Thanks to the great state of Arizona, my 12-year-old grandson, Cole, was able to secure a transferred tag from his father, my son, Nick. This would be his very first “on his own tag” big
game adventure, occurring in unit 1 late rifle for bull elk. I had hunted this unit several years ago with a good buddy who lives in Eager, Arizona and now has his own guiding business, both there and in Western New Mexico.Having already harvested his own whitetail in Pennsylvania, Cole was very familiar with the process. He had also accompanied his uncle, his dad, and me (his grandfather) on an elk hunt in Wyoming two years prior. We killed three bulls in two days. It was a great learning experience for an at the time 10-year-old boy – field quartering, meat hauling, boiling and bleaching skull mounts, etc.Cole’s family lives in Northern New Jersey where he plays youth league football offensive line. Dad, his coach, was a full scholarship college student-athlete. He played offensive line for James Madison University. With me having previously harvested six bulls in a multitude of western states and his dad having taken bulls in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming already, these were obviously big cleats to fill. This was a lot of pressure on a young man, but Cole was up to the challenge. Hunting is a coming-of-age rite of passage in our family. This represents bonding at its finest.Opening morning dawned with great anticipation welling up from minimal sleep the night before. Unfortunately, it also dawned with 50 mph sustained winds and horizontal snow pelting our faces like tiny razor blades. Despite these miserable conditions, we hunted hard all day but couldn’t turn up a single bull. Then, just before dark, we located a small herd of bulls right next to the main road. They quickly faded into the dark timber, but at least there was hope for tomorrow, albeit in an impossible place for a stalk due to lack of cover.The second morning, we were up at 4 a.m. The storm had passed. It was a beautiful starlit sky with not a cloud in sight. We promptly returned to where we had put the bulls to bed the night before but saw nothing! We ventured on until we were surprised by a young bull bolting across the road with two other smaller bulls on the roadside within view of our headlights. We pulled over a bit further down the road because, humorously, our guide had to bolt out of the truck to answer the call of nature in eight inches of new snow! He returned smiling and began scouring the meadow to the left. Cole mentioned his hunch that the bulls might be bedded on the big mountainside to the right. Toby said that was not likely, but then he scanned over in that direction and let out a whispered, “Holy crap, there they are!” Six bedded bulls, one shooter. We quietly grabbed the gear and began the stalk, staying all together in a uniform, linear bunch. We could only get within 600 yards without spooking them.The rifle setup was completed within seconds. Cole and Dad hastily brushed away snow and secured a solid prone position. Right at legal shooting light, the first round was on its way, striking the largest bull mid-shoulder area but high. He humped up, ran a few yards, and stopped behind a big juniper bush. Only his antler tips were visible. Then the bull lay down with no vitals exposed for a follow-up shot. We quickly shifted the rifle 20 yards to the left and got re-established in prone position, enabling Cole to hammer him again, this time for good.Whoops and hollers, high fives, fist bumps, hugs, tears, smiles, leaps, and bounds all ensued. What a first bull! At 630 yards with a ton of pressure on a 12-year-old lad, Cole prevailed and got the job done. It was as if the heavens had opened up after the blizzard. The sun came out, reminding me of the famous quote by the poet Robert Browning, “God’s in his heaven – all’s right with the world.” This was simply just flat out meant to be.Despite having success on our past adventures, this hunt was so serene. It was very unlike most of our other self-guided family hunts, which somehow wind up to be controlled chaos – dropped bullets, no shot, animal switched ends, got winded, scope got bumped, etc. Sound familiar? Luckily, Cole’s bull had expired just 50 yards uphill from a logging road. We were able to gut him and slide downhill onto the truck bed. We drove him over to Toby’s dad’s house. Using his 1938 Navy winch truck, we hoisted this behemoth up on the gambrel, skinned him down, reloaded him onto the truck bed, and drove him over to the meat processor. Meanwhile, Cole, who was still slightly in shock as to what had just happened, recounted the story to everyone in Toby’s family who was in attendance.If we lived locally, this entire breaking down process would have been done by us. We make the harvest of any big game animal a family affair, and everybody helps from start to finish. In fact, all primal cuts will be shipped by refrigerator truck to New Jersey. Once there, they will be transformed into delicacies like sausage, jerky, bologna, brisket, etc. The bull’s head will be boiled down and bleached into a European skull mount for Cole’s bedroom. This will undoubtedly replace his dad’s smaller rack skull-cap mount from Wyoming, which is currently hanging there. I would certainly be remiss if I didn’t, as his grandfather, quote from my favorite passage in the 23rd
Psalm, verse 5, “my cup runneth over”... with pride.Oh, by the way, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, offensive linemen CAN score just like Cole did on this awesome hunt-of-a-lifetime!