Trophy Bull Elk Hunting: Full Circle Encounters

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In the gray light before dawn a lone elk calf trotted along the fenceline toward me. I was leaning on the fence post, waiting for Kayden Murphy to pull his truck through the open gate. The calf stopped, turned and trotted back the way it came, calling with distressed mews in the hopes of finding its mother, which had jumped the fence and disappeared into the scrubby canyon a few seconds earlier.

I’m sure the calf had crossed the fence a dozen times before, but this morning it apparently couldn’t summon the courage to try. It would be a boon for us. By the time Murphy parked the truck, and I had slung my pack and rifle, the calf’s mews had called in no less than four bulls, which bugled from several different points in the darkness. We hadn’t even made it 50 yards from the truck when the first bull crossed behind us, searching for the calf’s calls. It was late September and the elk were in full rut.

Utah is well known for its elk hunting, and this particular ranch held trophy-caliber bulls. “We’re only hunting old bulls here,” Murphy had told me as we bumped along the two-track that morning. “Six points or better.” That sounded good to me. I knew this rugged country along the Wyoming border had produced some great bulls in the past. We were coming off the hardest winter in a half-century, followed by a wet spring, but I was already envisioning giant elk charging into our calls. Hunting elk with a rifle during the rut feels a bit like cheating, but after years of getting humbled and humiliated during bow season, I was happy to have the advantage of gunpowder and lead.

At sunrise, Murphy and I were crouched in the high sage, surrounded by bugling bulls. That first bull had gotten downwind of us, but didn’t seem too concerned as it slowly trotted over the hill. A second, and then third bull, came to Murphy’s calls, but both were small five-points and each followed the calling calf back down the fence line. We tried to inch our way forward, closing the gap to the canyons the elk retreated into during the daylight, but all the activity had us, for the most part, pinned down.

As we eased through the tall sagebrush, two cows appeared on the hillside across from us, pushed out of the small draw by a big, mature bull. Murphy and I both lifted our binoculars, trying to parse the bull’s rack from the surrounding brush. The bull had the Roman nose of an older animal, and its mainframe swept back toward its haunches. Its swords, or fourth points, soared skyward and behind them the antlers bladed out, widening to the tips, which were just starting to split, throwing thumb-sized sixth points on each side. A good bull, for sure, but not big enough. At least not in the first 30 minutes of the first day of the hunt.

“That’s an old bull,” said Murphy. “But we can do better.”

Close Encounters

The next sunrise found us staked out on a wide, flat ridge that provided a great spot to glass the fingers of timber that snaked down the surrounding hillsides. In a few places, the red leaves of autumn maples stood out from the yellowing aspen and oak. While we picked a few cows out of the grassy meadows, no bulls showed themselves in the dawn light. Other than a few distant bugles, the morning was quiet, and we soon packed up to stalk around the ridge to glass the other side.

I closely followed Murphy’s footsteps as we crossed the grassy flat, and nearly ran into him when he came to an abrupt stop. Over his shoulder, I watched a black mass rise from the tall brush. It was a bull, but not the right species. Just 20 yards away, a large moose stood looking at us, curling its upper lip and flicking its tongue as it tried to catch our scent. The bull took a few steps toward us, tilting its rack left and right, before turning broadside. Murphy lifted his rangefinder and whispered. “18 yards.” An easy shot with rifle or bow, but the tag in my pocket clearly said elk. We watched as the bull ambled through the grass and sage, stopping a time or two to look back at the interlopers that had disturbed its nap, before dropping off the edge of the ridge into the thick timber below.

The following morning, we stood on that same ridge, listening to a bull for which I did have a tag bugling below us. From the sounds of it, the elk had a herd of cows with him and was fending off a satellite bull challenging its dominance. We eased off the ridge and circled around the point, trying to get as close as we could without spooking the herd. I can’t say we were very stealthy, as the scrub oak was thick and tangled our feet as we pushed through it. Murphy sent out a few cow calls, hoping to convince the elk we were more of the same. He then gave a short, challenging bugle and was quickly cut off by the herd bull, who had already closed the distance between us by half.

I dropped to the ground next to small line of trees, sat the Gunwerks rifle in the crux of my shooting sticks and dialed the Revic scope to 4x—its lowest setting. In the dense cover the encounter would be up close and personal, and I wanted the widest field of view possible. I pointed the rifle down the trail and waited for the bull to appear. The woods went quiet until a single, snapping branch to my right broke the silence. Glancing over, I saw a big, wide-racked elk staring at me from 12 feet away. I tried to swing the rifle, but the small cluster of trees I’d chosen to camouflage my silhouette snagged the barrel. The elk turned and ghosted back into the thick timber, pushing his herd of cows away from us more quietly than I would have thought possible.

Dejected, I looked up at Murphy, who was hunched under tree on the hillside just above me. From his vantage point, there was a clear shot in all directions, but I chose to commit myself to the well-worn trail instead. With two decades of elk-hunting experience, I knew better and thought back to all the times I’d made the same mistake while bowhunting, sacrificing shot angles for stealth by tucking deep into a pine tree or kneeling in the dark timber of blow down. I’d done it again, this time with a rifle in my hand that could have easily dropped the bull from the other side of the wide opening just above me. A hard-earned lesson that I’ll likely forget in the heat of the moment should I ever get another chance.

