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Well were do I start? I guess I will start 16 years ago when I drew a muzzle loader cow elk tag and after that hunt I decided I wanted to hunt the early bull hunt and that started my adventure. For elevan years I put in for the Early rifle hunts in unit 1 and 27 without success. I picked up several left over cow tags during that time so I was not completely with out elk hunting. six years ago after going on several deer hunts with my brother-in-law I decided to split my points with him and started concentrating on the early archery Bull hunts. When putting in this last January I felt like we had a very good chance at getting a tag. The bonus point pass for the previous two years was 11 for Unit 27 and 12&13 for unit 1. With my 17 bonus points and my brother in laws 5, giving us an average of 11 we felt that the non-resident tag was with in our reach. The real adventure started the week after learning that we did indeed draw a unit 1 early archery bull tag. I set out a few trail cameras in an area that I felt would be good and started exploring new areas . As the summer progressed and I found more and more areas that I liked I bought more and more cameras. Then the elk started getting an itch and decided to use some of my cameras as something to rub on to scratch their itch. At one time I had out 13 cameras not counting the four that the elk and bears destroyed. I know have lots of camera parts to make one myself! It was a weekly chore to go out and check cameras and explore new trails and areas. I found lots of enteresting areas and got lots of good picks. I even had someone putting salt out in front of one of my cameras. I got pictures of deer, elk, turkey, coyote, bob cat, bears and people. And I had regular incounters of all of these during my exploring. It came down to the last few days before the hunt and one last round of checking cameras before we set a plan for our hunt. The first day of the hunt was fun with getting busted by a bunch of cattle that moved into the area, calling in other huntes and ending the day with a scream off with a big bull that was flat tearing things up but would not come in. As we decided to try and advance on him we found a deep draw between us and think that is what stopped him from coming any closer. The next day found my brother-in-law not feeling good with some high altitude sickness. Comeing from 300 feet above sea leval to 10,000 feet can take the energy out of you. I went up to set a Blind i had set up and ended up busting the cows as I approached it. I went ahead and set there that morning and had a couple of small bulls and cows come by and listened to some screamers work by on both sides of me to a trail that dropped off the top down into an area that was realy rough to bed down. The third day we had acouple of close encounters but could not close the deal on anything. That evening we decided to hunt our third area and as we got to our area I found that someone else liked my camera more than I did and broke it out of its mount. That evening I had a cow and calf come to with in 15 feet of me and my son and a big bull about 20 yards away in the furs not allowing for a shot. My BIL tried to do a stock on a bull in a wallow and got to about 40 yards before being busted. The next day was more of the same with several close calls but un able to close the deal. On the fifth day We had some close calls in the morning and then decided to go back to the stolen camera. I was sitting a small blind area by were the camera was and my BIL dropped of to the wallow to set up a stand. I had a nice bull coming into me with some cows when another bull came in and ran him off. The new bull kept coming into me. He would send a cow ahead of him and then he would advance. I quiet calling and let my BIL do the calling down below me. The cow and bull finally worked there way down to in front of where the camera was when I decided to take the shot. I had to adjust by possition a little to get lined up and every time I moved the least little bit the cow and bull would look at me. My BIL would then call and draw their attention back to him. I finally got turned and drew when the bull went behind a tree and waited for what seemed to be forever for him to step forward. I finally ended up leaning forward enough to give me a shot and at 30 yards my G5 did the job. I saw an instant spot as my arrow hit him. he wheeled and turn and there was no spot on the other side. I started making funny calls too get my BIL's attention and waited the dreadded 30 minutes. As we started looking for him we could find no blood and no arrow for some distance then we got to were I saw him fall and get up again and that is were we first found some blood.He didn't go more that 70 yards and piled up. My son packing the head out. It was after midnight before we got him off the mountain and the next day was spent getting him into a cooler and resting up. The adrinalin rush with getting my first bull and with a bow no less can wear you out. The little over a mile hike out didn't help either. With it being night time I did not want to go get the horses. More to come later with my BIL's first bull'. DCM