Appointment with Noah 

The following story is from a new friend that I am connected with on Weatherby Rifles!  He also shoots a 340 Weatherby, one of the finest Elk cartridges made!

I don’t claim to have any innate “sixth sense” or unusual knowledge or skill when it comes to elk hunting, but I’m not a tenderfoot, either.  Growing up in Idaho in a hunting family, I took full advantage of the fall hunting seasons.  Most of the hunts during my teen years were for mule deer, although I got a taste of elk hunting on a trip to the Selway River area in central Idaho with dad and my brother Ray, who connected on a spike bull.  A few years later, as a newly married college student with a very lean budget, my hunting focus shifted to include elk on a more regular basis.  Having spent a summer as a “cedar savage” (cutting Cedar trees into telephone poles) for a northern Idaho logging company, I had plenty of exposure to elk country, and took advantage of my newly gained knowledge of the area when elk season opened in the fall.  With tags available over the counter and either sex areas open to the general public; I took my first elk, a big dry cow.  Of course, I had to sit patiently at the fish & game checking station while they inspected the big 6-point bull another hunter had taken just over the hill from me.  I was hooked.  The following year, I was invited to hunt with a friend near Grangeville in north-central Idaho.  His dad owned a logging operation, so we had the inside track on where the elk were.  Opening morning we got into the elk, and my friend and his brother both got cows, which we packed out the next day in the snow.  On the way out that next afternoon, we bumped a big bull.  The bull trotted off through the timber about 150 yards, then turned broadside on a dirt bank, and looked back.  I was in shooting position, and carried a brand new Winchester M70 ’06 – a gift from my dad. The rifle had arrived in the mail only a couple of days earlier, and I had only taken it out of the box, added a sling, and bought a couple boxes of ammo.  When the front sight blade slipped into the notch of the rear buckhorn and paused behind his front shoulder, I touched it off.  Only casually acknowledging my shot, the bull just turned and walked over the hill into the timber.  The foot race that followed ended 250 yards later, with me about 10 steps behind Zura, a track star at the U of Idaho.  I got there in time to see him take the bull down with a short 50 yard neck shot.  I will admit I was really disappointed – this was a magnificent herd bull, and I had missed!  One lesson learned the hard way – Never assume a new rifle is already sighted in!  I consoled myself with the thought that it would soon be my turn to get the trophy.

And suddenly, 33 years had passed, it was 1997, and I had memories of many enjoyable hunts, of bulls that had outsmarted me, and of being on the wrong side of the hill or in the “other clearing”.  Yes, I had taken several elk, but the best of them was a raghorn 5-point.  Although I have always treasured the whole of the outdoor experience far more than the filling of a tag, I had unconsciously developed a nagging case of “Why not me — when will it be my turn”?  When it dawned on me, it was an uncomfortable feeling – but it was there.  And as much as I resisted it, I had to acknowledge that getting a good bull was becoming very important.

My opportunity came in mid – 1997, when my neighbor Rusty dropped by to tell me that a friend of his, who had a bull elk tag for the Panther River area in Alberta, couldn’t go hunting that Fall, and wanted to sell the tag.  I had read about the Panther, and knew that this was the area where Clarence Brown took his record book typical bull in 1977 – a bull that still holds the number one position all – time for Alberta, with a 419 6/8 B&C score.  I also knew it wasn’t a one-time aberration – the Panther holds 3 of the top 10 typical scores forAlbertato this date, and I had visited the trophy rooms of some of the hunters who had been there in the past few years.  I had promised myself for years that someday I would go on a guided hunt, and this was gong to be it.  I don’t have the funds available to take these guided hunts whenever I feel like it – I would be dipping into a hunting fund slowly built over the years, so I had been careful not to waste it on a “blind choice”.  The retrieval of my billfold from my hip pocket would have made a lasting impression on a fast-draw artist.  I owned the tag.  Rusty had hunted the Panther river area 5 years earlier, and had returned from the hunt with a big heavy 6 x 7.  He eagerly accepted my invitation to go with me as a “tag along”, and the hunt was on!

