The Second Chance Bull

Here is a story I wrote three years ago about my first branched bull.

Enjoy!

For me, hunting has always been about more than harvesting an animal. It’s about trying to match wits with big game, companionship with friends, and enjoying the land, as wild as the animals that call it home. Despite all the beauty, however, that’s not to say a part of me isn’t disappointed when I don’t harvest or when I spoil the chance of a lifetime. After all, friendship and nature are wonderful, but they don’t fill the freezer! The 2004 general rifle season in Idaho fell in early November and found me wearing a brand new wedding ring, tied down like I’ve never been tied before. But for the sake of my marriage, perhaps I should clarify that it was school that had me tied down. I knew it would be tough to get some days off for the life that I love: elk hunting in the West.

The view from where the bull died - looking back at where I shot from.

Idaho Novembers are pretty unpredictable, as there have been years when I’ve harvested my bull wearing shirtsleeves, and others when I’ve had to build small fires to stay warm through most of the day. This season I was excited to be able to go elk hunting with my cousin and good friend, Cody Waldo for the first time. He’d helped me harvest two deer, but he had never experienced an Idaho elk hunt. Cody lives about fifteen minutes from us, so when he decided to go hunting with me, he came over to spend the night. We lived in a new house, and I didn’t know how long it would take to get from the house to where we wanted to hunt, but I knew I wanted to get there in the dark to hike to a certain spot by first light. That night, however, we had to get the blood pumping by watching video after video of big bulls we’ll only get to dream about while my wife kept reminding us, “It’s getting late, guys!” The alarm clock buzzed on at 3:00 a.m. I rolled over, hardly believing it was really happening, and knowing three-and-a-half hours of sleep was not going to be enough! I went into the next room to wake Cody, which took some doing! We piled into the Jeep around 3:15 and headed north and east towards my secret honey hole. First we had to stop at Jack In The Box where Cody ordered a couple tacos and I got a Jumbo Jack. Yes, there were some strange looks at the drive thru. Apparently not many people dressed in camo order lunch at 3:30 in the morning, but breakfast food just didn’t sound good to us. The further I drove, the more I realized we were going to get there in plenty of time. When we drove by the house I grew up in, I glanced at the clock and noted the time. Maybe 3:00 was a bit extreme and I hoped Cody wouldn’t be too upset that he had to wake up a measly 1 ½ hours earlier than he had to. Sure enough, as I pulled onto the gravel road that would lead us to our destination, I glanced at the clock - 4:45. Half an hour later, we were parked on the side of the road waiting for predawn. Cody, wisely, went back to sleep, but I stayed awake, not wanting to oversleep.

So it was, opening morning was here and it found us battling brush in the dark. I’ve long believed that I hold the keys to a secret place that is unknown to hunters. Hunters are plentiful in the area, but this certain canyon has been void of hunters ever since they closed logging roads to all motorized vehicles. Of that, I was thankful. To a far away observer we would have appeared as two tiny bobbing lights in the darkness as we climbed higher into the dark morning with flashlights leading the way. I’m very familiar with the area, so when we reached the edge of timber, we shut our lights off. It’s funny how things look different in the dark. Suddenly I decided maybe I wasn’t all that familiar with the area. We stumbled ahead, anyways, till I ran into the trail I was looking for. From there, it was smooth sailing. A fresh snow dusted the ground just enough to make everything white. Visibility was good as the morning was breaking with a few clouds over head, but still – a beautiful morning. As we reached the ridge, we sat and looked over the valley below us. Far away the small community of Indian Valley was dotted with barely visible houses. C Ben Ross Reservoir was a puddle of blue/grey in the hazy distance. On the other side of the ridge was a basin that opened up with welcoming arms, but I knew it to be deceitfully treacherous. The mountain across the basin was home to a lookout tower; the basin itself was well timbered and usually full of elk. Cody glassed the side of the mountain and spotted a nice herd of elk. Among the countless cows, Cody finally said, “There’s a bull there, Tom. Looks like a rag horn.” We decided then that if the two saddles that were my secret honey hole didn’t produce any elk, we would circle the head of the basin and side hill around to those elk feeding about a mile two miles away. It would be mid-afternoon by the time we would get there, but we knew the elk wouldn’t be going anywhere. We crept slowly along, careful to keep ourselves below the skyline.

