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This year continues to be one for the books. My 12 year old son Max drew a muzzleloader bull tag in a unit many consider to be sub par for elk. I have assisted on 3 archery bull kills in the unit, so I knew that although trophy elk were tough to find they were there. The opener found us calling our way into a major dark timber bedding area that I had seen multiple large bulls on previous hunts. It was dead quiet. No bugles and after one calling sequence a satellite 5 point came sneaking in but never game Max an ethical shot. Yesterday, day 2, I decided to slip in to the edge of the bedding just after first light and wait. No bugles at all, so I decided to do a few soft cow calls. Less than a minute later this giant snuck in silent 52 yards below us and Max made a perfect shot. We had no idea how truly magnificent he was until we walked up on him 30 minutes later. Bull is an 8 by 7 with a 14” flyer point. Didn’t get to fully score him but a few quick measurements indicate 370-380”. 42” inside spread and total width with flyer 58”. Best hunting day of my life and one I will never forget!

Great bull and great father son moment. awaiting measurements that come to 370-380”.

If ya ain’t cheatin, ya ain’t tryin ~The Democrats

I imagine these fools are going to be charged with fraud similarly to what Nobull went through.

Silly question here, but if you have full price offers, what are you considering?

Jitterbug or nothin! 😉

That is so cool! Congrats to your son, and to you ! Beautiful bull!

Outstanding congrats

It’s a Talo Distributor exclusive from Ruger i have everything it came with new in the box

Congratulations

Great work Max and dad.

Bull of a lifetime right there. Congrats.

Holy cow congrats

Holy smokes dude! Dad you just ruined hunting for this kid!

Awesome…thanks for sharing the story and huge congrats to Max!

We weren't camped too far from the lake, maybe 6-7 miles west of it. Elk were still bugling pretty good at night too. Good time to get out with the kiddos.

I was. The googly eyed comedian GIF was me realizing I wrote "bull". It was in fact a antelope buck...mystery sollved.

I've got the same one and it's bad a$$.

The season is open on San Carlos, come on out and get after some birds! Permits are available at the Department office along hwy 70 in Peridot AZ (mp272.5). Office hours are 6am to 6pm Monday - Saturday and 8am - 12pm on Sunday. DAN

