Arizona elk hunt ends with 6 x 6 trophy

By Tom Nelson

For six consecutive years I applied for an Arizona bull elk permit. Arizona big game permits are drawn in a lottery, and entrants are given a bonus point for each year they apply unsuccessfully for a given big game species. Last summer I received the reply envelope from Arizona Fish and Game. It didn't look any different from the familiar rejection envelope.

Envelope please! I was finally drawn for the December 1-7, 2000, bull elk hunt in unit No. 22. I was to arrive three days early, which gave me two days to scout. Duwane Adams of Arizona Big Game Hunting chose guide Bob Kyhn who grew up hunting this entire eastern section of Arizona. Bob has worked for Duwane Adams for 10 years. (You can reach them at: www.arizonabiggamehunting.com.) Bob met me at the Phoenix airport. When we finished loading his jeep and the two four-wheelers were strapped on the trailer, we were finally heading uphill to elk country. It was a two-hour run to Payson, which would be our base of operation.

Five months earlier, at Mark's Outdoors I pondered the options and the limitations of my arsenal, while looking at Nosler Partitions, BarnesX Bullets and Winchester Fail Safe. My final decision was made very easy when a good friend offered his Weatherby .338-.378 Accumark, with its 26-inch fluted SS barrel, muzzle brake and synthetic stock.
This takes a monster of a round - a Weatherby .378 case necked down to receive a .338 caliber bullet. A Schmidt-Bender scope, 3x12-56mm on a 30mm tube topped the weapon. This rifle had taken an Alaskan Brown Bear the spring before, so, I was getting a wonderfully experienced gun. My choice for a powerful long range round was the standard factory Weatherby cartridge, with a 225gr. Barnes X Bullet. Norma, makes these rounds in Sweden for Weatherby, and over the counter these are as good as you can buy.

Five months after receiving my permit, I was sitting at nearly 8000 feet, on the jagged Mogollon Rim, (mo'ghe-on), with the Weatherby on my lap. It could be said that this Weatherby came with an implied ability to shoot across mountain canyons, into other time zones, and across galaxies, and all without a visa. The third morning on the mountain rim, I came face-to-face with a beautiful 6x6.
Bob had done his job. The bull did not sense my early-morning ambush, and I didn't know the bull could climb up that last 600 feet of the 1000-foot draw to my lofty perch without me seeing him! Bob, obviously knew the elk were heading up these rock draws to my side of the mountain.

Earlier at sunrise, from more than two miles away at Myrtle Point, Bob had glassed them and moved me into position. Now, three hours later, this elk and I were "point blank," just 25 yards apart. And it appeared the elk was trying to decide which fallen tree or boulder he would go around to get to the top of the rim. As I looked him over, I saw that he was a beautiful, dark bronzed animal.
At that moment, Bob was quietly working back from his glassing position on an adjacent ledge and didn't see the elk. After consciously making the decision to pass him up, I spoke to Bob, who was now 50 yards away from me. "Bob, do you see the Bull?"
At that moment neither Bob nor the elk had stopped moving. As I pointed down to "Pretty Boy Six," as we later named him, Bob stopped. The Bull jumped about 30 feet over the fallen tree and trotted off and away. As I held my scope on him for the last time, the Bull paused for a second and looked back. That behavior will get him in deep trouble next year! But, I believe we educated him.

We focused on a number of areas Bob had been glassing since mid-summer. The Hells Half Acre west valley area and the Mogollon Rim west of Myrtle Point came up winners. We glassed, documented and named nearly 20 bulls in and around those areas. We put many of the large ones on video, by placing the video camera directly up to the lens of Bob's Zeiss 15x60 binoculars. With the video's 40X lens we could zoom in from miles away.
We reviewed the tapes every evening at the motel, so on day three of the season, when "Pretty Boy Six" showed up at my feet, I had already set limits as to what I would take. As the week was wound down, I passed on a few more. My mind was always on "Wide Six," the largest and widest rack we documented during preseason. At sundown on day five, I glassed and stalked another big 6x6 in the Hells Half Acre area. The bull won that contest outright.

When we drove the jeep up to the Mogollon Rim for the last day of the season, I had mixed emotions. We'd had a good hunt, but I had passed and missed quite a few opportunities. That last morning, up on the rim, the prospects of going home empty-handed began to haunt me. We glassed the usual locations and saw a few cows and rag horns.
Reluctantly an hour after sunrise, we moved and drove further up the rim. At the third stop, beyond were we had glassed all that week, Bob was looking across the canyon at a shaded, dark, snow-spotted mountainside, and saw four bulls! They were at well-over 700 yards. We needed to trim that distance a little. Moving back along the rim, we closed to about 600 yards.
The bulls still had not seen us. At about 11:30 a.m., in the deeply shaded, north side of the mountain, they began to bed down. While scanning the four elk, I decided I truly liked one - he was a 6x6 and had good symmetry and mass. I found a flat rock, spread out and set up.

With the video camera behind me and over the gun, I was able to put most of this hunt on tape. The shot was at a down-angle, about 20-30 degrees, and laser ranged at 609 yards. We had intermittent, gusty winds blowing up through the canyon draw and into our faces. We lay there and waited for the wind to subside. I took the first shot while the bull was bedded in that dark shade. Nothing. He turned his head.
Bob said he saw no impact. I settled down again, held a little lower, and waited for the wind to subside. When the wind faded, I squeezed the trigger. The next shot hit. The bull stood up and moved back to our left. At the time we weren't sure I hit him, but later the tape confirmed the hit. Even the bullet's path, a contrail-type flash toward the Bull, is evident on the tape.

He had been lying on a side hill, with his head to the right. With this down-angle of approach the 225g BarnesX hit about 10 ribs back and medium-high - not a mortal wound. I was anxious to finish the job. Time passed so slowly as I waited for him to move. Now the openings and the wind didn't cooperate. Finally, the bull moved toward the right. In another 20 yards he'd turn the corner and go out of sight. Three quick and desperate shots, at 650 yards, finally yielded an impact on the ground we both could see - knee height under his chin.

The shot had an additional benefit. It turned him back. With some quick laser work and another look at the ballistics chart, we decided to hold over five feet! The idea was a great one - implementation was another matter. We waited while he moved to the left. Two fast shots later, at almost the very spot he had been bedded on, I hit him cleanly though a shoulder. He dropped and flipped over on his back. We drove 30 miles around to the base of that canyon; rode five miles on the four-wheelers to the base of the mountain; then packed and climbed 1,800 vertical feet to my elk.
On the way we called another Arizona Big Game guide. He met us for the pack out. We quickly ascended the mountain with empty packs and just enough water to get up; all along marking the trail and thinking what route would be best to come down on with loaded packs. On the way down, we stopped at a clear, cold snowmelt fed creek and washed up and rested.

Among the many rich memories provided by this hunt, I will long remember savoring the camaraderie of that moment, and the moment, itself.