Arriving in Sundre, Alberta on the 1^st of November, we were met by our outfitter Ken Fraser, owner / operator of Wind Valley Guiding, my Guide Clem, and Eli, Ken’s other hunter from Georgia.  Over breakfast, we learned that the weather wasn’t cooperating — too warm, and not enough snow.  The area we were to hunt is partially dependent on the elk migration out of Banff Park, and extreme weather was needed to move the elk down from the high country into the Panther River valley.  The Panther River area has a resident herd of elk, but action picks up rapidly when the Banff bulls join the party.  We hoped for a cold front, and early the next morning mounted our horses for the 3 ½ hour ride from the trail-head to camp.  For the next two weeks, we hunted from “0-dark thirty in the morning to 0-dark thirty at night”.  We saw a couple of good bulls, but couldn’t get to them.  I left at the end of my hunt having passed up a 5×6 that was barely legal, and rode out alongside Eli, who had taken an excellent 6×6.  As we headed out of camp, Ken looked at the sky and announced “Too bad you have to leave — the weather is changing, and the bulls will be here tomorrow”!  But, with 4 more hunters waiting at the trail head, it was time to go home.  Ken and Clem had worked hard and long for me, but Murphy’s Law was alive and well.

Back at home and settled back into my work routine for only three days, the phone rang Wednesday evening.  It was Ken, calling from his radio phone in camp.  His message was simple and his voice confident as he said “The bulls are here, and everyone has tagged out.  If you can be back at the trail-head Sunday morning, we’ll go back in and get you a bull”.  I pulled out of the driveway Friday after work, thankful for having a boss who was an elk hunter and understood.  And 940 miles later, I was waiting at the trail-head Sunday morning with one other hunter.  We had one week of season left.  The weather was perfect when we rode into camp — 30 degrees below zero.  At that temperature, Fahrenheit and Centigrade are about the same and either one is cold – very cold.  We also had about 10 inches of snow on the ground, which was just right.

Over the next 6 days, we hunted hard.  The bulls were there — big bulls, and lots of them.  The other hunter connected the first morning with an excellent 6×7, but Murphy had tagged along with me this time also, and every day my chance evaporated with some unexpected event.  There was the grizzly that spooked the bull, the day the fog dropped in, the hunter that appeared on the ridge top above me from his camp 20 miles away and took a big 6×6, and other mishaps.  And on the final day there was the bull standing broadside at 250 yards, with my crosshairs on his shoulder.  I couldn’t take the shot, because I couldn’t count points due to the tree branches behind his head — this was a 6 point minimum area, and he might be an oversized 5×5.  I lowered the rifle, grabbed my binoculars, and saw the big 6 point rack disappear in the timber.  Clem and I tracked that bull for the next 8 hours, and he outsmarted and outran us.  The odds are slim that you can get a bull in the timber that already knows you are there.  I had kept a running tally during the week.  In 6 days, we had seen 26 different bulls that were 6 point or better, and I went home without firing a shot!  Perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be.  I rationalized that it had been a great hunt (which it had), but couldn’t shake that knot of disappointment in my stomach.  I wasn’t done yet – I secretly vowed to go back in the future.  This country “owed” me a bull.

During the next 2 hunting seasons, I huntedIdahowith friends and family, and helped them pack out their elk — a good 5×5, a very good 6×6, and a bruiser 7×7 my brother got that went in the mid-340’s B&C.  I got a spike.  And, I was beginning to develop a defeatist attitude, whether I wanted one or not.  When the phone rang in March of 2000, it was Ken Fraser in Alberta.  There were two tags available in the Panther River.  I asked him to hold them for a couple of days, while I made a phone call.  I dialed Scottie in South Dakota.  Scottie and I had become good friends since we met in 1992, and we had something in common.  He had been chasing his big bull for 15 years, and Murphy seemed to alternate between my hunting camp and his.  After having patiently listened to my tales of thePantherRiverover the previous couple of years, he was ready to join me.  Thankfully, we both have understanding wives, and I returned the phone call to Ken.  We took the tags.  I started piling hunting gear in the living room floor in September, although the hunt wasn’t until November.  It would be different this time.  After all, Murphy might decide to join us on the hunt, but he couldn’t watch both of us at the same time, could he?