So I cashed in on some points and decided to go to Colorado for a Mule Deer muzzy hunt. I tried my hand on the Elk hunt there a couple years ago but a early season snow storm threw me off and I left empty handed. One thing I decided this time I was going to buy a lighter rifle and to bring a pair of llamas. This past year, a friend and I pulled the trigger on some llamas, but I will have to write up a new thread on those. Fast forward to the hunt, I showed up a day later than I wanted, due to life issues. I rolled into camp at mid night and as I proceeded to park, my alarm on my truck goes off, declaring my presence to everyone in camp. I thought, great, an awesome way to start a hunt. Over the first 2 days I spent my time just day hiking and hunting with the llamas trying to adjust to the thinner air. Which i didn't do very well. The first couple days I didn't see much, other than spectacular views, does, fork bucks and tons of hunters. I was going to adjust my plan to take the llamas in deep, and spend a few days doing that. But one of the guys in camp convinced me to try another area first, but due to the access in getting there I wouldn't be able to take the llamas. At this point I was happy with a decent 3pt. The next morning we were in our glassing spot. As the sun came up, this new area proved to be better than anywhere I had been the previous days of the hunt. We located a few bucks that peaked my interest and began to see which one would give us the best play. I about had my mind set on a buck we called the miner, until he walked over a ridge and out of our lives. Soon after, one of my buddies, who seemed to be struggling behind the glass, calls out a doe on a ridge across from us that we had all seen. Shrugging it off we laughed and said, yeah we've all seen that doe. But as we all look were he is describing we see 2 awesome bucks, in the chutes below her. We waited till they both bedded. Which happened to be in one of the gnarliest places I've ever seen. But off I went. I had to decend 2k ft and then climb 3k ft to get above the bucks. Then come down 500ish ft to get into a shooting position. I was stoked. It took me almost 2 hours to get into position but I finally made it. I settled in and could see this buck was an awesome 3x4. At least 30" wide. I was positioned directly above him at 42 yards on a cliff over hang. I couldn't see the other buck, but I knew this was the one I wanted. I ranged him several times, and I knew couldn't miss at 42 yards. I kept calm but was excited. I leaned over to make the shot, I am in and squeezed, POP, the muzzy misfired. The buck looks at me and I slowly lower out of sight. I think ok, he's not leaving. I add a new primer to the rifle, wait for the buck to look away, hang over the ledge again, aim, fire, POP, another misfire..... the buck looks up again then away. At the point I can't believe this is happening. I decide to lay on my back, pull the breech and kick the load. I have never been under such reloading stress. I grab some grass and clean the breech hole. Reassemble the rifle and reload. I reprime a 3rd time, take aim, squeeze, POP, again no ignition. This time the buck gives me a hard look. He must have stared at me for 15 minutes. Now I'm panicked. I'm only carrying 5 primers, and I'm down to 2. Reprime one more time, not knowing what to do. Aim, POP! Again! At this point he knows something is up. In a panic I decided to kick the load again and add a new one. Its at this point I finally remembered that I could add powder in front of the primer in the breech hole to get a stronger ignition. As I hurried to reload and set my primer, the second buck i had forgotten about stands up, and we are both terrified, staring each other eye to eye about 20 yards apart. Now I know I'm in trouble, he then breaks running down the chute towards the other buck. I pop up to see if I still have a shot. And there they are, both standing there broadside, I take aim, squeeze, BOOM! Clean miss.... both bucks run off and out of sight. I couldn't believe it. When I got back to the truck I restocked, this time with stronger 209 primers. And shot a practice shot, dead center. That night at camp I was disappointed, but I had no one to blame but myself for missing a great shot opportunity. But we decided to head back to the same spot the next morning to see if we could turn up another buck. The next morning we hadn't been glassing 30 seconds, when my buddy says, "Got him!" Sure enough, there he was, the wide buck on the same ridge, 300 of yards from where I missed him. Today other hunters were around, so we made no delay and went after him. We figured he would bed in the same spot again, so we were gonna get close and just wait till he bedded. As we watched from a closer location, we watched as a trail hiker passed under the buck and the buck was having none of it. He bolted over the ridge and gone. We decided to climb up a separate ridge and get eyes on him again. We did a huge circle, another 3k ft climb, but it paid off. We saw him walk back over the ridge toward the chute were he was bedded the day before. This time we were already positioned above him. So we gave him some time and made our move. Once we got above the chute I began to climb down, I looked back at my buddy and told him to stand by here as I stalked lower. The wind was constantly shifting and we weren't 100% sure he was in the same bed. I crept down the side of the chute periodically looking down to see if the buck was in there. It wasn't until I got to where I missed the day before that I finally found him in the same bed as yesterday. This time facing away from me and dead asleep. This time I took my pack, rested my gun against it, peered over the edge. I ranged him 41 yards this time. I said a little prayer and took aim. Due to the swirling wind, I knew I didn't have much time to shoot. The angle was an almost straight down shot. I aimed in on his spin in-between his shoulder blades. Slowly squeezed, BOOM! Perfect shot. The bullet broke his back and straight into the boiler room. He death rolled into and down the chute, stopping inches from the edge and 1,000 ft drop. I was beyond excited and in disbelief. I turned around to yell at my buddy to start the climb down, but to my surprise he was already there. He said he got selfish and had to watch it go down. We slid down to the buck, broke him down and made our way out. 6 primers fired at a single buck. Later looking back, I practiced using blackhorn 209 with Triple 7 primers. In practice the gun went bang everytime. But at higher elevation I figure the lack of oxygen was reducing the flash of my primer. When I switched to shot shell primers it went off everytime. Inside spread was 30 7/8 and outside was 33 7/8. Gross 170.

Short update… Left the house in Arizona at 8 PM on September 8th and arrived at the new house in Iowa on September 10th about noon. Got my lifetime AZ hunting license before we left. I will have to buy a nonresident Iowa hunting license year and I am fine with that. We do qualify for landowner’s tags here. We have two brothers for neighbors and could not ask for better neighbors. One of the brothers hunts, one does not. The brother that hunts lives just up the hill from me and has given permission for us to hunt their land, as is walk out the door go through the gate and hunt. Everything behind us is corn so there ya go for pheasant hunting. The neighbor that hunts says the ridge in the field behind us is a deer highway in the fall so there ya go for deer. I can also hunt on land a friend farms, not sure how many acres but over a thousand. IA Born, my oldest nephew can’t wait to go pheasant hunting with me. I agree with you about Casey’s pizza. The wife and I froze about 20 quarts of sweet corn to help get us through the winter. Iowa sweet corn in the freezer is like sitting on gold. Kev, the neighbor up the hill shoots deer off his back deck with a rifle during shotgun season…

A jug of termidor he is about $250 and will go long way. I can walk you through it if you wanna take it on yourself. Not sure what it would cost up there I understand the market is pretty competitive. When I did treatments at my old company they ranged from $2-4 k depending how much drilling there was and house size.

Now this is the best thread ever, cool pics