Dad's Dream Fall

[bigsky2]

When I heard the moose, sheep, and goat results were out in June, I immediately logged on to the FWP website to see if I had gotten lucky. As usual, all of my applications were unsuccessful. I texted all of my closest friends to see if any of them had drawn, and of course they hadn't either. I then decided to check my dad's account, and while scrolling through the results I had to do a double take. He had drawn a moose permit for one of the tougher units to draw in the state. I immediately called my dad and gave him the good news. As soon as I got off the phone with my dad, I told one of my best friends, Shane, that my dad had drawn the tag. He offered to come on the hunt, and I said we would be happy to have him along.

Throughout the summer I talked to other HT members about the unit and was able to gather some valuable information. Shane and I decided to spend a long weekend scouting the unit in August. When we arrived, we found the area covered with smoke from all the forest fires. Some drainages had ok visibility while others were terrible. We still managed to see a couple hundred head of elk, three black bears, and 5 moose. Three of the moose were bulls, but none were shooters. Either way, just spending time in the area got us more excited for the hunt.







On top of drawing a once in a lifetime moose tag, my dad and his college buddy Tom had drawn Arizona archery elk tags after 18 years of applying. The Arizona season coincided with the first two weeks of the moose season, so we weren't able to do the moose hunt until the first week of October. Not wanting to miss out on an elk hunt I will likely never be able to draw, I went down to Arizona for the first week of their season. We had a great hunt, and Tom and Dad were both able to take nice bulls while I was there. The rut activity was insane, and the terrain was a lot easier on the legs than what I am used to in Montana.




Tom's Bull


Dad's Bull

 

[duckhunt]

Thats great. Your dad is having an awsome fall.

 

[MT_elk]

Congrats on two great Bulls!

 

[Bowhuntrben]

I think "nice" is an understatement for those bulls...great story so far..hoping to hear about a successful moose hunt too

 

[bigsky2]

I had to get through a week of anticipation at work, and then we were off on the moose hunt. We got to the unit on a Saturday and set up camp. That afternoon, Shane and I went looking for moose while Dad and his friend went another direction. Shane and I saw this bull as well as a couple other small bulls and a cow.





When we got back to camp, my dad said he had found a note in his tent. Prior to going out of service, I had told Heath where we would be camped and told him to stop by if he was in the area. Apparently his same friend was back in the area and had seen the big bull again. Heath told him where we were camped, and he had left the note in our tent saying he saw the same bull come into the same drainage it was in two weeks before. He also wrote where he was camped. It was already late at night, but I knew if we waited until the next day to go talk to him then the bull could be long gone by the time we went looking for it. Shane and I made the drive to the guy's camp, and he told us all about the bull and exactly where he had seen it. From talking to him we could tell he spent a lot of time in the unit and had seen a lot of bull moose, so we trusted his judgment that it was a bull worth spending some time looking for.

The following morning Shane, Dad, and I all went to the drainage where the big bull had been. Shane spotted a bull moose a long ways off, but before he could get his spotting scope on it the bull was out of sight. I had also seen the moose, and it was headed toward a saddle where the bull had been the previous day. Even though we didn't get a good enough look to see what it was, we decided we better hike across the drainage to a knob that would provide a better vantage point of where the bull was. We made the long hike over there only to have a snow storm blow in and ruin any chance of seeing the bull.

 

[Crumb]

Wow fantastic elk that 7 point is one dreams are made of.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

This is shaping up to be an awesome hunt already!

 

[bigsky2]

The bad weather would be a recurring theme for the next couple days. Between rain, snow, and low hanging clouds, we either couldn't get to the areas we wanted to, or we couldn’t see anything once we got there. Dad's friend had to leave, so from then on out I would hunt with Dad while Shane would elk hunt in moosey areas. Shane went to the big bull's hangout the next day while Dad and I tried going to a higher basin where Shane and I had seen all the moose on our summer scouting trip. When we were just about to where we planned on hiking from, another storm rolled in and we were forced to turn around. We ended up seeing a small bull and a cow and calf on the way back to camp. Shane reported that he hadn't seen any moose in the drainage where the big bull had been seen a few days before. Even so, dad and I decided to go back again the next day. When Dad and I arrived at our glassing spot, we spotted a cow right away. Then another, then another, then another, then a small bull, then a bigger bull appeared. He had a nice wide frame and some cool points. His paddles weren't very big, but he was still the biggest bull we had seen up to this point. He wasn't what we were looking for, but it was reassuring knowing that many cows were congregated in the spot where the big bull had been before. If he was still around, he might show himself again.



Sandhills were everywhere



That evening, Dad and I went to another moosey area that Shane and I had looked at in the summer. In August it was full of cattle and we didn't see a single moose there, but it looked to good to ignore. As we settled in to glass for the evening, several herds of elk fed their way out of the aspens. The bulls bugled constantly and put on a show for the next couple of hours. I spotted a moose far across the drainage, but it was back in the timber before I could get a scope on it. That evening we told Shane about the elk, and we agreed that he should go hunt elk there the next morning and hopefully see the moose again. Dad and I would go back and continue to look for the bull we had started calling "the Phantom".



