter toward. I could see it was him, “split 5ths”. He has a very distinctive @#)(#-eyed angle of his cow pokers, like a finger print, and he is HEAVY. Threw my pack over a stump, and readied my rifle. But, I made a bad shot, no excuses, I screwed up. I could see him carrying his left leg up the hill, I still felt I may have still got lung and there would be a dead bull up that hill. I called my friend, just as he was headed to a job, to bring the frame packs and game cart. He has helped me bring my last 3 elk off this hill, and would be PISSED if I didn’t tell him I just shot “split 5ths”. But sadly, it was not to be, it turned into a looooong tracking job, before finally putting him on the ground. He kept bedding, but after about 45 minutes, it was clear his lungs were intact, but there was imminent heavy rain, there was no time to let him go lay down, and think we would find him later. I had another good friend there (who was actually in his own blind on the hillside where the bull initially ran, and was sitting in it when I shot) to help track him over birch leaves and larch needles, no snow, in an old regen unit with a visibility max of maybe 20 yards. I believe a tremendous amount of luck was involved here, as the rain really negated the idea of just letting him go bed. We had to dog him, there was no other choice. He was losing a lot of blood and we started to tell he was weakening, as the pools of blood were becoming closer together and he was really kind of just weaving aimlessly; it reinforced our decision. It was an emotional roller coaster, to keep getting so close to him, bumping him, and not getting a clear shot. It was not what that bull deserved, and not what I would ever like to have happen again. I can’t say enough how glad I was to have those guys there.

I honestly don’t know how long the three of us stood around just staring at this awesome bull. Nobody wanted to start cutting on it. I even said to my friend that there was a small part of me that is going to miss seeing him down around Christmas. Just as we were getting him on the game carts on the old logging road, the rains poured in. Too close.

What has resulted in the pics has been nothing short of crazy. There are rumors and talk like I have never personally experienced before. Everyone wants to know where it was killed, how big it is, etc. We taped it about 4x because we just couldn’t believe it, and I really cringe saying it. It doesn’t look it. 399 1/8. Could be more. The palmation makes it tough. One guy could add to it, the next might reduce it. You just don’t wake up in the morning and truly believe you are going to kill a bull like this. The mass just eats up the mains and the tines. 69 inches of mass if I remember right. But it’s only 37 inches wide! That must be from squeezing through all this timber and brush. LOL
 
Holy mother xxxxer!!

Sweet bull, Drahthaar.

Who gives a F about the score, incredible bull.

Congrats on a great, great bull.

One of the coolest bulls I've ever seen.
 
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Glad you are showing off your bull! You earned it! Few folks care to hike them steep, brushy, grizz infested woods! Great Job!
 
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