“What?!?” I ripped his cell phone from his hands… “You gotta be sh!tting me, hell yeah!!!” Sure enough,
with 4 points he had drawn a Central Mountains, Manti limited entry muzzleloader elk permit. I was
hooting and hollering, he and his mother watched me bounce around the house looking at me like I was
a lunatic. Good thing CPS didn’t visit my house that afternoon because every time I walked past him I
pushed him around or slugged him on the shoulder and let out a whoop. I was pretty darn excited
because it was the exact permit I had in 2020. He was like, “Whatever Dad, I don’t get why you’re acting
like a sweaty try hard.” Pointing to the euro mount of my 2020 bull above the cabinets in our kitchen I
said, “You don’t get it… you drew THAT tag.” He just looked at me and deadpanned, “Oh, meh, I’ll shoot
one bigger than that. Mom, can I go hang out with my friends?” Teenagers.
We arranged to leave the Saturday before opening day to get a couple scouting days in. We ate a late
lunch/early dinner at a local little diner and headed up the canyon to where we planned on camping.
We quickly threw together camp and decided to hike down the ridge below camp just to listen for
bugles and do some glassing. Logan had never heard an elk bugle. There were cattle everywhere on the
ridge and they were making quite a bit of noise. But then, out of the bottom of the canyon came a
sound that was far different than the cattle moos. Logan turned and looked at me, not exactly sure
what he had just heard, “What was that?”
“That’s an elk bugle, Son.”
He smiled, and we listened to a couple different bulls bugle back and forth for the next hour or so. I
decided to pull out my bugle tube and join in, but I let out one of the most pathetic sounding bugles I’ve
ever heard and within a matter of seconds had three different groups of coyotes yipping and howling. It
was as if they were mocking me.
We headed back to finish setting up camp and went to bed, we could hear the elk bugling from camp
and they bugled regularly throughout the night. In the morning we woke up and went for another little
hike down another ridge near camp. From this ridge we could see the ridge that we were on the night
before. On that ridge, out in the clearing, were 14 cow elk and a nice bull. The bull would bugle back and forth with another bull that was still down in the deep timber. We watched them until they went north over the ridge into the next canyon. 
I had seen and heard enough in this little area so we hiked
back to camp and hopped in the truck to drive a couple canyons to the south to do some exploring.
We drove as far as the road conditions would allow then got out and walked down the ATV trail with the
plan to bugle and cow call every couple hundred yards and just mark any responses on my map. It
didn’t take long to get our first bugle response, it didn’t sound like it was super close but it wasn’t
horribly far away either. We kept walking down the two track occasionally bugling or cow chirping for
probably another three quarters of a mile or so. We hadn’t gotten any responses in a while and the two
track was now side-hilling into some steep and nasty country so we decided to head back towards the
truck. We were getting pretty close to where I had marked the last bugle response so I let out a couple
cow chirps and a soft bugle. My calls were met with an immediate and nearby bugle. “Wow, that one is
close.” We walked another 30 yards up the road over a small rise and the bull bugled again, even closer.
Through the trees at the edge of a small clearing I spotted the bull coming towards us and told Logan to
freeze. It was a nice 5x6 and kept coming closer until he stopped at 30 yards and stared at us finally
realizing that something was amiss. He stood behind a tree for several seconds then turned and trotted
back to the trees where he had come out of.
We found a spot for Logan to shoot the muzzleloader a couple of times and just double checked the zero
and test some different shooting positions and off shooting sticks. He shot the muzzleloader well and
we felt confident that given a clear shot he should do just fine. In the picture below the number is the yardage with (p) = prone and (k) = kneeling, and the one shot marked with a 2 is a second shot with a fouled barrel simulating a follow up shot situation.
For Sunday evening we went back to the
first ridge that we hiked out on the evening that we first got there. My plan was to confirm that the bull
that was down in the thick stuff was still there and probably have him be our first play in the morning.
The bull was still there but wasn’t nearly as vocal as the night before or early that morning. However,
we spotted a large herd with multiple bulls going crazy on the hillside all the way across the canyon.
Those elk were in the same area that I had shot my bull in 2020, which is extremely thick and
harrowingly steep. We watched them through the spotting scope until dark and moseyed back to camp. 
Our plan was set, we would go after the bull in the timber below camp at first light the next morning.
