Movie: Arizona late elk hunt, Dec 2023

Because of a school function, my son wasn’t able to make it for opening day. I went down a week ahead and scouted up 5 bulls that I thought were in a secluded area, one of which was really nice.

Opening morning I spent sitting up on a hill monitoring the area as it was socked in with snow and fog. Hoped it would be like that all day and Jarom might not lose out any opportunities at the big one when he arrived for the hunt the next day. Unfortunately, a little after 11am, the fog lifted momentarily and two missed shots immediately rang out and the big bull and two of his buddies bailed out of the country.

I happened to be watching a new bull at the time, which ended up being the same bull my son ultimately harvested.

Next morning my son and I hiked up high above where the one bull in this area remained hidden in some nasty stuff. We crossed the fresh tracks of three other hunters in the snow that appeared to be going through the bottom towards the same area we were gonna look at from above. I wondered if they’d find this last bull and shoot it. Regardless, we pressed ahead exhaustingly up the steep rim hike.

When we finally scaled the top and could see down where the bull had been, it took only about a minute to locate him 600 yards below us.

My son was able to get a couple shots in him, but he still managed to get up and move out of sight. So he ran down (more like slipped, tripped, and slid much of the way) and relocated him and finished him off at about 140 yards. He used the 7mm Rem Mag with 168 grain Nosler Accubonds.