Tears rolled down my red cheeks as I bawled. The cold water burned and numbed my hands. Ice rimmed the edge of the crick. My breath was visible in the pre-dawn light as it sent my cries to the unconcerned ears of my Dad.

It was the fall of 1971 and my first backpacking trip. Dad had me doing the breakfast dishes; scrubbing them out with sand and rinsing them in icy crick water. I was not happy. However, I had to do it if I wanted to continue on our adventure. So with Dad’s encouragement and assurance my hands wouldn’t fall off i finished so we could go find elk.

We’d hiked into the Sun River Game Preserve to try and call in a bull elk. Armed with a Nikkon, it was something my Dad did every fall. This year I got to come along. Dad’s regular adventure escort, Patches also made the trip.

Patches was a mutt, mostly terrier and possibly bassett, with long white hair, save for a brown patch over her left eye. Short and stout, that dog covered a lot of mountain trails with Dad. He’d found her barely alive in a frozen wheat field, the only survivor of an abandoned litter. I was an infant when he brought her home, so we grew up together. While that was my first night on the trail, she was an old hand by then.

We broke camp and then stashed our packs to pick up on the way out. Then we headed up a faint trail which lead to a long abandoned fire lookout on Deadman Hill.

A half hour later, Dad pulled out his bugle. Actually it was a flute, one of two designs available at the time. The other was a coiled tube of corrugated copper pipe. Both produced a poor imitation of a bull elk’s higher notes but worked on elk unused to human imposters.

Dad took a deep breath and sent out a shrill call. Ascending from low to a high crescendo before tapering off the bugle sliced the silence of the morning. Dad stood, jaw slightly open, listening for a reply. A squirrel chattered away. It seemed like an eternity that we stood there. Dad quietly placed the bugle back in its pocket. Then he whispered to me “We’ll go up to the ridge top and try again.”

We left the trail and wound up through the timber to the rounded ridge top. Dad was very familiar with the area and the best spots to call and glass from. We approached the edge of a clearing with Dad coaching me on where to look and how to make sure my profile was broken. When we determined no elk were grazing, he pulled out the bugle and sent out another call.

The final note had barely faded when a gutteral reply came from the dark timber below us. To my dying day I will recall that sound. It passed through my ears to pierce my soul. Anytime I hear a bull elk it moves as it did that day. The grin on my Dad’s face when he looked down at me is vividly stitched to that sound as well.

Dad checked the wind with a bit of duff. It was crossing so he set off across the clearing to take cover more downwind of the buĺl. We set up in some small spruce trees. Dad bugled again and this time after the bugle he flipped to the other end and grunted a couple times. Just as quickly as before came the reply, but closer. Dad had picked up a stick and began to hit a lodge pole tree and rub the stick up and down the bark. Then he grunted a couple more times.

The far edge of the clearing was about a hundred yards downhill from us. Watching and listening intently we waited. After what seemed an eternity Dad grunted again. The response was immediate and loud. I shivered; not from the cold. Dad put a hand on my shoulder and whispered “Stay still and hold Patches.”

Dad’s Nikkon was out and ready. He’d metered the light when we got to the hide. Now, we just needed the bull to come out. Dad made a short sharp bugle followed by a couple grunted and tree whacking.

The bull burst into the clearing, head up and ready to fight. Red eyed, slobbering, and caked in dried mud, he was splendidly terrifying. He stopped about 75 yards away, quartering towards us. On full display he laid his head back, arching his neck and bellowed out. His head swung side to side as his nostrils curled. I saw his flanks heave as he grunted. He was a typical six-point. Dark symmetrical beams swept back with long tines which lightened to gold then white at their tips. His mane was long and caked with dirt. He was ready to fight. Dad egged him on with a grunt. His reddened eyes snapped to our position and he ran to us.

I’d been watching with binoculars but as he ran I dropped them and stared. He stopped twenty yards away looking for his opponent. The camera was clicking away. I don’t recall but Dad may also have had his 8mm movie camera. Patches was shaking beside me and I was in awe of the beast before us. A pungent odor hit my nose, fully cementing my memory of the day with a sensory barrage of sight, sound, touch, smell, and emotions.

The bull shifted back and forth on his front legs, sensing something was amiss. He took a tentative step towards us, froze, and whipped around running full speed back into the treeline he’d come out of. I looked at Dad as I sat there shaking. He was all smiles. This is exactly what he’d wanted this day to be. I didn’t know that then but I certainly do now.

That September day marked a lifetime of pursuing elk. From similar camera trips to hunting trips when I was old enough. My first elk hunt was a special late season in February where I tagged along and helped Dad get his bull back to the truck. It was a great adventure that only seved to fuel my desire to hunt elk.

I was obsessed with elk. I hunted early with a bow and all season long. I was always the first up the mountain and the furthest in. I also have the worst luck of any elk hunter I know.

