Solo Elk Success: My First Bull

“I’ve never felt so accomplished in my hunting career.” I thought to myself, overwhelmed with the excitement of having just taken my first elk, a fine bull. 

It was mid-day on the Montana Deer and Elk rifle opener as I sat on the couch trying to figure out my next move. I had hunted hard that morning and resisted the urge to fill one of my two whitetail doe tags in the first five minutes of the season. There was too much to look forward to on opening morning, and I didn’t want to disrupt the stillness filling a doe tag. 

I got home around noon to take the dogs out for a walk, buying myself more time to devise a plan for that afternoon. I was soon overwhelmed with the urge to get out and hunt again and did something I wouldn’t normally do before leaving. I gave the dogs each a half cup of food. They never eat more than twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. But Sage whined, seemingly knowing that I’d better feed them now. This whine isn’t abnormal for her, but it is abnormal for me not to ignore her. I left the house and got into my 4Runner without a plan. 

I had a direction, though, North into the plains. Since I would be alone this evening and Abbie was hours away coaching the local cross-country team, I wanted to stay out of grizzly country. I knew that if I did get something down today, it would require multiple trips to the carcass in the dark, something I’d much rather do outside their home range instead of deep in it. 

I’m not necessarily scared of grizzlies, but I respect them and try not to put myself in any situation that may get me in trouble. 

I still had no idea where I was headed as I left town. I made turns on my own without any thought. Soon my spots were narrowed down even further. The first spot I’d be passing is one of the most hunted pieces of public land as it is closer to town than any of the others. It was sure to be crowded on the opener, I thought. 

My coworker’s wife had seen a herd of elk on this piece of land while riding her horses the weeks prior. The first time she saw them and told us, I thought they were probably just passing through. The second time though, made me believe that they might spend more time in there than I thought. Besides, the area did hold mule deer, too. And I had a tag for them as well.

As I crested the hill, I was shocked to see that the first parking lot was empty. I hadn’t committed to this spot yet but was considering it. The next parking spot for this area doubles as a shooting range and was more likely to have people parked there. None. I couldn’t believe it. I guess I’ll go here and see if I can find any fresh signs. Maybe I’ll be able to see how much time that elk herd spends in here. I turned around and parked at the first pull-off.

The truth is, I always want to go to this spot and spend time. But something in the back of my head always convinced me that my time would be better spent elsewhere. 

It had been raining for at least the last 24 hours, making the country a complete mess. I slipped and slid my way through the junipers into a small sage flat. There were a few old sets of deer tracks there, but nothing worth pursuing. I still had a lot of area to cover and was not discouraged. 

I crossed an old dried-up creekbed and worked my way up and around a point, reminding myself to go slow and glass often. The next valley was thick and had minimal elk sign. All of the sign was days old, but it did confirm that they spent time there. 

The next valley looked really good. From my guess, the herd was there the night before. The tracks were slightly washed out but not completely. A herd of 8 or 9 cows, I thought. I followed those tracks until they hit the fence that marked private property. I guess it won’t happen today. 

As I walked the fence line, I noticed one set of tracks headed in the opposite direction. This set was fresher than the rest, possibly from that morning. The tracks were slightly bigger and a little less round than the others, a bull. The tracks were headed north, and I had about a third of a mile to go before hitting the northern boundary of this section of public land. It was a stretch, but it may be enough. I admittedly wasn’t that optimistic, but what other plan did I have? 

I didn’t follow the tracks one by one. I looked at the terrain, walked where I thought the elk would, and looked down every 25 yards. Sometimes I lost the tracks but always picked them back up further along. 

A herd of mule deer jumped from under a juniper and skylined themselves, they were about 80 yards, and I scoped them to verify that none of them had antlers. All doe. Exciting nonetheless. I could probably come back here the week of Thanksgiving, I thought. During the rut, there will be a buck with this herd.

At this point, I was covered in mud and pretty well worn out. I had one more hill to crest and debated, just making my way back to the vehicle. If I crested this hill, I would look into a valley I had never been in before. The middle of the valley was the northern boundary of this area. If I found something over this hill, I would have to double and triple-check that it was on public land, and if it was, it would be a close shot.

