A big-framed, clean 6圆 with mass and tine length would be just right.
This was the best place I’d ever hunted, and I wanted to shoot the best bull I could find. Me, I’d shot a few nice solid 6圆-type bulls. Amos would state whether a bull could be taken, based on age, and that was it. Still, after age class, antler class-as measured by Boone & Crockett-is a vital metric by which to discuss a bull. I wasn’t there to shoot inches of antler. He’s much more comfortable talking to elk. In fact, he doesn’t like talking about much of anything with his hunters.
Amos, bless his heart, doesn’t like talking about score with his hunters. Southerners say that as long as you start a comment with “bless their heart,” you can say mean things and get away with it. Usually, not before they gave us time to shoot. As long as we had the wind, we could walk amongst ’em. Understanding illuminated my cranial cobwebs. Clearly, he’d been sure we were a lusty cow or two strolling through his bedroom. Behind us, a young 6圆 bull emerged, stared, and faded reluctantly back into the dark timber. Even intriguing.Īs we passed through a living-room-sized opening in the dog-hair quaken-aspen saplings, a bull bugled-nearly in our back pockets. But I was forgetting two critical bits of information: We were hunting relatively undisturbed elk, and we were in their bedroom during the rut.
We were making such a racket that no self-respecting bull would remain within miles. Two hundred yards in, I was mentally cussing the thicket-like bushes and questioning how badly I must have offended Amos for him to take us into a wild-goose chase as fruitless as this. “We’ll just move into the trees.then work our way slowly down the ridge,” Amos said. I shut the truck door softly, because not-so-distant bugles rang from the north-facing pine and quakie forest below. Early the fourth afternoon, we parked atop a far-reaching alluvial ridge round-shouldered from too many centuries of Utah mountain winds. Amos, my guide, must have decided it was time to deploy an old outfitter’s technique and walk me into a frazzle, into an appreciation of a “representative” bull. And candidly, many bulls in many regions never top 340 inches, no matter how good the cover and browse. Like all elk populations, such were scarce. But I was having fun, and I knew the area held 360-plus bulls. I probably screwed up when I passed on a 330-class bull with awesome tops but miniature brow tines and vestigial thirds. We passed on a couple of underwhelming mature bulls. Management protocol on this free-range paradise dictates no kills on bulls less than eight years old. Long, sweeping beams and long, albeit slender, tines reaching heavenward burn an impression when they walk away unpursued by lead. Passing on 350-class bulls because they are “too young” is unnerving.
380 CLASS BULL ELK FULL
It was Day Four on a vast ranch full of big bulls-elk nirvana. It's never not-fun to shoot a big bull elk.
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