On Saturday evening the day before the start of the hunt, we drove to the trail head just to keep busy while waiting for the next morning.  There was the outfitter’s wagon – and 10 inches of snow on the ground.  Although it was unseasonably warm at about ten degrees Fahrenheit, things were looking up.  The hunting party before us must have filled their tags and gone home early.  This was more like it!  We hardly slept that night, and were at the trail-head to meet Ken the next morning.  Yes, the hunters had left early — there were no elk in the area, and they had left early, discouraged! Alberta was in the middle of a warm dry weather pattern, which had persisted for 3 years by that time.  The elk were still in the high country of Banff Park.  Well, we can hope for a weather change or a stray bull out looking for a late blooming cow.  And then, our two weeks were gone, and so was the season.  We had not seen an elk – not even a cow.  We had hunted hard, had seen some spectacular country, cut a two- or three-day-old bull track that petered out in the timber, and once again were reminded of why they call it “hunting” – not “finding”.  On the way out to the trail head, we stopped for coffee at another outfitters camp.  We had met three years earlier, and he asked me about the hunt.  He was genuinely disappointed with my report.  When he asked if I was going to come back for another try, I almost automatically responded “I ain’t done yet”!  I don’t know if it convinced him, but it didn’t really convince me.  But Scottie had proven to be a great hunting partner and sportsman – he left the Panther having had a memorable hunt, and with no regrets.  I had at least gained a good hunting partner, which is not an easy find.

By now, it was getting almost humorous.  The next two years I continued to hunt Idaho, which provided me with more opportunities to help my hunting partners pack out their elk.  I was genuinely pleased by their success, but……….. I had unwittingly fallen into a mental pattern.  I hunted fully expecting to get nothing, and it had become a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Meanwhile, Scottie had visit Colorado twice more, and was still without his bull.

2003 began uneventfully, and I was making plans  in Idaho.  I was really starting to hammer myself for being a poor sport, and had lost some of the enjoyment of just being outdoors in my fixation with getting “my bull”.  And once again the phone rang in March, and this time it was Scottie.  He had called Ken in Alberta.  The Alberta Fish & Wildlife service had cut back on the number of tags in the Panther river area, and now there were only two non-resident alien tags issued.  Ken had rights to both tags and would have no trouble selling them, but they were available, and he was offering them to us first.  Knowing Ken, I understood he truly wanted us to connect.  He is more than an outfitter doing business — he truly has a passion for elk and in having his hunters succeed.  He goes by the book, but works as hard as anyone I’ve ever seen for his hunters.  I subscribe heartily to both of those characteristics.  Scottie wanted to give it another try.  And so did I, but I knew it was “now or never” for me in Alberta.  Recently retired, I had watched my 401(k) shrink to a 201(k) over the past two years, and funds for hunting were limited.  All these years, both Scottie and I knew there were hunts in the US where a big bull was essentially a “sure thing”, but that somehow never appealed to either of us.  I’m not judging those who take those hunts – It just isn’t my “cup of tea”.  Scottie and I are both blessed with good health and physical ability born of years of hard physical work, and when we finally connected on our bulls, we wanted to know that it was earned the hard way, in a setting where the elk have the advantage.  So, we would once again visit Alberta, and try to outrun “Murphy”.  This time, we arranged to go in during the rut, in mid-September.  If the bulls were there, we should have a good chance.  If they weren’t there, we would go home after a week, and try again the last week of the season at the end of November.

Plans were pretty well in place when Scottie was on the phone again in mid-August.  He had gotten run over by a cow on his farm, and had ruptured a disc in his back.  He was scheduled for surgery in mid September — no hunt for him, and tags already purchased and the hunt paid for.  Murphy was alive and well.  After a short one-sided discussion, he made it very clear that he wasn’t going to ruin my hunt – I was going anyway.  He would not have it any other way.  And so it was, with my neighbor Rusty keeping me company again as a “tag along”, as he had done in 1997.