Curiosity won out. The simple fact that I hadn’t yet looked into this valley before was enough to get me to want to see it. 

I climbed the 80 ft to the saddle and slowly walked, looking down into the valley. Something caught my eye. 

“Holy shit, that’s a bull!” I said out loud. 

I pulled up my binoculars to verify. Sure enough, it was.

The bull was bedded 320 yards away on the opposing hill staring right at me. After looking him over for a few seconds, I realized I needed to make a move as he was watching me. I panned my binoculars around some more, put them in my harness, and turned around, walking in the direction I came. My thought was that he definitely saw me, but now he would think I didn’t see him or wasn’t interested in him at all. 

As soon as I had a large juniper between me and him, I sat down in the mud. I searched until I found a small hole in the juniper bush that allowed me to watch him while the bush still concealed me. It worked! He wasn’t even looking in my direction anymore and wasn’t as alert as he had been. I finally had a chance to study him. 

He was a good 5×5 and would be a perfect first elk, I thought. He was within the range I felt comfortable shooting, but he was on private land. Damnit. 

There were a few hours left before dark, and I planned to sit and watch him until that time. I couldn’t make a move now, but maybe something would happen.

The rain continued to come down steadily, making it impossible to hear anything but my rain gear. While watching him, I had to rest my eyes frequently. Every time I pulled my binoculars back up there was a moment my heart would stop wondering if he slipped away or not in that brief break.

He’s standing up!

After an hour of watching him through the hole in the juniper, he slowly stood up out of his bed and looked around. It felt like minutes passed as I waited for him to take that first step that would indicate what direction he was headed.

Holy shit, he’s headed this way! I said out loud to myself.

And then it happened. My body began to shake uncontrollably with excitement. Legs, arms, hands, everything. I’m going to kill a bull today, I said to myself, thinking that would calm me down. It did just the opposite.

He worked his way slowly down the opposite side of the valley, headed right for me. I grabbed my rifle and tried to work into a better position that would allow me to see the bottom that he was headed to. My rain gear made so much noise that I thought for sure the gig was up. Every branch and twig I brushed up against sounded amplified.

He was in the bottom now, 150 yards away, and I had a perfectly clear shot at him. There was one problem. There was no fenceline to identify the private land boundary. I had no way to tell if he was on public or private land. If he went another 50 yards, he would be in the thick junipers up close and personal with me. But I couldn’t shoot at risk it.

The adrenaline was still going as I tried to get my breathing under control. I laid on my back on the steep hillside with my rifle pointed down the trail that I thought he was on. My rifle rested on my knees, and my finger was ready to take the safety off. If he came up this trail, my shot would be a frontal one at less than 10 yards.

I waited and waited, but nothing. Do I stand up and see where he’s at? 

I did just that, frantically scanning the tops of the junipers while also checking back on the trail. There he was. His wet antlers had a brownish-red color that had a slight shine to them, and it was all I could see over the tops of the vegetation. He was inside 50 yards, and I couldn’t even see his body. 

I was above him, and he was headed uphill. The wind was blowing across in the direction that he was headed. If he made it another 75 yards, he would probably wind me and disappear over the ridge. He continued on.

This is it.

My heart was pounding as he stood broadside at 80 yards. My rifle’s safety was off, and its crosshairs danced over his body. A juniper branch was right in front of his vitals, and I debated sending one through it. There was no way of knowing if that branch was right up against him or 20 yards in front of him, so I held off. 

He took a step up the bank next to him, starting to walk away from me. That step presented me with a quartering-away shot that would really test my 270’s capabilities. The world slowed down as I pulled the trigger. The shot rang out, and my rifle recoiled like it always does, except this time, I watched my first bull elk drop in my scope. A moment I will never forget.