We began the walk across the barren openness and had gotten halfway through it when Cody grabbed my coat and hissed, “Elk!” My eyes lifted to the opposite side of the saddle, still about 200 yards away and promptly dropped to my knees. Looking through the scope, I made out the little spikes. I had shot two elk in my lifetime, both spikes, and I debated with Cody. I knew that there were a lot of elk in this area, and we had seen the rag horn across the basin, too, but eventually the opportunity being in front of me was too much for me to pass up on, and I settled in for the shot. Just as I was getting ready to squeeze off the shot, Cody wheezed, “Wait!” I could feel the excitement in his voice and then he whispered, “Oh my word, there’s a big bull, Tom! That’s a 300 class bull!” My heart nearly stopped and I looked down hill from the now restless spike. Sure enough, after a few cows wandered out to the open hillside, I saw the massive bull. Our good look told us we were staring at the bull of a lifetime. I already had this bull tagged and on the wall as I never even dreamed it possible to miss a 200 yard shot at a bull broadside. I settled in and tried to get comfortable. The bull was moving slowly, so I decided I’d set the cross hairs in front of him and let him walk into them. As the bull was nearing my cross hairs, I felt myself fire too soon. I knew I was doing it, yet I was powerless to stop myself. I couldn’t believe it! The herd jerked into higher gear at the sound of the shot, but the bull still wasn’t running. He just quickened his pace a little bit and I jacked another shell in, glad to have another chance. I settled the cross hairs again and just as he walked into the scope, I watched myself make the same mistake again! As soon as I pulled the trigger, I knew I had pulled too early again. This time the bull, and the rest of the herd, kicked it into high gear and they got out of sight before I could try for a third shot. I was shocked into a painful disappointment in myself. I don’t expect to ever get a chance at another bull like that in my lifetime. Cody didn’t have to say anything, but I knew he felt my disappointment, and then he just said, “We better check for blood.” Knowing we wouldn’t find any, we crossed the saddle and tramped around the hill anyway, then we followed the bull’s tracks into the timber for as long as we could, but as expected, we never saw a hint of blood. I knew I’d missed my chance.

The rest of the day we saw fresh sign everywhere we went, and we even bumped into the herd we had spotted earlier in the morning, but never did see another bull. Also, we found out that the basin is quite a bit higher than where we’d first started as the snow on the north slope was waist deep in places. We found a fresh rub where the tree had been hit eight or nine feet high. It was things like that that kept us going through the giant drifts that chilled us to the bone. The next day was to be the last I could take off from school but Cody had to leave, so my brother came up and joined me. When we woke up the next morning, the fog had rolled in so thick that visibility was cut to thirty yards. We stuck it out and hiked the same area as Cody and I had the previous day, but the elk were holed up and waiting for the storm to ease. The sky spit snow and rain and wind, but we put in a full day. At one point the weather got so bitter cold that we finally gave in and built a small fire that my brother was so proud of. With wet rain and snow coating everything, he took great pride in getting his fire started! Me, I was a little disappointed it took so long! We hunted the dark timber, with the cold rain and sleet setting a depressing tone for the day. Fog boiled in and out of canyons and every time I tilted my head back, rain that had collected in my hat brim would run down my back. We battled brush and never saw hide nor hair of an elk and when we met again, soaked to the bone and shivering with cold, we decided we were idiots to continue this madness! It looked like the end of the season for me.

Tuesday was the last day of the season and Monday morning broke clear and sunny. I got excited and let my love for elk hunting override my discipline to go to school. On Monday, I informed all my professors that I wouldn’t be there the next day and when I got home I made a phone call to Cody. “Hey, the weather is clearing up, the elk will probably be on the move again. You feel up to going tomorrow morning?” As always is the case, Cody was more than ready to go hunting and fifteen minutes later he was at our house and we were planning our hunt.

