king' s outdoor world - Index

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

It was 2006, and my hunting partner,
Brad Sears, and I had just put in for
the bull elk draw. I was up fi shing
in Alaska when the draw results were
released. Brad gave me a call and let
me know that we had both been lucky
and drawn. We immediately began
scouting and found some good bulls.
Now we just had to wait for hunting
season to arrive.
When the rut kicked in, the bulls
moved a few miles and I was unable
to fi nd the largest bull. My brother
Vinnie and I went out the day before
the hunt started and tried to locate
him. Vinnie was lucky and happened
to fi nd him. He promptly called me
and told me that he had found the
large bull.
On opening morning, our group
went out and saw some good bulls, but
we never could fi nd my large bull. That
evening we went back out and, right
before dark, we came across the large
bull. I missed a seventy-yard shot that
went just under him. I couldn’t believe
it! I fi nally had a shot and I missed!
We followed the bull for a little while
and couldn’t get another shot. We
carefully tracked the bull and watched
him bed down for the night.
The next morning it was really
windy and nothing was bugling. We
were unable to locate the bull. That
night my friend, Ryan Mell, showed up
and wanted to go out with us the next
morning. He must have been good
luck, because the next morning the
bulls were going crazy. We had been
following a nice six-point all morning,
which I would have gladly taken, but
I was never presented a shot. Then,
all of a sudden, I heard another bugle
close by. The large bull appeared and
started fi ghting with the bull I had
been chasing. I hurried to close the
distance. When I was approximately
thirty yards away from the bulls they
broke up. My bull started walking
right towards me so I took the shot.
The shot was a little far back and high,
but it did the job. The bull went about
seventy yards and went down.
I would like to thank Vinnie, Ryan, and friends for fi lming, scouting, and loading my bull up.
This was a great hunt and I’ll never forget it. My bull was one of the top archery bulls in the state of
Arizona for 2006 and offi cially scored 411 6/8 gross and 393 1/8 net non-typical P&Y.
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