# 2018 Buck and Bull



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

I recently returned from my week in paradise, aka Wyoming, where I was able to spend a few days chasing elk and deer. This summer, we moved from Richmond, VA to Cleveland, OH to start my 4 years of medical residency. Knowing my time was going to be pretty limited, I was beyond excited to see I had a week where I could take a vacation that happened to line up with both deer and elk seasons. 

My brother set the bar high this year by killing an incredible bull during the archery season. He made a great shot, watched blood poor out of both sides of the bull, but when he went to retrieve him, the bull got up and hobbled away. He watched where he was heading, and gave him a couple more hours to expire. When they returned, they got back on his blood, but eventually the trail dried up and there was no bull to be found. He and his friend looked for two straight days without turning anything up. He was absolutely sick, and replayed the shot over and over in his head. How could a perfect shot behind the shoulder not put a bull down? Fast forward another week and the birds lead him right to where his bull had eventually died! He was definitely bummed to have lost the meat, but was glad to finally have some closure. Seeing his success made me excited for my chance at the elk.


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

After finally completing my oncology rotation, I was able to head out to Wyoming. I had heard it was going to be cold with plenty of snow in the forecast. They were absolutely right. Down low, we had about 6" and on top of our property was closer to 12". 

It was an incredibly beautiful morning. My boots hit the white snow around 6AM and I began to hike up to the area where I figured the elk would cross on their way to bedding. Sure enough, after the sun came up, I started to hear the faint chirp of cow elk getting closer and closer. I promised myself I wasn't going to shoot a bull the first morning because I wanted to have time to evaluate what was in the area. That morning, I ended up passing on about 4 different bulls. The herd of elk ended up bedding down about 250 yards from me, so I was able to get a good look at the bulls. I kept my finger off the trigger hoping to run into a better bull later on. 

After getting back down to the cabin, I decided to take a drive up to a canyon to see if I could catch any bulls hanging around. Once I got to the canyon, I could see a few elk making their way down a finger into the canyon. I was able to creep towards the edge and watch a small bachelor herd as they were heading to bed. Again, nothing worth punching my tag, but it was fun to watch only 100 yards away. 

The evening hunt was a bust as I was trying to find a new area to watch. Everything looked like great country, but I couldn't locate a herd.


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

Tuesday morning, I was back at it early before sunrise. I found my way back to the same ridge as I had been watching from the day prior. Again, like clockwork, I watched as the elk slowly filed their way up towards me. This time, the herd was much bigger, probably closer to 100 head. 

The elk were definitely on the move, and once they had passed out of sight, I followed a ridge towards them. I was able to get another good look at the bulls in the group, but I was still waiting to find one I where I wouldn't have to think "should I shoot?", "Is this the right one?". As I was making my way back down the mountain, I spotted a lone bull making his way towards me. I figured he had to be a big bull all by himself, but as he came into view of my scope, I realized he'd be a better bull in a year or two. I let him pass and made my way to get some lunch.

That evening, I met up with a friend to go watch a few different areas. It only took us 20 minutes to find a good group of bulls feeding at the top of our property. We made a game plan and tried to take note of how many canyons we'd need to cross before we would end up in the right area. 

After driving the razor up to the top of our property, we slowly made our way towards where we figured the bulls would be hanging out. I ended up spotting a beautiful muley buck - solid framed 3 point that had to have been 26-27" wide. We stared at eachother for a while as I struggled with the decision of pulling the trigger so close to where the elk were. A few seconds later, the buck made the decision for me as he bounded away, never to be seen again on the trip. 

We snuck into a group of 6-8 bulls, but again, not the ones we had seen from below. As we hiked back to the razor in the dark, I kicked myself over and over again for not filling my deer tag.


----------



## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

Thanks for sharing! I always enjoy these pic and story threads. That is a beautiful bull your brother killed. Sucks he didn't get the meat, but it's great he was able to get closure and come with the antlers. How far did the bull travel from being hit? Did he go in an unexpected direction?


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

Wednesday morning, I found myself watching the same canyon as the night before in hopes of finding the buck from the previous night. With no luck, I decided to scope out the canyon again to see if any long bulls were hanging out. To my surprise, I looked across the canyon and saw there were a few bulls feeding. I dropped my pack, looked through the spotter and saw two of them were shooters. I ranged them and got ready for the shot. As I steadied behind the shoulder of the bull, I focused on squeezing the trigger on my 300 RUM. The trigger broke cleanly, but all I heard was a "click". I had completely forgot to chamber a round! I quickly racked the bolt, but something spooked the bull and he took off before I could fire a shot. 

The other bulls must have dropped down into the trees, so I crept towards the edge of the canyon. After glassing for a few minutes, I could make out faint outlines of two bulls bedded in the trees. It took a while before I could judge the bulls and feel confident they weren't the ones I had spotted before. 

I decided to slowly back out of the area, and while doing so, I noticed another bull I hadn't spotted before. He was a solid 6 point with good mass. While looking him over, I could see there was another bull a few yards further up the hill. I didn't have a clear view, so I attempted to move to my right to search for a shooting lane. 

