COOSEFAN

Thats awesome! They didn't grow tops like that on my side of the state this year and the rut was weak! Sounds and looks like the East siders got the good stuff this year, great job on a beautiful bull! JIM>

I shot my Moose with a 30-06 shooting 180gr nosler partitions. It took four solid shots to finally put him on the ground...........I don't know if anything else would have done it faster or with less shots? I like the tried and true 7mm and the 300 win mag. My coues gun is the dependable .270. My scope failed on my 300 win. in Alaska, so I used my buddy's 30-06 for my Moose. With that said....I would spend more money and thought on which scope to put on your new rifle than which caliber! just my $.02, JIM>

Thats awesome to have had your dad with you! Congrats on your first archery elk! JIM>

I got a compliment for ya, you did a great job with the photos! Taking them at night with the flash really shows off the detail in the rack and outlines the tines perfectly. I would love to buy that rack, but to be totally honest and respectful.........it will never sell for $2,500.00. I may be wrong....it all depends on the buyer....but I don't even think you could sell that skull for half that. I have spent alot of money on Coues skulls in the past and I would think a price range of $500 - $1,000 would be justifiable. No disrespect to anybody here.......that is an incredible skull........if it sells for more, thats great! JIM>

That's awesome David! I've had alot of good and bad memories from that place, never laid over my rig though. Those are great pic's of your Zuk! JIM>

thanks for reply's! My brother did not kill. He passed on alot of bulls holding out for a bull that he describes, "makes his nipples hard"! He never had a shot at the bulls that fulfilled his wishes. JIM>

I came home to get packed for the early rifle hunts and wanted to share a little of our experiences from the past week. My buddy Craig and my Bro' Matt have Bull tags and we had an awesome hunt thus far! Both of them passed up big bulls on opening day....my brother even passed up Craigs bull on opening day at 40 yrds right after they videotaped him and a bigger bull fighting with a fence between them! Craig passed up this bull at 38 yrds opening evening! (these pic's are off of the video) On the second day, a good friend of ours, Abram, Craig and I went in after the bull that my brother passed up on opening day. Abram would be the caller, I the video guy, and Craig.......well....he's the lucky S.O.B. with the tag! The elk came up faster than we anticipated and had to set up fast. Abram was back about 75 yrds and I was behind Craig by about 5 yrds. A few cow calls had a cow running in on the left of Craig's tree and the bull running in on the right side of the tree! This bull was on Abram's string and coming in fast! I saw the huge thirds and knew it was the same bull from the day before and Craig already had his mind made up.........this was the bull for him! And this is right when the arrow hit the bull! The hit was a little low and the arrow veered sharply left inside the bull causing a one lung/liver shot. The bull ran about 30 yrds and stopped and stood for about 2 minutes. Two Jackrabbits ran in front of him spooking him and he ran back towards us and then away stopping at 60 yrds, and then laying down for good! This bull has huge bottom tines and actually has better tops than most of the bulls we found. He gross scores 356 3/8 and has close to 6" inches of broken tips! It also has the common "devil horns" we usually see in this unit and makes him a 7x7. This was Craigs first Archery Bull tag and he showed amazing restraint passing up some good bulls to end up taking an exceptional one! The video is Awesome too! This is most of the "Mullins Crew" My brother is still up there trying to kill this bull and one other that we couldn't get on tape yet. We worked this bull for several days and this was the closest we came on Mon. morning. He has 17 cows and my brother belly crawled to 60 yrds of this bull this day and only had a shot at his butt, cows kept getting nervous so we backed out. Matt has a high minumum score in his head, and won't settle for anything less, so hopefully it pays off! This bull has fairly short beams for what he should be and smaller tops but he does have 6 tines that are all at least 20"inches, and his tops are bigger than most this year, what a Bull! Hopefully my next pics are of him with my bro's tag on it! Thanks, JIM>

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That's a great bull Jason, congrats! I bet you had alot of elk huntin' memories built up before you whacked that bull........that would make for a great hunt, especially to be taking home a bull like that! I love the character he has, great job! It was awesome to get to chat with you up there, I look forward to meeting you again! JIM>

That is awesome, that takes alot of dedication to the video to keep trying at it. It is hard enough to archery hunt/call at the same time by yourself let alone videotape also?!!!! Great job, congrats on a great bull. I just got home from the early rifle hunt and I think 90% of the bulls in 10 are broken! I had a bull picked out that one evening he was a 370" bull, and the next morning he would have scored around 290"! We did end up taking a 350 class yesterday (with a broken G4, un-surprisingly) The hunt was so tough, I left the camera in the truck every day....... big mistake! Great job again staying with it, JIM>

Stateland Bear! That is an awesome accomplishment! Congrats on a beautiful bear! JIM>

This is a pic I recieved on e-mail. This is what was written: This Elk was killed with a bow in the Selway-Bitterroot >> Wilderness. He green scored 575" and should net out at about 530" >> non typical. He has and unbelievable outside spread of 79". >> This is the biggest bull ever taken with any weapon. What a MONSTER.......if it is real!