Having breakfast in Sundre with Ken and my guide Len prior to leaving for the trail head, the news was encouraging.  A fire had burned through the area two years earlier, and the grass was up to a horse’s withers.  It had attracted elk, and many of them had set up residency in the area.  We were no longer so heavily dependent on weather and the migration out of Banff Park.  Bow hunters the previous week had seen some great bulls in the Panther River valley during their hunt with Ken – a couple of big 6×6’s and a ”hog” 8 x 9 along the river below camp one evening.  They came close to filling their tags, and had bugled a bull in close one evening when the wolves moved in and started howling.  The elk shut up, and never bugled again the whole season!  But, we knew they were there.  So in to camp I went again, with high hopes.  During the 3 ½ hour ride, I did a little “self talk”.  Repeating over and over again “This time it will be different”, I was determined not to let pessimism interfere with the hunt.  And I was finally prepared to go home without a bull – or was I?

Opening morning we were in the saddle well before first light.  We would be hunting hard, and wouldn’t see camp in the daylight for the duration of the hunt.  I would learn to trust my horse to find his way home in the pitch dark.  After a long ride that circumnavigated the hunting area, and time spent glassing the hillsides, it was late afternoon of the first day.  We tied the horses about 50 yards short of the end of timber, at the end of the ridge on top of “J-I” mountain.  The “J-I” is one of the major landmarks in the area, easily distinguishable by the two streaks of timber stretching down through the high grass on the south-facing slopes, forming the letters “J – I”.  Sneaking out to the rock cropping that marked the end of the ridgeline; we laid down and eased our heads and shoulders over the edge to search the hillsides beyond and below us.  There was 45 minutes of shooting light left.  It had snowed about 4 inches the previous night, and the grassy hillsides were slick with melting snow.  Visibility was excellent.  It didn’t take long to locate the 9 cows and one bull on the slope about 600 yards away.  With my eyes glued on the bull through my binoculars, I heard my guide Len ask “What do you think of that bull – would you take him”?  I was looking at a heavy horned mature 6×6 with long points, wide U – shaped spread, and long main beams.  The ivory tips seemed luminescent in the last rays of the setting autumn sun.  My instant response was “In a heartbeat”!  He replied that the bull would go “at least 350 – probably better”.  I’ve never been one to view hunting as competition, so I’m not big on keeping score, but the numbers provide a reference point for talking, and this was a great bull.  This is what I came here hoping to find.

We watched the elk for about 15 minutes to see which direction they were grazing. If they moved toward us, they could be in range before the end of legal shooting hours.  They never moved.  With 30 minutes of light left, it was time to make a run at the bull.  We sneaked back off the rock shelf, went down the backside of the ridge in the timber, and came out in a swale that would hide us from the elk.  When I made it to the top of the next ridge line, I would be about 250 yards from the bull and straight across from him, and would have a good prone position shot.  Walking on the slick snow on that slope was a challenge, and slow going.  As I gingerly crossed the steep-sided swale in the gathering dusk, I spurred myself on with the phrase “this time it will be different” playing over and over in my mind.  I did my best to ignore the thump of my heart, and wondered how I would be able to hold a steady sight picture when the time came to shoot.  I made it to the ridge with 15 minutes of shooting light left, and slid up into shooting position.  The elk were gone!  A sprint of 200 yards more to the back edge of the final ridge that they had been grazing on revealed nothing but the stand of timber and Poplar that wrapped around the backside.  I was too late.  Returning to the saddle horses, we took a trail off the backside of the mountain, and emerged at the edge of a large meadow that was known as the airstrip.  We would try to find the tracks of the bull, to get a clue on where he was headed.  It was well past shooting light, and we were relying on our horses to follow the trail through the blackening timber.  When we bottomed out and entered the edge of the meadow, we crossed a game trail that followed the edge of timber.  Our flashlights revealed fresh elk tracks, lined out toward the wide saddle overlooking the valley at the end of the meadow.  That saddle marked the edge of the hunting unit.  My bull was leaving with his cows, and I would not see him again, except in my restless dreams during the nights that followed.