When I moved, the bull I had been watching jumped up and was bolting uphill. I could see and hear a few more elk moving through the trees. My bull ended up stopping broadside in a clearing at 225 yards. I thought it was now or never, so I ended up pulling the trigger. This time, my 300 RUM barked, and I watched as the bull flinched as the 190 gr VLD smacked his chest. A few seconds later, he tipped over as the other bulls calmly walked past. 

I had a bull down! But then, I realized I was in for an extremely long day of packing meat. Fortunately, I had service and was able to get ahold of a friend. By the time he made it to me, I had the bull completely broken down. The bull was down at 11:15 AM and we weren't off the mountain until 6 PM. While it was a brutal day, I was stoked to have punched my tag on a solid bull.


----------



## Pumpgunner (Jan 12, 2010)

Awesome story, thank you for the writeup! Looks like you have some fantastic property there to hunt.


----------



## 30-06-hunter (Sep 22, 2013)

Holy cow, I love the coloring of your bull! And kudos on your brother being able to find the carcass and at least get the head/rack, too bad about the meat loss.


----------



## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

Awesome story and pictures! Can’t wait to read about the buck - thanks for taking the time to share!


----------



## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

Love it! Can't wait to read the rest!


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

colorcountrygunner said:


> Thanks for sharing! I always enjoy these pic and story threads. That is a beautiful bull your brother killed. Sucks he didn't get the meat, but it's great he was able to get closure and come with the antlers. How far did the bull travel from being hit? Did he go in an unexpected direction?


Thanks!

My brother's bull ended up going in an unexpected direction and piled up about 1000 yards from where they had last saw him. He was in some thick junipers. Without the help of birds, I don't think they would have recovered him without some blind luck.


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

Thanks everyone!

I'll post the rest of the write up a little later today!


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

Before I forget, here’s a pic of my bull when I found him bedded. If you look above him, you can see the backside of another bull. He turned out to be a great bull!


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

Like many on this site, I also enjoy hunting with others and watching them fill tags. My 13 year old brother in law had never hunted before, so I invited both he and my father in law out to go after doe/fawn whitetail and cow elk. They were planning on arriving in the afternoon, so I spent the morning relaxing after the long day of packing meat out of a canyon. 

There are plenty of whitetails running around the area, and we could have easily driven up to any of them, but I wanted to make it a bit more of a hunt for my brother in law. We hiked up on top of a small ridge that was adjacent to one of the fields the deer tended to feed in daily. We saw a small group, but they were more than 500 yards away at that point. We watched the wind as we dropped down the ridge, and snuck along the willows bordering the field. Once we got into an opening, my BIL got prone behind the .308 and dry fired a few times. He said he felt confident in the shot. We told him to fire when ready and he dropped the deer in its tracks! He was pretty excited about his first harvest and couldn't wait to get out and chase elk the next morning. 

If you look in the second photo (screenshot from video), you'll see the arrow pointing to the 150 gr accubond right before it struck.


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

Friday morning, my father in law was up to bat. I figured the elk would be coming up the same fence line as previous mornings, so we started making our way towards a small knob that would hopefully give us a great shot opportunity. 

We finally made it to our position just as daylight was approaching. It was a perfectly still morning - almost a little too quite. I glassed the surrounding areas but couldn't see any elk at that point. About 20 minutes later, I heard a faint bugle in the distance. Then chirping, and more chirping. 10 minutes later, the first cow came into view with the rest of the herd in tow. 

I had my father in law get behind my rifle and ready for a shot. We ranged the herd at 350 yards and let most of them go before singling out a cow in the rear. The first shot hit home, but she was still walking, although at a slowed pace. When she stopped again, he sent another 190 VLD into the boiler room and she was down for the count!

This was his first big game animal since the last time we were able to hunt together 6 years ago! Fortunately, we had a road about 75 yards above his cow. We hiked down to the cabin to drop our gear and then took the razor up to get to work. Breaking his cow down was a much easier job with the help of my brother. We had her quartered and loaded up in about an hour. Definitely a great start to the day!


----------



## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

After getting my father in law's elk quarters hanging in our barn, we made a quick drive to take my elk to a processor nearby. Once we made it back to our ranch, I knew it was the last chance I'd have to fill my deer tag as I'd be flying back to Cleveland early the next day. 

I hopped in the razor to look over as much ground as I could. I turned up quite a few different bucks, but I felt like I'd rather watch them grow at this point. Thinking my deer tag would go unfilled, my brothers and I went to one of our fields where whitetails tend to frequent. We could see a buck in a group, but couldn't tell exactly how big he might be. A few minutes later, one of our ranch hands raced our way. He hopped out and mentioned that he had seen a pretty nice whitetail nearby and that we should check it out before getting too late. That's all I needed to hear!

We quickly made our way to where the buck had last been seen. Sure enough, a few deer were at the edge of our field. A quick look through the binos was all I needed. I hopped behind my rifle and set up for the shot. When the rifle barked, I saw the buck crumple followed by the unmistakeable sound of a solid hit!

This was my first whitetail buck and it was certainly a great ending to my trip! We dressed him out, and had him hanging in the barn less than an hour later. Just like that, my season had come and gone in a blur!


----------



## Bob L. (Jan 11, 2015)

Awesome stories! Way to have patience and let animals grow as well.
PS-Please adopt me!


----------

