Contest Story #1 – The Mudhole Bull (Jason Fuller)

During the hike in to our hunting camp on Labor Day weekend 2008, I found myself thinking of the last bull I’d killed.  I couldn’t believe it was in 2000.  Had I really drawn blanks for seven seasons in a row?  Wow, it was without a doubt 2008.  I’ll never forget releasing the arrow on that bull back then.  I was shaken back to reality by the hind end of the horse walking in front of me.  Apparently the trail had dissappeared, I didn’t know our exact destination, and it was almost dark.  Maybe scouting a little would increase my success ratio?  Naahhhh…had to be “bad luck”.

 This was a first for me, compliments of my new best friend Corey Miner (he’s the dude with horses).  We lead four of them towards a spot of water on a map.  It felt a little like the Clampetts as we scampered around in the dark trying to decide if this mud hole would support us and the animals for a week.  It was just enough and we returned to this spot two weeks later to find the tent still standing.

Monday morning was the 15th and I had decided to take the biggest hike I could manage.  I wanted to find elk early in the week.  I strapped the usual 30lbs of junk I hadn’t used in seven years on my back, grabbed my bow and headed out early.  That’s about 4.5 minutes before “shooting light” where we hunt.  I started on a massive pace up the initial little climb before it drops drastically into the first drainage on my super-hike list.  I went screaming through a little lettuce patch which was making all kinds of noise.  Usually I’m calling frequently, and when this is the case, I never try to be quiet.  This is an excellent strategy which currently had me at a 12% success ratio. 

I stopped to let the lungs process that first morning blast and let out a cow call.  I immediately heard the bull running toward me.  I had violated Jason rule #1 – never call while standing in the middle of a meadow.  With my cat-like reflexes, I sprinted uphill about 15 yards to a few aspens.  Just as I stopped, the bull emerged from the hillside on a killer pace.  He was in the wide open now.  He slowed a little to bugle and kept on truckin.  The bull had me pegged about 60 yards lower than I really was.  With the direction he was swinging, I could see my opportunity would be long yardage.  The bull never stopped and entered another group of trees.  When he did, I employed the cat-like reflexes again and sprinted back downhill.  This put me about 3.5 yards from my initial position.  My motto is – why do something easy when you can make it difficult.

The bull stopped in the cover of trees and bugled.  I immediately responded with a quick cow call.  Once again, he was on his way and in a hurry.  I could see only one opportunity to draw, and I took it.  The bull popped into the open broadside and stopped.  At that moment I had a micro-flashback about the last time I drew on a bull without first knowing yardage.  The whole scenario actually went through my mind in about two seconds and the outcome was not good.  Matter of fact, I think I assigned that as Jason rule #2?  At full draw, I moved the bow aside a little to take a look.  It was moderately downhill and I shot for 35 yards.  The arrow took forever to get there and it was good.

The bull lunged out but stopped to a series of cow calls.  I watched him standing there looking for those cow sounds until he crashed.  Walking back uphill about 20 yards, I could see our tent through a group of trees.  My super-hike was about 500 yards long.  The bull was a nice 5×5 and at that moment it seriously didn’t matter how big he was.  It was an awesome experience.

Later that Thursday my buddy Bryan Palmer took a nice 4-pt bull.  It was a great trip and we’ll hopefully be back at that same mudhole filtering water this season.  If we can find it.