A story

The Autumn sun had set behind the peaks around camp and one by one friends began to arrive. It had been my fortune to draw a limited entry bull elk tag on a unit in Southern Utah. After two months of scouting, and the rut in full swing, the hunt was to begin the next morning. In our scouting trips to the area we had seen a total of five bulls that were worthy of our attention including a good 6 x 6 the previous night that would score about 330 B&C points. There would be a total of seven of us in camp, two having tags.

Sleep did not come easily that night and, after a restless night, the morning broke. We had decided to sit on a flat overlooking a pond on opening morning. Only a few days prior to the hunt a group of seventeen bulls had graced the area, including a bull that was as nice as the one we had spotted the night before. Much to our dismay, the group did not show. Like most elk hunts before, we were going to have to work to fill our tags.

After spending two hours at the pond, and having passed on four smaller bulls, we decided to relocate to another canyon where we had seen impressive racks in the past. The new area produced only the faint call of a love-lorn bull about 3/4 of a mile over another ridge and deep in some black timber. With plenty of quality elk in the unit, we chose to hunt closer to the trail for the first few days and then to chase into the deeper pockets later if circumstances mandated it. The bull was safe for the time being.

It was ten o'clock and in order to try to make the day a little more productive I broke off from the group with Rick Larsen, a hunting partner for the last several years. We had seen a large group of elk about a mile on the other side of our camp the previous evening just as the sun set. The group included a herd bull that we wanted to have a better look at, so we set out to find him.

A mile or more of hiking had not turned up any good sign so Rick and I sat down

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