This year my pops surprised me with a gifted guided hunt. So the search was on to find something to do. We try hunt together every year, but since moving to CO I have not actually carried a tag at the same time as him due to me having several elk points as a resident and him having none as a non-res.

I really did not want to do a guided hunt in my home state, but with the addition of the baby this year, I needed to stay somewhat close to home; and we did not want to burn a ton of WY elk points since Dad just had a hip replacement, and may not be in the best physical shape. We booked the hunt early this year, and had no way of knowing what his physical abilities were going to be by this fall.

So we booked with Dan at Rockin' R Outfitters for the first 5 days of the CO Muzzleloader season. Dad drew a mz tag, and i took an OTC archery tag for the ranch in GMU-70. They hunt several private ranches and have permits for the national forest, so we could chase them into the public dirt if needed.

The lodge was great, food was excellent, and 7 of the 8 hunters in camp punched a tag.

We were into elk from the jump the first morning. The bulls were vocal, but would not really come into our calling. We got fairly close, but could not coax them out of their thick cover. We hunted the mornings until the elk went to bed, then back to the lodge until later in the afternoon so we could go and try and catch them before dark.

During the break on the first day, I was shooting on the archery range, when I heard a "pop" while coming to full draw on my CPXL. I looked at the underside of one of my top limbs, and there was a nice crack. These limbs were bought in May, so this is a huge disappointment. Luckily I brought my Destroyer 340 as my backup bow, so I quickly got it fine tuned with the 496gr black eagles and iron wills, and was good to go.

Dad had 2 near shot opportunities the first afternoon, but just could not get the extra few seconds of cooperation he needed. Both were out of bow range, so he was up with the thompson center. I tried to sneak in on a bull with a very distinctive, rumbling growl of a bugle while Dad and our guide Landon were calling another bull. I got close, easily within 100 yards, I could hear him tearing up brush with his antlers, but he would not get out of his thicket.

The second morning we set up on a small pond and tried calling the growler bull again. Dad was set up maybe 40 yards from me, and a small (but legal) 4 point bull came in to the calling. He was across the pond from me in some brush, so I had no shot. He worked his way around my side of the pond and was coming my way trying to find my guide, set up about 20y behind me. When his head was hidden by some brush i came to full draw to wait on him to clear. I didn't know yet if he had 2 brow tines or just 1, so i was not sure if he was a legal bull. I held at full draw for what felt like an eternity until he moved his head just right so i could be sure he was legal. He turned and walked towards me, but I did not want to take a 35-40y frontal shot. He turned broadside around 30 yards, and i let an arrow fly. I thought it was a perfect heart shot. The bull wheeled and ran back into the thick oak brush.

Bulls were still screaming above the pond, so we decided to leave my bull alone for a while and go chase after them with the mz. We ended up finally getting a look at the growler bull, a nice 6 point, that was raking the ground with his antlers as our guide had him ticked off at this other bull sneaking in on him. We had hunted our way up into an aspen thicket, and Dad had one quick opportunity down a narrow shooting lane. He tried to shoot, but the 209 primer failed to ignite the blackhorn 209 powder, and the bull walked out of our lives.

Back to my bull. We found the arrow buried in a bush, clean pass through, and covered with blood. Nothing special about the blood, just red blood....and nothing on the ground. About 50 yards down the trail we found a nice little puddle, and about 30 more yards we found a couple of drops, and that was it. He ran through thick oak brush, and there was not a drop on leaves, nothing. Another guide and his 2 hunters joined us in the search.... nothing. I do not know what happened. I thought the shot looked perfect. Long story short, we found his remains 2 days later by following crows nearby. After the morning hunt on Tuesday (I shot him on a Sunday), we went in after seeing a lot of birds in the area. When my guide and I finally got to the epicenter of the bird activity, a bear stood up about 10 yards in front of us, and luckily ran the other way. We could smell something dead, and it still took us several minutes to find him. The bull made it 3-400 yards from where I shot him, in some of the thickest, nastiest, most blowdown-covered timber you could imagine. Without blood there is no way we would've ever found him. All that was left was his head, a bit of hide, and some white bones. He had been picked clean. We didn't even have to remove the spine from the skull, just a little piece of hide and it came right off. There was no way to tell where my shot was with the remains in the state they were in. So I punched my tag, but unfortunately I do not have the meat to show for it. My shot was obviously fatal, but I'm thinking maybe i just nicked the bottom of his heart or something down low. I still do not know how he didn't bleed more.

We were into bulls every morning, but just could not quite get a shot to materialize for Dad. The afternoons were hot, windy, and slow, with elk sightings only right at dark. The last morning we hiked up above where the elk had been every morning from an adjacent property, and as we were sneaking up Dad tripped on some brush and twisted his replaced hip. It was bad, and he was hurting, but he decided to push on a little bit more. That was rewarded in about 75 yards, when we walked up on a 5x5 with his head down in the brush feeding. Never even looked up at us. Dad made a good shot and the bull was down in 50 yards. We got him quartered, bagged, and the guide and I made a couple trips about a mile to the truck to pack him out. Dad had a bear tag he wanted to fill, but since it was elk first, then bear, the ones we saw got a pass. After tweaking his hip he just wanted to relax the last afternoon.

It was a great hunt even though I did not bring home my meat. The guides were all great and worked together very well to help everyone be successful. Only one guy in camp did not fill his tag, and I believe he passed on a small bull early in his hunt. This is not a trophy elk hunt, and we were not expecting it to be so.

We drove back to the front range and spent a lot of hours processing and vacuum sealing his elk. He then hauled butt down to Reserve, NM for a bow hunt in the Gila with US Outfitters. He is there now on his first day of the hunt. Hopefully he will find a nice big bull to bring home.

Good deal, nothing like a father/son hunt to get the hunting season started! That's a bummer about your bull. Congrats to your dad though!

Well That turned out nice! Congratulations!

360+ bull or not, that sounds like an enjoyable hunt with your dad, which makes it awesome!

Hey John:

Great to see you two out again. Hope his hip heals up right.

What's that they say happens at times? At least you know you made a killing shot. Better luck next time.

Still need to get up that way and see you again.
Stay well and keep plugging away.

George

Great story, thanks for writing it.

Reminds of the quote from the movie the Big Lewbowski from Sam Elliot's character, something like "sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you"...

Anytime you can hunt with your Dad take it. I wish I still had mine to go hunting with.