king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Best of 2007 Feb-March 2008 - Index

and the other guide stay back to do
the calling.
When opening day arrived,
Jeff, Don and I dropped off a rim to
intercept Ocho as he made his way
up to bed. The wind was wrong,
but we hoped we could drop off fast
enough to get our wind past the bull
as he angled up the ridge. Running
down, we soon realized that our plan
wasn’t going to work. Ocho knew
something wasn’t right and he moved
up around us and headed over.
We had located Ocho every
day after my fi rst encounter with
him, and he was always alone, never
bugled much and, when he did, it
was barely audible. He acted like
an old bull and he had a favorite
bedding area, so we felt confi dent
that we would fi nd him again and
backed out. Back at camp, we
38 HUNTING ILLUSTRATED.com
decided to go after a bull that Matt had
named “Wrongway” because his beams
turned up the wrong way. Don had the
opportunity to see Wrongway before
the hunt with Matt and we all knew he
would be pushing the 400-inch mark or
better. However, Wrongway lived in
open country and always had a herd of
cows with him. Dad had been watching
Wrongway and put him to bed that
morning, so we all headed out to watch
him. We climbed our hill and, as we
sat in the shade of a small bush, we all
gazed through the small openings to our
trophy a thousand yards further. This
was the hardest bull to hunt out of all our
prospects, but he was defi nitely worth a
try! Our plan was to watch him all day
and see what direction he headed in the
evening. Just before dark, the herd got
up and headed our way. We were sitting
in a saddle with very few trees and I
anticipated that Wrongway would
head through the saddle. Jeff set up
behind us to hopefully coax the bull
if he held up out of range, while Don
and I set up under the only available
tree that kept our wind right. The
herd was heading right for us and I
had the camera rolling. As the herd
came closer and closer, I was sure
we were going to get a shot when, all
of a sudden, they turned hard right
and went up and around us just out
of range. It was an awesome sight as
Wrongway skylined with the sunset
behind him - he is a gorgeous bull!
Don, Jeff and I backed out
and, even though the plan didn’t
work, we felt good about what we
had learned. Wrongway had moved
through that saddle before and we
now had a decent pattern to him.
We decided to let him do his thing
the next morning and wait to hunt
him until that next evening. In the
meantime, we decided to hunt a
different 390-inch type bull in an
area close to Wrongway. But, now
that we had seen Wrongway, we
really wanted to get our hands on
him.
The next morning, we did
get close to the 390-inch bull after an
awesome long belly crawl by Don.
The bull’s cows busted when he only
needed 30 more yards to the bedded
bull. The video was awesome and
the stalk nerve racking, but now we
had our sights back on Wrongway
and we were eagerly waiting for
evening. Craig and two other
buddies of ours, David and his wife
Jenny, showed up to see Wrongway
and hopefully get to watch our hunt
from a distance. Our problem today
was that Wrongway had picked up
more girlfriends and now had a total
of nineteen! That’s a lot of eyes out
in this open country, but we knew
where he would go and hoped for
the best.
Evening came and we set
up with Jeff up high with the camera,
while Don and I picked a different
tree on the side of the saddle that the
elk went up the previous night. The