The previous night was filled with bugling elk, however this night was filled with silence. I didn’t sleep
well and while lying awake in my sleeping bag for prolonged stretches of the night I didn’t hear a single
bugle. Nerves were starting to set in.
The alarm went off and we got up, snagged a quick breakfast and hiked down the ridge below camp for
the third time now in three days. Now the bull that had been bugling below camp was either silent or
gone. But looking across the canyon the herd of elk from last night were still there with multiple bulls
chasing cows around the hillside, in and out of the timber, and up and down the clearings. I hated to
give up so quickly on this bull below camp, but my gut told me that if we wanted a chance this morning
that we needed to get over onto that other hillside. We weighed the options… should we bail off this
ridge, lose 1000 feet in elevation, cross the creek, gain 1000 feet back in elevation, probably get over by
lunchtime? Then what happens if we get one? We’d have to do it all over again to hike back to camp…
do we really want to do that? Or do we try driving the two track again? We had driven it briefly on
Sunday morning but decided to turn around after the road got pretty rough & I didn’t want to risk it in
my non-four wheel drive truck.
We decided that we would try driving the road and we would go as far
as we dared and then walk, figuring that a two and a half mile hike on a relatively flat two track would
be better than a three-quarter mile hike losing then gaining 1000 feet in elevation.
So off we went, and it turns out that once I navigated the section of road that had caused me to turn
around the day before the road was quite pleasant and easily navigable in my pickup. I had marked a
couple different locations on my phone and we were able to drive the truck to within a couple hundred
yards of where I thought the elk would be.
We crept to the edge of a clearing and I let out a couple of
cow calls. This was a tactical error on my part, because almost immediately I looked down into a patch
of aspens and spotted an elk locked on to our location. This was a big bull, but because of where I had
cow called from, he had us immediately pegged and would come no closer than 164 yards. He turned
and walked deeper into the trees. This was a scenario that I needed to learn a lesson from.
We could hear several other bulls bugling in the next canyon to the south so we walked back up to the
road and walked about a half mile before dropping down into the canyon. The elk were still bugling like
crazy but they were now north of us to our left. We found a small ridge and walked down the spine of it looking for
a location that would allow me to be smarter with my calling and drop off one side or the other
depending on which side the bugle was coming from. It was thick and steep, and we found a spot where
visibility wasn’t terrible… but it wasn’t great… we probably had a maximum of 75 yards of visibility but
we were level in elevation with one of the bugles.
The bull was bugling to our left (north), so I walked 30 yards off the right (south) side and cow called hoping that if he
came in he’d have to come out and cross the spine in full view to check out the cow calls.
Those couple cow calls would initiate 40 minutes of chaos that I would have never imagined or dreamed
of.
We had one bull bugling to the left at what we estimated was roughly our same elevation, then we had
two or three other bulls also on the left (north) side that were probably a couple hundred yards downhill from
us. My cow calls were immediately met with a nearby bugle from the left (north) & within minutes a 5x5 bull
walked across the spine of the ridge at 50 yards. It crossed the spine of the ridge without presenting a
clear shot then doubled back and started going back to whence it had come. I did a soft cow call to get
it to stop but as luck would have it the bull stopped with it’s vitals partially covered by a large tree trunk.
Enough of his vitals were exposed that I told Logan he could take the shot if he wanted but the margins
for error were so slim that he had to aim so tight to the tree trunk that he’d either hit the tree or barely
miss the tree and hit the elk. He never felt good about it so he never did take a shot.
We sat there after
that encounter and decompressed. Since we were in relatively close quarters I had told him to have the
scope on 3 power, I had forgotten about that and told him that once he has the bull in the scope that he
can dial up the magnification as much as he is comfortable with if we get another opportunity.
After another couple minutes I walked again 30 yards off the right (south) side and cow called. An immediate
bugle rang out directly below me on the right (south) side, we hadn’t heard a bugle to our right (south) yet so this bull had
come in and surprised us. I called Logan over to my position and had him get set up. We spotted the
bull coming up the bottom, but he wasn’t coming up to the spine of the ridge, instead he was staying
down in the bottom parallel to us. We thought we had him and he’d walk through a small opening in
the trees and give Logan a shot… so we waited. He never showed. I cow called again and he
immediately bugled from about 50 yards uphill, he had made it through the gap before we had gotten
set up. We moved uphill along with him for about 100 yards before he went silent. Dang it.