Thanks. Yeah I was actually looking through a catalog tonight at my buddy's house trying to decide on what form to go with for the mount. His front browtines are his strong point so I was thinking a semi-sneak form to show them off, maybe with a left turn to throw the biggest brow-palm out toward the room? I just paid off my taxi debt a few months ago and waiting on a lifesize Javalina, Fox and three Coues shoulder mounts.......Now I'm WAY back into debt again! Thats a good kind of debt I guess?

I finally got to meet another CWT.Com member last Mon. I had planned to meet most of the guys that had Unit 9 bull tags at the pizza place and mjmhunter and Desertsheep were the only ones that could make it, hopefully the others were skinning out elk! I had already known Manny (mjmhunter) and was happy to see him again, but it was the first time meeting Jason ( Desertsheep). I didn't get to chat with him for as long as I would have liked, but he is a great guy and I sincerely hope those guys tag out on some whopper bulls! I have also met Allen (coueshunter) and he is also a great guy. I think this site is full of great people who have a great respect for the sport of hunting and wildlife in general, I'm proud to be a part of it and look forward to meeting more of you in person! Thanks, JIM>

looks like great coues footage! I have registered to do the video stuff on photobucket but I have not been able to figure it out I just use my smaller video camera which snaps pic's off of videos that I replay through it, and then post them as video snapshots.

Yeah....that's the arrow. We thought the hit was more broadside than quartering to us, but the broadhead is actually in his left hind leg on the opposite side. I think the arrow glanced off his shoulder as he spun, you can kinda see how far back his right front leg is when the arrow hit. The shot was about 25 yrds, the video makes it look farther, but it was also a little low and thankfully farther forward to compensate for the angle. It took about 30 minutes when if the hit was about 4 inches higher...it would have taken about 5 minutes! Not a bad shot though.

I dream of finding one like that! Great find, thanks for the pics! We just killed a 357" last weekend........and your find is definitely 13 inches bigger! Thanks JIM>

Alright, most of my bags arrived today, still missing one though. They arrived on a totally different airline and had someone elses name on the bags, we got lucky that our phone # was still on them! Fortunately the video case was one that arrived so here's the story and pics. This hunt arrived fast and my friend Bret and I tried to prepare as best we could. Alot of folks helped us with info and several well known guys from this site gave me alot of great info as well. It all helped greatly! Our outfitter was supposed to set up camp for us and fly us in to the area. We had little contact with him prior to the hunt but we always had just enough info to get us from point A to point B and we eventually showed up 3 days later at a small airport in Dillingham. This is where we met our outfitter and the other two guys that were to be in our camp. We also found out then that there really aren't any Caribou in our area and that our whole camp was sitting in the hangar waiting to be loaded into the float plane! We had just spent alot of money on our Caribou tags and weren't very happy about the fact we had to set up camp when we arrived. Oh well, we were in Alaska! This is where we landed "hoping" it would be a good area We set up camp and the plane brought in the other two hunters and their gear, we got all set just at dark. The next morning was when I got really frustrated when I realized how difficult and unexpected this hunt was turning out to be! I had always heard of "Alders" but that day was when I gained respect for them and a very big dislike for them! It had started raining and didn't stop for several days, all the leaves and chest high grass was soaked and we were testing our raingear to it's limits. We eventually stumbled onto this little oasis in the jungle and hunted it every day for several days, making long calling stands with bull Moose grunts and hours of raking and thrashing trees, with nothing to show for it except rusted rifles and my scope took in moisture and was done for the hunt! After several days the rain finally left and the bugs came out! We glassed from camp and finally found a herd of Caribou on a huge mountain sevaral miles from camp. We determined these 'Bou might be our only chance to fill a tag because there was very little Moose sign near camp and and nothing fresh. We patterned the 'Bou for a couple of days while waiting for the boat, which was being used by another camp across the lake. We needed the boat to eliminate the 6 miles between us and the base of the mountain, and we needed alot of courage to get up that mountain because we also saw a huge Brown Bear on the Alder covered side that we needed to go up! We eventually got the boat and made a trip to evaluate the situation and make a plan. The next morning Bret glassed up a huge Black Bear above camp where the other two hunters had been hunting. They jumped on the chance to hunt it because we could use our tags for a Black Bear if we wanted. Bret and I stayed to watch it unfold. As we sat there waiting, I looked to my right and there were two Caribou cows standing about 80 yrds looking at us! No rifles, just fishing poles and glasses with us! Bret ran up to camp for the rifle, I grabbed the camera and the 'Bou disappeared into the Alders. We snuck around and went in and still-hunted through the thick stuff. I cought a glimpse of one and we set up and I started calling as though it were a cow elk, and the cow came running! Camera rolling, the cow stopped at around 80 yrds and turned giving Bret a shot. He drilled it and it took off and a perfect follow up shot put her down. ( notice how bad the bugs were in the pics ) Even though it was a cow Caribou and Bret lived up to his reputation of shooting one-antlered critters, this was a highlight we'll never forget! It was emotional for us because of all that we had gone through to get to that point, and it was our first Alaskan critter! Little did we know it would get better! BTW, the other hunters didn't make it to the bear in time for a shot, the bear moved out of the opening and left.