Dad and I found the cows from the day before. The bull that was with them the day before was nowhere to be seen, and another smaller bull had moved in. The "decoys" were still there. When we got back to the pickup, Shane was waiting for us. He said he had a good morning hunting elk, and he had also found a bull moose that he thought was worth another look. It was bedded with a cow and a calf, so he didn't think they would go far. We thought we better go back in there and take a look. Once again it rained that afternoon making for poor visibility, but we were able to take advantage of the windows between rain clouds. Finally Dad spotted the bull just a little ways from where Shane had left them in the morning. He had double brows on each side and better paddles than anything we had seen, but Dad decided he wasn't quite big enough to go after. We watched him chase off another small bull.


Bonus shed


Trying to glass through the clouds

As we were hiking out of the drainage, an elk bugled right over the rise from us. He was close and coming our way so Shane and I each hit the deck. A few seconds later the cows' heads started appearing out of the sagebrush. The bull was off to the side and he walked to within 25 yards of Shane and stood there for a few minutes as the lead cow stared me down. As luck would have it, Shane didn't bring his bow that night since he thought there was a good chance we were going to shoot the moose. That is my dad's bow he is holding in the picture with the shed horn, and I was carrying it when we ran into the elk.



The elk that walked up on us

 

[bigsky2]

We were seeing an average of 8 moose a day, so we thought it was just a matter of time before we found a good bull.



Once again Dad and I found ourselves staring into the drainage where we were hoping the phantom bull would turn up. We had been there about an hour when Dad spotted a small bull. He pointed out where the small bull was at and as I was scanning the area trying to find him a big bull stepped out of the aspens and into my view. "That’s him! Holy sh** that's a big bull."Dad says, "No, that’s just a small one." I told him to look 50 yards to the left of the smaller bull and as soon as he sees the big bull he says, "Lets go, there's no reason to look at him any longer".

He was about a mile away across the drainage so it took us a while to get over there. The moose were in a tributary creek that ran into the main drainage, and we had to get on the opposite side of the creek where we would have a higher vantage point to see down into the timber. When we got to the ridge overlooking the aspen patch where the moose had been, I spotted a cow feeding in the timber. The big bull was nowhere to be seen. Pretty soon there was a small bull next to the cow. I was worried that we had taken to long to get over there and the big bull had already left the country looking for another cow. He wouldn't tolerate a small bull next to his cow if he was still in the area. We kept climbing the ridge to get a better vantage. We spotted another small bull next to the other two moose. I looked further up the creek and spotted another cow bedded in the timber. The other moose were also starting to bed down. We thought our only chance was to sit there on the ridge and hope he stepped out somewhere. I picked out a paddle in the timber next to the lone bedded cow. It was him, and he was bedded down about 270 yards away. We settled in on the top of the ridge and hoped he would present a shot when he got out of his bed.


The tip of his paddle I spotted in the timber


The bull was laying on the other side of the opening in the top center of the picture

We could never get a real clear view of his antlers, but every once in a while he would move his head enough to give us a different look. This was the face my dad gave me when he finally got a decent look at one of the bull's paddles.

 

[bigsky2]

After three long hours, the bull finally got up. Unfortunately, when he got up he didn’t even hesitate to take off running without ever giving Dad a shot. There must have been another bull nearby that we couldn't see. We kept getting glimpses of him moving along the ridge but he never went through any openings. His cow got up and he eventually came back. They ended up in a thick patch of pines and aspens for about an hour. I could see the cow feeding, but the bull was out of sight. We could hear him grunting and see the top of the aspen tree that he was rubbing on. After a while I spotted two small bulls working their way up the bottom of the creek towards the bull and his cow. They were in a fairly open area and one of the bulls was grunting. Finally, the big bull couldn't take it anymore and he stepped out of the timber to chase the small bulls off. He was starting to go away from us so I grunted at him a few times to get him to stop. He stopped but he was facing straight away and directly behind a tree. When he started moving again he was quartering away and Dad quickly hit him behind the shoulder. He didn't go down right away, so Dad gave him another one and the bull tumbled down the hill and came to rest behind a pine tree. I stayed up on the ridge to keep an eye on him while Dad crossed the drainage and walked over to the bull. Dad gave me the thumbs up when he got over to the bull to let me know he was down for good. When I got over to the bull, Dad was standing there in amazement admiring the bull. He completely dwarfed any other bull we had seen.







We took some photos and then managed to get about half of the bull cut up and off the ground. We got some logs under him and decided the rest would have to wait until morning when he had Shane and hopefully some more reinforcements for the pack out.

 

[Carnage2011]

That is an epic fall! Congrats to your dad on a couple of great bulls.

 

[Elkhunter24]

awesome story and thanks for sharing!

 

[noharleyyet]

What a season...glad you got to share it with your dad.

 

[MNHunter]

What a great fall! Congrats to your pops!

 

[BlakeA]

Awesome! Congrats and thanks for sharing

 

[Trial153]

Excellent, thanks for posting!

 

[buckbull]

Wow, 2 lifetime hunts in 1 season. Congrats!

 

[el unit]

Incredible elk and moose! Big bulls for sure!

 

[Pagosa]

An amazing hunt, photos, and great time afield with your dad and your friend. That is an excellent moose. Enjoy your trophies and the fine eating moose/elk meat. Looks like beautiful country.

 

[480/277y]

Epic indeed. Just wow!