We figured we had missed that chance so we went back to the spine of the ridge where we had left our
packs and sat down. The bulls to our left (north) were still bugling in their usual locations. Logan and I started
making plans for what to do next since the sun was getting high in the sky and it was getting warm, I
thought the bugling would shut off sometime soon… we could sneak out and go get some lunch and
come back in for the evening… we could tough it out and just sit tight getting by with the snacks and
meager sandwiches in our packs…
Then the woods erupted to our right (south), the bugle was so close that we could hear the air going through
the throat of the bull. Logan looked at me and his eyes... rather our eyes... were huge. The bull had to be just out of sight
coming up the ridge. Logan grabbed the gun and hopped up, I threw my call in my mouth and grabbed
my tube and ran 15 yards uphill and to the left (north) before letting out a soft cow call. I watched as Logan
shouldered the muzzleloader, then lowered it, then shouldered it again. I wasn’t sure what was going on
so I whisper hollered to him if he could see the elk. All at once I saw elk, how I could have missed it I don’t
know… but from my vantage point I looked just over Logan’s left shoulder and not 15 yards from him in
some thick trees was a large tan body.
Then, in my peripheral vision I caught movement coming up from the left (north) side of the spine of the ridge. I
hollered to Logan… “Get up here… big bull!”
“I know. I see him right here, Dad.”
“No… get up here big bull on the left.”
Logan looked at me like I was crazy as I frantically waved for him to come to me. In hindsight we laugh
at the absurdity of the situation… we had two bulls within 50 yards at the same time & I was calling him
off of a bull 15 yards away that neither of us had really gotten a good look at to see how big he was to
shoot this other one that just showed up. By the time Logan got up to me the big bull had made his way
across the spine of the ridge so I cow called and he stopped and turned around but had stopped behind
another tree. He wasn’t alarmed but was definitely starting to question what was going on. I think the
thickness and steepness of the area played into our favor. Logan said he was dialed in on him and was
ready as soon as he got a shot. I told him as soon as the bull took a step he’d be in the clear and I’d hit
him with a cow call. The bull took a step so I cow called and he ended up taking two more steps before
stopping behind another tree! The bull still wasn’t acting super nervous or jittery so I told Logan that
we’d do it again and I’d call as soon as he moved, this time our gap was bigger between trees, it would
take the elk four or five steps to get through this gap and this was going to be probably our last chance
before he’d drop too far off the spine of the ridge. I watched the bull in my binos as soon as I saw the
bull starting to lean and the muscles in his front shoulders twitch hinting that he was going to start
moving again I blew the best cow call that I’ve ever blown in my life. He took one step and stopped
perfectly broadside. Logan fired. The bull lurched forward and took a couple quick steps downhill.
“Great shot… reload.”
I could still see the bull through a small gap in the trees and watched him go down. “He’s down, Son.
Great shot… RELOAD!”
Logan got reloaded, we gathered our packs and we bushwacked down to where I had watched the bull go down. I
was a couple steps ahead of Logan and spotted the bull’s antlers sticking up above the brush… but I
decided to mess around with Logan a little bit. “Wasn’t this where he was? You gotta be kidding me,
you didn’t hear him get up and run off, did you? “How did you feel about the shot, where were you
aiming?”
All this while Logan was catching up to me and as I was rapid firing my panicked questions to him I could
see the exasperation on his face. When he stopped next to me I laughed and said, “What’s that right
there?”
“Is that… that’s an antler!” 
Well, let’s just say that he did it… he had shot one bigger than mine. I took some pictures and his smile
tells the whole story. We packed the bull out over 3 trips… two that afternoon and evening and one
more in the morning. 
Then packed up camp and got a late breakfast/early lunch at the same local diner
on the way home. The homestyle potatoes with sausage country gravy were something spectacular by
the way.
He wants to hang the antlers in his room above his bed and his mom told him that he better do it now
and get that out of his system because odds are he’ll find himself a sweet young bride that probably
doesn’t want antlers above her bed in her bedroom.
I could not have scripted a more epic experience to share with my son… we saw some awesome bulls,
spent several days in some awesomely big and beautiful country, experienced 40 minutes of absolute
chaos where we called in 4 bulls to inside 50 yards, had multiple shot opportunities, and ultimately my
son filled his first bull elk tag by killing and fantastic bull. And to my son’s credit, he again proved
himself as a strong, capable, willing, and humble young man… his mother has raised him well.
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