You can fit 8 mature Coues bucks inside a mature bull Moose and 1 hangin off the head, for a total of 9! The bugs were terrible on the sunny days, and we usually had rain, so the headnets weren't on as much as I had expected. The Zodiac didn't look brand new but was said to have just been purchased. Our additional charge for the boat was split 9 ways at $125.00 per person. We had to fight to get the boat for the 2 1/2 days that we had it. The other camp had it the rest of the time and didn't want to give it up. I wouldn't have gotten the Moose without the boat though, so I actually didn't mind paying, but it was definitely too late for them to be adding additional fees to the contract! There were some angry hunters out there! I don't have the camera I use to take pics from the video, but I will get some on here soon, it's awesome! Thanks, JIM>

Hey guys, I am finally home from a trip I will never forget! From the time I left my house, till the time I returned home, I never knew exactly what would happen and never really knew what obstacles stood in our way. We had an Outfitter who was supposed to organize our flights and have a camp set up for us and supply all our food. This Outfitter had given us very little info leading up to the hunt and this all set the stage for a very nerve-racking adventure. We did get our tags in Anchorage on Labor day at the local Fred Meyer store but had to take several taxi's to several stores in search of Caribou tags. It was always raining and flights were never a sure thing but at the end of 3 days, we were standing on a beach in the middle of nowhere, with 1500 lbs of camp crap, waiting for us to haul up and into the trees to set up. The country we were stuck in, was not what we had expected. I thought there would be some tundra and open places to walk and glass. Not even close! This was the most insane thick junk I have ever hunted, it looked just like what I pictured a dense jungle looking like, but throw in the fact that there were VW sized Brown Bears in the woods with you........ I glassed up one herd of Caribou on the highest peak about 6 miles from camp, along with one of those brown "Volkswagens with legs", one huge moose that was too far into the thick stuff to even try for and some of the most amazing scenery on this planet! We had about 8 full days of rain and 4 days of nice sunny "bug filled" days. We saw a total of 3 bull moose, 2 of which I called in, 1 we had to pass because we could not determine if he was over our 50" minimum, and the other is dead and is on it's way to my house! We did scrounge up probably the only two Caribou that lived anywhere other than on the highest peak, and My buddy tagged one of them. The whole hunt is on video, all the shots and call-ins were on tape and we have around 400 pics on memory cards. Unfortunately, all of my luggage, including my video case with all my videos and pics, are still in Alaska somewhere! They bumped everything except for my rifles and are supposed to be flying it out sometime and arrive here sometime? Very frustrating and scary, I did lock the case and it is a Pelican case so should be OK as long as it makes it home! We did have a couple pics from when we flew out that I'm showing you now, I'll post the better pics and story when I get them. Thanks, JIM>

Your not kidding about the bugs! I was actually happy to have the rainy days 'cause it kept the bugs down, but on sunny days they were terrible. It was even worse when you have an animal down. The thick fog kept all the bugs down for most of the day when we were cutting up the Moose, the 'Bou was the complete opposite....as you can see! The fishing sucked. Neither Bret or I caught a single fish. And it wasn't for a lack of trying! The two other guys in camp caught several because they had a huge Kastmaster spoon that allowed them to cast farther out and fish deeper than any of my little trout spinners would. It was hard to swindle any fishing time with his prized lure, and I never did for fear of losing it. They caught one of everything it seemed like, Grayling, Arctic Char, Dolly Varden, Lake Trout and I almost caught a huge Sockeye with my hands that had made it all the way up there, I got a little wet on that one! Not catching a fish lit a new fire in Bret and I.......were planning on going back to do just that next spring! Thanks, JIM>

That is true about the boat.......why couldn't we take it home with us if we had to buy it? It would be hard to share it with the 8 other guys who live all around the country though!