Tuesday, then Wednesday, and so on into the week, and we had seen elk every day – but the best bull was a 5×5.  This was still a 6 point minimum area.  I was hanging on tenuously to the belief that “this time it will be different”.  We knew there were at least three more good bulls in the area that we hadn’t seen, having cut their tracks on Tuesday and Wednesday.  A light snow fall Tuesday night and again Wednesday night had revealed a bull track that definitely put him in the “keeper” class.  We crossed it Wednesday evening, headed away from the ridge where I’d seen the 6×6 the first evening.  Checking the ridge again late Thursday afternoon, the track was there again, but this time it was headed in the opposite direction – toward the hillside below the rock cropping.  We sneaked out for a look.  Four cows and a bull were bedded on a saddle 600 yards away.  The spotting scope revealed it as the 5×5 we had seen the previous two days.  Try as we might, we just couldn’t put another point on him.  A close study of the head movements of the cows did not reveal any hint that there might be another bull hidden nearby and it was unlikely that a 5×5 would be allowed to bed with the cows during the rut if a bigger bull was nearby.  We returned to camp in the dark.  Tomorrow was Friday, and the last day of the hunt.  If I didn’t connect, I would go home and wait for November for a final try.

Two hours before sun up we were on our way to the upper end of the hunt area, to an area called the “dog ribs”.  Rusty had been fighting some health issues, and was wearing down.  After a long day in the saddle and a couple of steep hillsides where we had to lead the horses down, we were both tiring.  Len was still going strong, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I had at least 25 years on him.  We rode to the lower Dog Rib canyon, tied the horses, and took a hike.  Rusty stayed at the horses – he was done for the day, and I was close to it.  After about ½ mile, the wind had shifted to our backs and picked up to about 15 miles per hour, and it was obvious we were scattering our scent in front of us for miles down the canyon.  It was time to head for camp.  Back at the horses at about5 pm, we mounted up for the trip down the mountain.  With Len in front, we made the ridge top above camp at about5:30, and he reined in his horse at the point where the trail to the rock cropping on J-I mountain teed off to our left.  He swung his horse broadside, looked me in the eyes, and asked “Well, is it camp, or do you want to check the J-I again”?  I sneaked a look at Rusty, and it was obvious he was bone tired.  I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth next – “If I leave this country without a bull, it will be because the country beat me – not because I beat myself.  Let’s take another look”.  Rusty grinned knowingly and turned his horse down the trail to camp, which was a tempting short ride away.  I cursed my stubbornness; silently blaming some genetic defect inherited from dad, and muttered “This time, it’s going to be different”.  The rock cropping was a good 2 hours away, and we made it there with 30 minutes of shooting light to go.  With our horses tied securely in the timber, we gingerly covered the last 50 yards to the end of the ridge, carefully avoiding the patches of crunchy snow that lingered in the trees.  I was following Len closely, stepping in his footprints.  Sneaking out onto the rocks, Len suddenly flattened and slipped back toward me.  He whispered “We’ve got elk below the rocks, about 150 yards down”.  We both slid slowly down onto our bellies, and snaked our way forward onto the flat slab at the edge of the rock cropping.  Peeking over the edge, we counted nine cows – and no bull.  My eyes scanned the hillside below the cows and swept the adjoining ridges, coming to a dead stop on a rack of horns behind a thin row of burned trees, about 250 yards away and slightly downhill.  I whispered to Len “The bull’s down there to the left — is that the same five-point we saw yesterday”?  I was laying on my binoculars, and had no chance to get them out.  Len rolled onto his side to get a look, and his reply was “No, that’s a legal bull”.  With 15 minutes of hunting left, my response was instantaneous – “I’m going to take him”!