Chaos ensued…

If that was my adrenaline before, what was this? My body shook more than ever before as I tried to gather my gear and simultaneously call my wife to let her know I had a bull down. A call that she later told me that she didn’t understand a word of it due to my heavy breathing but pieced together that I had killed something. 

I sprinted toward the elk for no other reason than I couldn’t slow my body down. Tripping and sometimes falling into junipers that were so thick that I wasn’t touching the ground. When I got to the bull, he was dead. I sat down to take in what happened and let my body calm down, I had a lot of work ahead of me.

I pulled my phone out to take a few pictures and realized my battery was at 5%. I took three pictures to remember the moment and got a text off to my cousin Tyler, that lived two-and-a-half hours away. The text had my coordinates and a simple statement, “Bull down.”

I figured Tyler would be out hunting himself and didn’t expect him to be able to help. We had made an agreement at the beginning of the season that we would help each other pack meat out if we could. The stipulations were that we wouldn’t abandon our hunts in that situation. My phone died before I got a response from him.

I was overwhelmed with excitement and can honestly say there are few times in my life that I’ve been more happy than in that moment.

My knife split the hide straight down the backbone, and I peeled the hide away from his right side, exposing the muscle groups that would guide me in quartering him up. With one hoove propped up on my shoulder, I cut the hind quarter free and was immediately overcome by the weight of it. Moving this up the muddy hillside to put on my tarp and in my game bags was going to be a challenge in itself. I wrestled it into place and hung it in a tree under a large branch to help protect it from the rain. I was exhausted, soaking wet and cold, but I was as happy as I could be. Three more to go, I thought.

I sat for a minute and took a sip of gin from my flask, one that has been on every hunting and fishing trip with me for the past few years. I had found it in the woods while high country mule deer hunting with my dad and had it engraved with an original Winchester engraving pattern of a whitetail buck. This flask was only reserved for those special moments after a kill, and shared with those who took part in it.

As it grew dark, I finished the last bit of processing under my headlamp. I was happy to not be in Grizzly country, as I’d be making multiple trips back to the carcass tonight to haul meat. All in all, I would probably need to make 4 or 5 trips to get everything. I would just take it slow and enjoy the process.

The first load was the head, neck meat, backstraps, loins, and other bits and pieces that weren’t attached to the four quarters. This load was probably around 80-90 lbs if I had to guess, but I only had a mile to go.

The hike out was uneventful other than getting turned around multiple times and making a circle or two. My phone was dead, so I couldn’t reference my phone mapping, and the overcast and rain made it impossible to identify and prominent peaks or hills. It was kind of a guess. 

Once I got myself straightened out, I found my way back to the vehicle. About 100 yards from my vehicle, I see a truck slow up and pull in behind mine, with “X Gonna Give it To Ya” by DMX blaring on the stereo. It was Tyler. And that song was our unofficial pack-out song of the year. A couple of months earlier, Tyler and I left work early to go help his brother Mason pack out his Archery bull. We met up and drove to Mason’s location, blaring the same song as he got to his truck with his first load of meat.

Tyler jumped out of the truck to congratulate me and helped load what I had into the 4Runner. I plugged my phone in, and the texts started to come in from everywhere, asking if everything was alright because they hadn’t heard from me. After a short break and cold beer, we headed back in to start the rest of the pack-out. 

When we got to the kill site, Tyler came up with the worst idea in a long time. “I think we can do it in one trip,” he said while looking at the four quarters left. The worst part is that I went with it. After all, I felt invincible, having just taken my first elk.

We loaded a hind quarter and front shoulder in our packs and started up the hill through the mud. We never weighed our packs, but our guess is that we were carrying anywhere from 180-200 lbs each on our backs. This is a fair amount considering we weigh somewhere between 160 and 180 lbs. It went slow, but we made it and agreed never to let each other do that again, as our backs were in bad shape. It was 10 pm, and we were hungry.

When we got back to the house, my wife Abbie had dinner ready for us, and we celebrated with some beers. It is truly a day that I will never forget, and that high lasted for a couple of months. It wasn’t over, though. My wife and I still had some tags to fill, though, and had five weeks left to hunt.

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