Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting An accounting of 4 Idaho bulls

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Matt and I double up

The night I returned from killing the buck it continued to snow. Every time I woke up to stoke the fire or take a leak, I could hear the unmistakable sound of snow hitting the tarp over the wall-tent. About 4 o’clock in the morning I rolled over to see Matt sitting on his bunk with a rather concerned look on his face. “What’s up bud” I asked? “Uuuhhhh….I think we might be snowed in back here” he replied. I poked my head out of the tent and was greeted with a foot of snow outside and still more coming down. We had about a 2,000’ pass to get over to get back to lower country and paved roads. While I wasn’t ready to hit the panic button just yet, it was indeed cause for concern. We both had chains for our tires if it came to that, but that’s always my last line of defense and I certainly didn’t want to have to go that route if I didn’t have to. “Let’s sleep in and assess the situation after the sun comes up” I said. Everything is better and easier in the light of day.

It was still snowing after a hearty breakfast and a few cups of coffee, but it seemed to be tapering off at least. Since we had missed the morning hunt anyway, we decided to run into town for a shower and pizza. A drive that normally takes a couple of hours stretched to almost four this time, but slipping and sliding we made our way back to town. It was a bit of a perilous trek, but worth the reward.



Our return drive later that afternoon revealed plenty of fresh tracks in the new snow. Critters were on the move, and we returned to camp with high hopes for the day that followed. It snowed a couple more inches in the night, but we had no problem getting to the ridgetop we wanted to hike out the following morning. It just felt “elky” as we made our way out the ridge towards the intended glassing area. My spider-senses were tingling and I told Matt I wanted to slow-hunt our way into the basin we were initially headed for. I had a hunch we might bump into something a little sooner that morning. Then again, the trail we were walking was covered in fresh tracks so it didn’t take a whole lot of smarts to connect the dots to that possibility.

We were about two miles in when it became possible to glass the open, snowy hillsides for game. It was still too dark to shoot, but there was enough light that a deer or elk standing in an open area could be detected with glass for the light (snowy) background. I was looking at a hillside below us when Matt said, “I’ve got a couple of cows”. I didn’t even know he had his glass out, and I turned around to see where he was looking. As it happens, he was looking straight ahead at our elevation, where the trail wrapped around a small finger-ridge. Sure enough in the darkness of some brush, I could make out a few elk milling around seemingly unaware of our presence only a couple of hundred yards away. We both took a seat in the snow, and I got set up on the sticks as quickly as possible. We watched them for a good five minutes before I was finally able to identify a bull. It was getting lighter by the minute and I could tell we were going to get a shot if they didn’t bust us during the wait.

After a few minutes I could finally see the bull sufficiently well enough to get a shot, but he was absolutely blanketed by cows. He wasn’t a monster, but we was approaching 300” and it was a bull I really, really wanted to shoot. Ten minutes later and he still hadn’t cleared the cows he was bunched up with. Worse still, we were both shivering at this point. We had been hiking in just our baselayer shirts. That was fine on the move, but sitting in a foot of snow for 15-20 minutes had us both freezing our giblets off. Matt whispered that he was going to try and pull his coat out of the bag. The second he started reaching for it, a cow began staring holes through us and I hissed at him to stop. She finally went back to feeding and he started moving again only to have her lift her head and stare at us again. We played this cat and mouse game for another five minutes until he finally had his coat out and on. I was happy he was going to keep hypothermia at bay, but it was clear to me I had to get a shot off and soon, or they were going to bust us for real.

The bigger bull still wasn’t clear of the cows, and my frustration was growing by the second. I was (foolishly) considering trying to thread the needle with a shot to the base of the head, when a smaller 4x5 emerged from a hidden cut below and began walking directly at us. I turned and asked Matt if he wanted to shoot him, but he graciously declined and told me to “go ahead”. It wasn’t the bull I had been dreaming about for 12 months, but it was a bull…on public land…in an OTC unit with low success rates that I was confident I could get a good shot on. Finally, it was only two miles from the truck, which would make it the easiest bull to extract I have ever killed in that country. I flipped the safety off and slowly squeezed the trigger. I lost sight of him at the recoil, and elk began scattering like a covey of quail.

I rolled out of the way and told Matt to take the gun. He had his own rifle at hand of course, but I knew he hadn’t chambered a round or even taken the scope covers off during the Mexican stand-off we had just endured. He quickly slid behind my .280 and began trying to pick up the now, moving 6x. Unfortunately, that bull stayed tight to the cows as the herd began retreating in earnest down the hill. I pointed out a spike standing all alone just below the first bull I had shot at. Matt drew a bead and let one go in short order. The spike collapsed at the shot and just that quickly it was over.

We hustled over towards where my bull was standing at the shot, and quickly found him down the hill about 80 yards piled up against a log. I am eternally grateful he hit that downed snag, or he might still be sliding down the hill and my hopes for an easy pack out gone with him. Here is a photo of Matt laughing at our good fortune and wondering how we’re going to get him turned for processing…



Matt’s spike was below my bull straight down the hill another 100 yards. Packing quarters is never an easy task, but all things considered I was giddy about the relative ease by which we’d be getting these two out. Matt’s spike isn’t quite as small as it looks in this photo I swear. No spike is huge of course, but this one is a lot more “average” than it appears. Matt is 6’4” and about 240 pounds, so everything looks small next to him. I sent the picture to a mutual friend of ours that replied with, “Does this Sasquatch make my elk look small?”…



My bull was a hard quartering-to shot, and I was thrilled to find the remnants of the 160 Accubond just forward of the offside, rear quarter when we started breaking him down. It had penetrated 3-4’ of elk and held together nicely at a range of 250 yards.





It was a steep hike back up the hill to the trail, but a relatively flat two miles back to the truck from there. We’d make two trips that first day, and two the day that followed. The snow had us stepping with care, but we extracted both bulls without incident.



to be continued….
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