Phantoms in the Forest

The rest of the week offered more of the same. We’d close in on bugling bulls, only to have them go silent or trot away in the forest, bugling back at our cow calls. We followed, traversing miles through the thick woods, always trailing the herd. More than once, we called bulls back to us, so close I could hear the leaves rattle as they bugled. I watched through the scope, thumb ready on the safety, knowing at any second the brush would part and reveal the elk we were after. And each time, the bugles retreated, the woods went silent and Murphy and I were left scratching our heads. What was it going to take to finally get a bull to commit?

Nearing the last days of the hunt, we called two separate bulls into range. The first came to 20 yards, bugling the entire way. We could tell, from the clear, high-pitched calls, it was a young bull, but my thumping heart hardly knew the difference when the bull trotted out of the cover and passed within 20 yards of us, desperately seeking the hot cow we pretended to be.

We pulled the second bull out of the woods after trailing it for hours. I sat with my rifle on the sticks and watched its shadow pace up and down just inside the dark timber. When it finally did emerge, the size of its rack did not match up to the throaty, bugles we had been chasing. Disappointed, we turned back to the truck, only to bump a second, bigger bull—the owner of the deep, raspy bugle—that had snuck around behind us. Successfully tagging a trophy bull takes no small amount of luck, and I had no rabbit’s foot or other talisman to sway the odds in my favor.

Closing the Circle

After a fun, though frustrating, week of chasing bugles, with so many close calls, Murphy and I decided to spend the last afternoon in search of that old bull we had seen the first morning. We knew where we had left it, and the open, canyon country the elk inhabited should make it easy to find compared to the thick brush and choked timber we had spent most of the week busting through. With any luck, which I had proven was in short supply, the bull would be in the same area and we could sneak in for a shot.

We did have some luck that afternoon, although it was the bad kind. As I opened the gate, ominous clouds pushed up the Uintas and soon the first of many heavy squalls moved into the area. A burst of heavy rain would be followed by sleet, then a short shaft of sunshine that lasted just long enough to give us hope before the next storm rolled through. The elk didn’t seem to mind the weather and we found one bull pushing his cows up the deep canyon. I steadied my rifle on the sticks, wiped raindrops from the scope’s objective and watched as the wide rack – a respectable 5x5 – disappeared over the ridge.

After traipsing down a long, thin finger into the canyons to no avail, we turned back to the truck parked atop the ridgeline. That’s when we caught a glimpse of the bull, laying on the lee side of a tree as the rain and sleet pelted the surrounding sage. A pair of cows rested just above him. Through our foggy, rain-soaked binos, we could make out the elk’s sweeping rack, complete with bladed back tines that crab-clawed into small sixth points.

With less than hour of daylight left on the last day of the hunt, we’d found the same bull we passed five days earlier. Getting into position wouldn’t be easy, but for once, luck was with us as the rain helped mask our approach. Soon, I was laying prone on a muddy hillside, watching through the scope as the bull dozed in the rain. Murphy cow called and the bull perked up, bugling from his bed. A second call got the cows to stand and seconds later the bull followed them into an opening above the junipers, slightly quartering away from us. Murphy whispered 446 yards and I dialed the scope accordingly. The first shot took the bull behind the last rib. Its legs locked in place before it stumbled downhill. A second insurance shot put the bull down for good.

The hunter’s old adage says never pass an animal the first day that you would shoot on the last. While often that’s a smart strategy, and good insurance against eating a tag, in this case, a shot not taken that first day led to a week’s worth of amazing hunting, including close encounters with elk, moose and even a mountain lion. But that’s a story for another day.

Terminal Ascent 7 PRC

The last decade has seen a surge in new cartridge introductions, from the explosion of the 6.5 Creedmoor to wildcat offerings from Winchester, Nosler and others. Few, other than the aforementioned Creedmoor, have made a real run toward wide adoption by hunters. Of those, three—all designated Precision Rifle Cartridges – from Hornady seem to be poised to stick around for awhile.

Unless you reloaded your own cartridges at home, the 6.5, 7 and 300 PRC factory offerings were only available from Hornady. In the past year, that has changed and several manufacturers have hopped on the bandwagon. Perhaps most exciting, Federal Premium started loading their popular, premium Terminal Ascent bullets in cartridges chambered for the PRC family.

For this elk hunt, I carried a Gunwerks Nexus chambered in 7 PRC, loaded with Federal’s 155-grain Terminal Ascent. (Federal now also loads the 7 PRC with 170-grain bullets.) Known as much for its sub-MOA accuracy as the ability to deliver devastating terminal performance across a wide range of velocities, the Terminal Ascent was an excellent choice for a hunt where shots could have been anywhere from 12 yards to 500 (or more). At 446 yards, the first bullet penetrated a few inches behind the bull’s last rib, tore through the length of the thoracic cavity and lodged itself just in front of the bull’s off shoulder. While a second shot wasn’t necessary, I live by the motto "The fun’s over when the shooting stops" and put a second round into the bull. That bullet wasn’t recovered. $88 | federalpremium.com

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