lucky encounter
by kyle winter
I was lucky enough to draw an elk permit in a relatively hard to draw area. in my opinion any elk is a trophy so in the past when presented with an opportunity at a legal elk, I shoot! with this permit however I made a commitment to hold out for a trophy sized bull. on the first day of the general season I saw hundreds of elk and passed up 8 branch antlered bulls!! As the day wore on I found myself second guessing my decision to pass on those bulls. around 2 in the afternoon I was still hunting through some heavy timber and I jumped an elk from its bed. I have been "bumping" elk my whole hunting career so the sound of an elk crashing through the timber going away from me was very familiar. I decided to find its tracks and follow them just for fun. To my surprise I jumped it again no more than 100 yards from the first spot. Again I picked up its tracks and followed. For the third time I jumped the elk and this time I got a glimpse of it before it turned and crashed straight down the hill. This time instead of following I circled around above the area it ran into and wouldn't you know it I spotted it standing in a thick patch of small fir trees looking the other way! As I looked through my scope it was then that I realized that it was a bull and just the kind of bull that makes an elk hunter like me very excited. Knowing that he should have already spotted me and bolted I frantically looked for an opening in the branches but I had none. The bull then took a step forward as I'm sure he was getting ready to disappear and that was the opportunity I needed so without hesitation I took the shot. Oh, by the way the shot was at an incredible distance of 35 yards! I consider very very lucky to have harvested this bull.
|
