Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/528216
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 0 2 bow. I have to fight the urge to dance a jig and sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. T hat afternoon Dusty heads out in the truck to glass and listen on a solo scouting expedition, while I join Phil and the boys not far from where I killed my bull. We slip quietly up a wooded slope and on finding a likely vantage, Phil deploys his troops and sends out a challenge. Two bulls answer. Bobby and Mike are uphill from us, about 50 yards apart, each with a good view and arrows knocked. I am able to see both of them, and watch them react to the bugling. I don't know exactly how to describe the feelings I experience. These are my sons, grown men, doctors both, yes, but my boys still and to watch them tighten up and go on point is nothing short of fascinating. The bull on the left is closing, but the one on the right is retreating uphill, probably ushering cows away from the interlopers below. The left bull steadily approaches, then inexplicably changes course to follow the other uphill. Dusty, in the meantime, has found a solitary six-by- six in a meadow bugling with great fervor to an empty theatre. He watches as the bull drifts forlornly into the trees. He will save him for later. Next morning Mike and Phil rise early, and in the dark climb to where the bulls had retreated the evening before. At halfway, they hear bugling above them and circle laterally through the lodgepoles and deadfalls. Reaching the crest, they follow the ridge to its highest point above a steeply pitched sage field and select a spot where through a gap in the trees, Mike has a commanding view of the slope. Phil, having folded into thick brush behind him, cow-calls and a bugle sounds from a bull nearly in their midst. Mike prepares to draw when a spike crosses 25 yards away, bugling as if he were king of the mountain. Only seconds pass before another bull ghosts into view, this one a beautiful six- by-seven a mere ten yards down the slope. Mike whispers, "Stop him," hoping Phil will cow-call, but Phil doesn't hear. The bull does hear him, though, and pauses to look at Mike who turns to stone. When the bull starts to walk Mike draws, and spotting the movement, the bull stops again. The arrow flies true and, mortally wounded, the animal crow-hops, swaps ends, passes Mike and walks out of sight. Bobby, Dusty, and I are deep in the woods at the foot of the slope, working a bull who is steadily moving away from us, when, over Dusty's radio we hear Phil whisper, "Hey, Mike has stuck one. Can you guys see a wounded elk side-hilling above you in the sage field?" We can't even see the sage field, so we change course and head toward the foot of the mountain, leaving our elk bugling his backside off and moving steadily away. On reaching the toe of the near vertical slope, we see Mike and Phil at the base of a tree halfway to the top. Sheer delight is splashed across Mike's face as he holds the antlers of a terrific bull elk that quickly succumbed to the effects of the arrow, then rolled downhill to rest against this single, solitary tree. We begin the grueling climb to join them. Given the bull's precarious perch, we roll him slowly so Dusty and Phil can remove his head and cape. That done, we slide him downhill to the bottom, where the quartering will be easier. We've had an amazing run of luck, with bulls bugling everywhere, and three days remaining for Bobby to cash his tag. The day after I killed my bull, when Bob Sundeen visited camp, I naively said to him, "One down, two to go." He responded with wisdom born of a lifetime in elk country: "One out of three is pretty darn good. Two would be terrific." T he following morning Mike and Phil mount a scouting effort, while Dusty, Bobby, and I visit the lonely lothario in the meadow. We wait for half-light, then slip across the clearing to the edge of the trees where Dusty drifts a plaintive cow-call into the cold wind and is answered by a thundering bugle. The terrain rolls gently here compared to where we've been hunting, and the forest is open, offering good visibility. With tension in the air so thick you can clench it in your fists, we move quickly to the base of a low hill, call again, and the bull answers, now closer. Dusty and Bobby find a spot below, but within bow-range of the crest, and I retreat 20 yards or so to watch the action. The dialogue continues with Dusty cow-calling and the bull responding but hung up somewhere beyond the hill. Then he clams up completely and Dusty's calls hang unanswered on the slopes. After 15 minutes of silence Bobby and Dusty rise and engage in a whispered conversation as Bobby secures his arrow in his quiver. I have taken three steps toward S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 0 2