I really don't want to give out the name, they were nice guys, they just didn't have there "poop-in-a-group" on this one. If you ever book a hunt or know someone who does, PM me and I will tell you if it is the same guys. I had spent a ton of money on my .270 to get it ready for this hunt and at the last minute I chickened out and grabbed the 300 Win Mag. I at least knew it had enough power without question and I sighted it in and was dead on out to 300 yrds....BUT this gun is an old trusty one that has a peice of _ _ _ _ scope on it, but it has always done well for me. It was a Bushnell 3-9 x 40 and it is going in the trash. I'm sure a newer Bushnell would have faired better, but I really missed my Leupold!

sorry for writing a book here.......i've just been excited to finally share the experience! Thanks, JIM>

I forgot to mention that the night before we got the Caribou, we were fishing on the beach by camp where I had made some calls earlier, and we heard some bull grunts and branches breaking. There was a bull coming down to the beach and Bret ran to get his rifle. I had the binos and light was fading. We tried to close the distance but the Moose came out fast and started heading toward us. We set up and tried to evaluate him. He was huge with points all over, but he only had two brow tines per side and when he stopped at less than 80 yrds, neither of us could tell if he was definitely over the 50" mark. He stood there for about 2 minutes and turned to leave and I stopped him broadside for another minute. We still couldn't agree he was over 50" and had to let him walk! I really feel he was right at or maybe an inch or two over because of his long tines on both sides, but our thoughts were it would be better to come home saying we passed him instead of coming home with hefty fines and a ruined hunt! Bret got to have him in his scope for a long time and that was incredible by itself! With a new hope, an animal under our belt, and the boat for two more days, we put our plans for the mountain on hold and went looking for better Moose country. We found it about 2 miles East of camp. The country had meadows and a beutiful pond with lillypads, Moose heaven! We hunted it for one morning and one evening never hearing or seeing anything, but our hunting partners had some vocal interaction with a bull Moose not far from us so with one morning left with the boat, we planned on giving it our best. We hiked in before light and set up on the pond. It had several meadows feeding into this area and the fog that morning was very thick. It was an unbelievable sight, just like being in a picture, all we needed was a Moose in the picture with us! Shortly after it got light we heard bull grunts way behind us and moving away to the South. We jumped up and ran into the adjacent meadow and set up with his grunts getting farther away on the opposite side. I started bull grunting and it seemed to stop him and he started tearing a tree apart. I imitated him and took it a step further and started beating up an Alder bush harder and louder than he was. Over the noise I was making, I could hear his nonstop grunting getting closer and closer. Because of the fog I could barely make out the opposite side of the clearing, but when the Alder brush started to indicate something big moving through and towards us, I got set up and ready! His antlers appeared first and then the huge dark body and he was on a steady swagger towards us in the boad open now. I could see he had huge brow tines and looked gnarly, but he only had three per side so I knew it would have to come down to his width. I learned that the distance between the eyes is 10 inches and use that as a guage, he looked like he had extra distance on his right side and his left side looked to be right at what it takes to be 50". I looked back at Bret 3 different times with the bull now standing broadside at 60 yrds to get his oppinion. He was seeing what I had and agreed he was at least the 50" minumum with enough room to spare, so I leveled on him and shot! He spun around and I shot again in the same spot on his opposite side. He then started walking straight away back towards the Alders and that is not where I wanted him! We were trying to stop him or turn him with "elk" calls out of habit and it finally worked and I hit him again. He didn't even flinch! I hit him a fourth time and that is when he finally tipped over! The camera was rolling the whole time and Bret did an outstanding job with it! I never got too excited until we ran the tape on him and all my fears went away. This was the highlight of my hunting life and I can not explain the feeling Bret and I felt that morning! The Moose taped out at almost 57" and was the biggest critter I have ever seen outside of the zoo! It took us 12 hours to pack every last scrap of meat and bone (legally have to take the quarters out UN-BONED) back out to the shore about 800 yrds away. The State Trooper had to fly in and give us gas for the boat so we could make it back to camp and he then flew over and checked the carcass, they don't mess around up there and I was glad we took the time to do it right! This is the Troopers plane, they are also the G + F officers up there. I owe alot to my good buddy Bret who selflessly let me carry his rifle after he tagged his 'Bou! He wanted to video me for a change and my rifle scope was all messed up from the moisture. He also is my taxidermist and he did ALOT of work that day that he didn't have to do, but he knows where to make the cuts and I just sat back and acted stupid! We were spent and had 4 more days left so we just relaxed and fished and took in the scenery......the rain came back and never let up also.