On my first elk hunt with a rifle and tag of my own, opening morning I had a shot at a small bull and missed. At 75 yards. Broadside. Leaning against a tree. My racing heart  gave me a nasty case of bull fever. I plumb missed.

Years later, on a bow hunt I’d been winded by a 5-point and his cows after sneaking into about 50 yards. Dejected I went down the ridge cursing my carelessness. I heard a snap and turned to see a spike  walking my way. I knelt and drew back. He stepped clear with only his head behind a pine. It was 30 yards and I was confident. I let the string slip off my fingers and all felt right. I was certain my arrow would be fatal. Then, in mid-flight, the arrow pitched left and buried into the pine trunk. The bull whirled and vanished. Half way to the tree I spotted a branch dangling by a strip of bark my broadhead hadn’t severed. Just my luck, I’d hit the only stick between me and that bull.

I joined the Navy at 19 and that put a damper on my elk hunting opportunities. I did chase elk in New Mexico and again was on the wrong side of the ridge where eight guys tagged out. I went back to Montana as duty and money would allow, but my bad luck stayed strong.

One year my best friend invited me up on a hunt. It was a friend’s ranch which always had elk. I flew in and we drove down together. It was going to be a great hunt, we just knew this was my year. They set me up in every spot that had held elk. Everyone but me saw elk. On the last evening had just left Jim to stalk down a ridge to a meadow that had fresh sign that morning. I had only gone a few hundred yards when the BOOM of Jim’s .338 rolled in, once, twice, thrice. I turned back and hadn’t gone far when a fourth shot rang out. Nearly on top of my tracks, lay Jim’s bull. They’d come up the ridge behind me. Jim was grinning ear to ear but also apologizing I hadn’t gotten a shot. I said no way, you shoot elk when you can and be glad you got one. It was the last bull he killed. Not our last hunt, but I was there with him for that bull. Those wonky little antlers hang in my shop and will always remind me of that great trip.

I am always a bit too late, or a ridge over, or in the wrong saddle. I’ve stalked bulls to their beds only to have the wind shift or a squirrel bust me. I’ve tracked elk right to the gut pile. I am always in the right place but never at the right time. If the season was branch antlered bulls, I found cows and spikes. If it’s antlerless I only found big bulls.

I applied in for limited entry tags but never drew one. I have been around and helped on many successful hunts, but never used my tag. Until last year. In 2025 I applied and drew a permit for a bull in an area where a friend’s ranch was. I was stunned and then it sank in. My luck was changing.

I planned for a week off in November to give me enough chances at being in the right place at the right time. Opening day was good on the ranch but I was hoping for snow later in the season. I loaded up my truck and drove 1600 miles north. My friends hadn’t seen any bulls in a week. There were a few others with permits who were not seeing bulls and very few cows.

I pulled in about two in the afternoon. Stiff and road wearing they met in the yard, telling me to gear up for a sunset “look see” mission. I wasn’t expecting we’d do much except glass ridges on the back of the ranch. Instead, we crossed the county road to a small parcel on a timbered bench. I knew it well, for my best friend killed his last bull hunting with me a few years before.

Slipping up through the timber to a secluded clearing we started to glass. Simultaneously we both spotted the telltale tan and chocolate elkhide. It was five bulls beginning to feed out of the timber. I couldn’t believe it. I’d hit the right place at the right time!

All the bulls were branch antlered. Two raghorns – young bulls with four or five points per side on thin short beams; one five by five; a mature six point with heavy beams and long tines; and a bigger bull that stayed out of sight after our initial glimpse.  It was amazing.

They were unaware of are presence and focused on grazing. We quietly crawled up to a stand of small pines. Laying prone I was able to rest my Winchester Model 70 .30-06 on a broken branch. Everything was in our favor. I wanted my first elk to be a mature bull and there were three 270 yards in front of me. We watched for a few minutes hoping the hidden bull would show. Then I felt the wind shifting. It had been crossing but was now rotating towards the elk. I decided to take the big six point. I held steady, and squeezed the trigger. The bull jumped, whirling about as I chamber a second shell. I lead the running bull and fired again. I was confident in my two shots but was taught to shoot until an elk went down. My third shot was bad, hitting him in a back leg but before I could shoot again he was down. Elk are tough!

I couldn’t believe it, I’d finally gotten my elk. My Dad wasn’t there nor my best friend in-person but they been along for all be the last part of the journey. They were absolutely there in my heart as I laid hands on that bull. Later I’d learn he was nine and a half years old and had certainly passed along his genes to generations of elk. I could not have been happier.

Many hands make light work and before supper the bull was in the cooler. We discovered my first and seconds shots were fatal, with both Remington Core-lokt bullets ending their journey just under the hide on the far side from entry, fully mushroomed.

While a very short hunt, that afternoon was decades in the making. I certainly hope my luck has taken a turn for the better and the future holds a couple more elk for me. They will always stir my soul whether I find success or tag soup. However, regardless of future hunts, none will top this, for there is only one first elk. It was a long time coming, with persistence punching that tag.