We woke up at 4:00 a.m. this time. See, we were learning already! I kissed my wife goodbye, and Cody and I were on the road to the same spot as before. As we climbed into the mountains, we saw that more fresh snow had just lightly dusted everything, but the important thing to us was that we could still see the stars overhead. All we were asking for was one last clear day. Again, we headed up the hill in the dark, our flashlights leading the way. When we were about a half-mile in, we came across the tracks of a cow and a calf. We smiled. This was going to be a good day. We shut our flashlights off as the first streaks of dawn appeared. We reached the edge of a clear cut and opted to hike straight up the middle of it rather than skirting around the edges as I normally do. We were halfway through the logged off hill when I stopped sudden in my tracks and grabbed Cody’s arm. “Elk!” I whispered. Cody started to get his spotting scope out, while I lifted my rifle, “A bull!” I hissed. Then after I continued looking, I whispered, “A branched bull, Cody!” He stood up and abandoned the spotting scope idea and ranged the elk at 220 yards away. “You sure it’s a bull?” Cody questioned. I was positive of that much, but Cody hadn’t gotten a look at it through any type of optics yet and he was probably questioning our good fortune as much as anything! Cody then thought of getting a rest set up to shoot off, but as we started to get the pack situated to shoot off of, I lifted my rifle again, and as I looked, the bull, startled by my sudden movement in lifting the rifle, jumped into gear. I didn’t have time to bother with a rest now as he was near the tree line and just getting into his full run when I answered him, “You better believe it is!” And I let go with my shot. The split second when the recoil caused me to lose sight of the bull made me wonder briefly if I had scored a hit or if the bull simply disappeared through the trees. Cody let me know the score, “You got him!” He jumped and gave me a big hug. This is what I love about hunting with Cody. It is awesome to have a hunting partner that is as excited as you are when you shoot a bull. We packed our gear and headed up the hill to claim our bull. I could hardly keep up with Cody as he climbed quickly through the same brush we’d struggled through just a few days earlier. When we came up to him, we saw he was a big 5 X 5. I had to take a moment to really let this soak in. I know a lot of people have shot bigger bulls in their lives, but in my eyes, this bull was the granddaddy of them all.

My Idaho 5 x 5 with the rising sun in the background.

My cousin, guide, and friend, Cody Waldo, with the bull.

Admiring the valley before we head out with meat on our backs!

It was still early in the day but as we started quartering the bull, we were mentally thinking about the pack out. It was a short pack – about a mile and a half – but we still weren’t real thrilled with the idea of making two trips. We had the quarters, back strap, tenderloins, and all the rib and neck meat we wanted when we started distributing it between packs. We loaded both packs as heavy as we could then put them on to test the weight. One thing we had going for us was that it was downhill to the Jeep. We decided to give it a go, but made it only about one hundred yards when our legs wanted to collapse. We stopped and rested. Cody leaned back on his pack, which just seemed natural, but after I stood up, I looked at Cody and he was completely powerless to get on his feet! There was no way he was going to get up on his own, so I offered him a hand and away we went again. This time we went about four hundred yards, and exhausted again, we rested. This time, I leaned back, and as soon as I did I knew I was the idiot! But it still felt good to get the weight off of my shoulders. Cody got up then and had to give me a hand after I tried desperately to right myself on my own. Cody said I looked like a turtle trying to flip from its back to its feet. We had a laugh about our insanity, but vowed to make it the rest of the way without resting. We finally broke through the brush and saw the Jeep in front of us and as soon as we got to it we dropped our packs with a weary excitement. During most of the drive home we argued how much the packs weighed, with numbers coming out of our mouths like 200 pounds and such foolishness. So, we decided to stop at my mom and dad’s house and weigh the packs on the meat hook. With some boost to our ego, we saw that the packs weighed 138 and 125 pounds. With the freezer assured of being full this year, we could sit back and enjoy the memories of another great hunt.

Two heavy packs in a good place - off our backs and next to the Jeep!