king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated April/May 2008 - Index

40
walked
through the door.
He asked J.J. what was going on
and, after J.J. had given him a brief
summary, he immediately looked
over the top of his reading glasses
and winked at me. He had that Mel
Gillis smile going and I knew then
that I was in good hands. Mel said
that he knew of the herd we had
found and where they were heading.
He explained that earlier in the
season when he was fl ying supplies
to camp, he had noticed the big bulls
in this herd. After a couple of fl ights,
he had a better idea of where they
migrated to and from. Mel said that
none of his hunters or guides had
ever seen this herd and mentioned it,
so he had forgotten about them. We
listened carefully and made a plan.
Mel agreed with J.J. and didn’t think
that the herd would stay where we
had left them. However, he did tell
us how far he thought they would go
to be safe in the dark. There was an
area of level, brushy willows where
we would likely fi nd them at fi rst
light. That was enough for us to start
with and we had two hunting days to
succeed.
The next morning, we
arrived at the brushy willows a bit
late. The area was fl at and spotted
with huge willows – it made sneaking
in on the herd tough. As we snuck
from willow to willow, we would stop
and glass the brushy areas. Moving
along, we caught a glimpse of one
small, lone bull cantering through the
willows away from us. He stopped,
turned around, looked at us, and
faded into the thicket. We were back
in the game.
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After about an hour
of moving back and forth
through the thicket, we
spotted four huge bulls at
about 250 yards. The three
of us huddled together and
watched in amazement as these
huge bulls traversed over an
embankment and out of sight.
Now the bulls were 350 yards
away on a higher elevation and
we could not see them. I knew
that the elevated embankment
that the bulls had just gone over
was the wall of a small river wash.
All of these bulls were exceptional
and I knew that I would take the fi rst bull
that gave me an opportunity.
J.J. started to move and I
followed as we rushed to the embankment.
It was steeper than it appeared and I was
very much out of breath. Steve was
right behind me with the video camera.
J.J. looked through his binos and said,
“I can see them, they’re standing out in
the grass grazing. They’re all Booners.”
I quietly traded positions with J.J.,
crawled fi ve yards to some saplings and
used J.J.’s pack to steady my rifl e. The
wind was blowing a bit harder now and it
was moving from my left to my right. I
carefully scanned the antlers on each bull.
After seconds of private deliberation, the
committee in my head picked a bull that
was about 275 yards away as having the
biggest rack. I quickly looked through
the scope to fi nd the bull and laid the
crosshairs of my Leupold 3.5 X10 Mark
III scope on the middle of his neck. I
never fl inched and saw my bull collapse
in a heap. As I stood up and chambered
another round I heard J.J. yell, “Nice
neck shot!” I was elated.
My husband said
nothing, but as I turned to
him he had a big smile on his
face and the one eye that was
not blocked by the viewfi nder
was about six inches wide.
J.J. quickly moved up to me,
hugged me, and then we both
walked to the downed bull.
As we got closer, the
caribou bull appeared to grow
larger and larger with every
stride.
I could not take my eyes
of the
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off of him for one second. Before I
knew it, I was standing over a very
large and traditionally uniform
Alaskan caribou bull. I reached out to
touch him but, as I did, I heard J.J. say,
“Annette look up.” I spun around to
see the other three bulls looking back
at us. They were standing shoulder
to shoulder perfectly silhouetted
against a blue sky. I stared at them in
amazement of their beauty and grace.
They looked like three kings standing
there with their massive antlers. The
stare lasted only seconds and the
three massive bulls vanished into
the tundra. I regrouped my thoughts
by looking back at J.J. and admiring
the bull on the ground. We took tons
of pictures and video and took the
time to watch the kill shot on Steve’s
camera.
It was not long before we
were back at the lodge and the guys
were eating crow. As we stood there
admiring my caribou and his clearly
larger antlers Mel said, “Okay, boys,
this is what they really look like.” I
could not help but chuckle.
It was a great hunt and I truly
made some great friends and learned
new things about the ones I already
had. Even today, I’m not certain that
the bull that I killed was the largest of
the four. However, my bull offi cially
scored at 481 2/8. He had double
shovels and huge Bez horns. The
antlers were the largest I have ever
seen. One had thirteen points on it
and the other had eleven countable
points. Both the main beams are
about 59 inches long.