king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated Magazine Dec/Jan 2008 - Coyote Crazy! - Index

attempts I got a nice bull to
within 20 yards of my camera.
He bugled so loud that it made
the hair on my neck stand up.
What a rush, I was defi nitely
hooked now.
Soon it was November
and the early rifl e season was
starting soon. I felt like I was
going to lose my mind. I
called Thomas and left him
a message, “Thomas, this is
Verne Atwood. I am ready to
go. I am sitting on my back
steps in my camos watching
elk hunting videos.” Thomas
called back and was still
laughing. He reassured me
that everything would be
alright; my hunt would be
here before I knew it.
December 2nd came
and my hunt of a lifetime was
on. I met Thomas and Mike at 4:00
a.m. and we were off. We arrived at
our destination just before daylight.
Thomas and Mike were talking about
different bulls and where they should
be feeding. As the sun started to rise,
we pulled out the spotting scopes.
We found two different bulls and, as
I looked at them through the scope,
my guides asked me which one I
wanted to put a stalk on. Talk about
decisions. I carefully looked over
them both but couldn’t make up my
mind, so I asked them which one they
would hunt. Thomas advised me that
he had picked up sheds off one of the
bulls and said that when I saw the set
of sheds I would know this would be
the bull to hunt. There was only a
small window to hunt this bull before
he would be bedding down in the
thick trees, so we grabbed our packs
and were off. When we arrived at our
glassing spot, it was already getting
warm and the bulls weren’t showing
themselves. We patiently glassed for
hours, walking from ridge to ridge
with no luck. Opening day came and
went without a shot fi red. I was off
to bed early that night even though I
knew that I wouldn’t get much sleep.
On the second morning,
Thomas advised me that we would
be hiking into a new area in the dark
and that it would be a “little” ways up a
mountain. As we walked, the anticipation
of what would be on the other side of this
steep mountain kept my feet moving but,
about an hour into the hike, the burning
feeling in my legs and lack of oxygen
overshadowed my excitement. I have
never sweated so much when it was 20
degrees outside. Soon, I could see the
top and I gritted my teeth and fi nished
the hike. Once on top, Mike went to one
vantage point as Thomas and I went to
look into another bowl. As the sunlight
began to shine on the hillside, Thomas
spotted a good bull approximately 450
yards across the canyon. The bull was
a 350-class 6x6 and, when I looked
through the spotting scope, I was ready
to shoot. Thomas decided that we should
continue to glass to see what else was in
the area because there were a couple of
really big bulls that just weren’t showing
themselves yet. So, I sat back down and
continued glassing.
After an uneventful morning,
we had some lunch and the guys made a
plan for the evening hunt. Mike would
go back to our original spot to see what
bulls were showing up and Thomas and
I would narrow our search by walking up
another mountain top to look into another
bowl. Once on top, we found an area that
was thickly covered with grass and other
forage. I could see Thomas smile as he
glassed around. He whispered
to me that we would call
this area “The Salad Bowl”
because of all the feed. He
knew that this spot would
defi nitely be holding some
mature bulls. As we were
glassing, Thomas leaned over
and whispered that he was
going to fi nd a “spot” because
Mother Nature was calling.
He dropped behind a ledge
to take care of business and
I stayed put to keep glassing.
The next thing I knew,
Thomas was hurrying back in
my direction still buttoning up
his pants and excitedly telling
me to grab my stuff now! He
told me that we needed to
get down the hill to close the
distance on a bull. This was
my fi rst hunt with Thomas,
but I do know that it would take an
awful big bull to get him this wound
up. We closed the distance to 650
yards and I still had no clue what we
were trying to get close to. We were
now walking on crunchy snow and
the wind was swirling around the
bowl. Suddenly, Thomas pointed out
some bulls standing across the canyon
fully alert and looking back at us. The
hill we were on was very steep and
rocky and it was very diffi cult to get
a steady rest on anything. Thomas
found a down tree and I quickly
knelt down and put my rifl e on the
steadiest place I could fi nd. Thomas
ranged the bulls at 650 yards and said
the biggest bull was to the left of the
group. My heart was beating quickly,
I couldn’t control my breathing and
my crosshairs were swaying back and
forth. Thomas kept saying, “Left,
left.” Finally, he reached over the
top of me and brought the weapon to
the left. There in my sights stood the
biggest bull I had ever seen. Thomas
was setting up the camcorder and I
overheard him say that this bull was
nicknamed, “Badonkadonk.” When
I heard that, I knew exactly what bull
it was. Mike had last year’s shed
antlers and I actually got to hold them
with my own hands. I had never seen
such a huge back end or “whale tail”
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