The evening breeze was drifting over our shoulders down slope toward the cows, and they were getting nervous.  The bull suddenly threw his head up, and disappeared down the draw below the cows on a dead run.  I considered leaping up and trying to outrun him to the timber, but knew that would be futile.  Then I caught a flash of movement below the cows — horn tips!  He had turned our way, and was making a run at the cows.  The next 10 seconds played out in slow motion, like it was choreographed for a movie.  The horn tips turned into a rack, and then into head and shoulders, and finally but suddenly he was there – behind a cow, and stopped at 125 yards.  I slid forward on the rock slab until I was hanging over nearly to my waist, and managed to get my rifle tilted down far enough to get a sight picture. He was clear of the cow and stood quartering toward me slightly.  I vaguely recalled the advice that Ken had given the first night in camp.  – “Don’t shoot a bull below the rocks on J-I mountain.  There won’t be any horns left when he gets to the bottom”.  And there the bull was – below the rocks at the point of J-I mountain.  The crosshairs on my .340 Weatherby settled on the point of his shoulder, and with the squeeze of the trigger my rifle seemed to respond as an extension of myself.  The bull was down, and I had instinctively and automatically worked the bolt and chambered another cartridge, in case the first 225 grain Nosler partition bullet needed help.  It didn’t – he hit the ground instantly and started tumbling and sliding, rapidly disappearing behind the convex slope below.  It was a long, steep, slick hillside to the bottom.  I wondered if there would be any horns left when he stopped.

I sat up on the rocks, and Len calmly replied “Well, that one isn’t going to get back up!”  He extended his hand and congratulated me on my shot.  And then it hit me.  “Len that bull looked like he might have a 7^th point on one side”.  Len’s answer was “I think you’re right – it looked like that to me too.  Let’s go take a look.  I think he’s gonna score pretty well”.  I sucked in a deep breath, held it a moment to try to relax, and finally exhaled.  As I looked out over the magnificent Panther River valley below me, memories of forty years of elk hunting came crashing together in my mind, and suddenly I was no longer in control of my emotions.  Struggling to regain some composure, I told Len “It doesn’t matter how he scores — It just doesn’t matter.  You may have hunts where you take bigger bulls, but you will never hunt with a man who appreciates his bull more than I do”.  Eye contact confirmed that he understood, and with that, we returned to the saddle horses.  It was a 20 minute ride to get to the bull, in the growing darkness of evening and in steep country.  I held my breath as we approached the bull, hoping his rack had survived.  What I saw set me back more than a little.  Lying in the bottom of the V-bottom draw was my bull.  MY bull — that phrase still has a special and somehow unfamiliar ring to it!  Arcing above the tall grass was his left main beam, with not seven, but eight typical points showing – all perfectly aligned on the beam!  Dismounting, I grabbed the beam to roll the other out of the deep grass.  And there it was, and it showed nine points – all on the main beam, with one of them a non-typical between the dagger and the 5th.  There wasn’t a chip in either horn, except for the ones on the tips of his eyeguards.  And he had earned those in earlier fights.  This was the big 8×9 the bow hunters had seen along the river.  I took a quick reading with the rangefinder, back up the mountain to where he had originally fallen.  It was just over 600 yards, and his path was well marked by flattened and torn clumps of grass and dirt where his horns had dug in.  How he made it to the bottom with the rack intact will remain a mystery — Perhaps Murphy had vacated the country at the sound of my shot?

We field dressed and quartered the bull, and removed the cape and horns.  I shed my jacket and shirt, and stripped off my tee shirt.  It would remain draped over the hind quarters overnight, to try to discourage the wolves and grizzly bears from intruding.  I smiled when Len commented that “Your shirt will keep the wolves off the meat, but a grizzly will just eat the shirt”!  We mounted up and headed back for camp in the dark, with the time approaching 9:30 pm when we started, and with two hours of riding ahead of us.  Somehow the stars were brighter that evening, the air crystal clear and pure, and the mountains more majestic than ever.  My mind wandered to my three previous hunts in this area, and I began tallying up the time I had spent here.  As we approached the lights of camp and a welcome late supper, I rode up alongside Len, and announced “Len, I’m naming this bull — Since I first came here in 1997, this is the 40^th day and 40^th night I’ve spent hunting in the Panther River valley.  I’m naming him NOAH”.  Just for reference, NOAH green-scored 366+ non-typical, and 362+ typical, B&C.

My odyssey was complete, but I couldn’t help feeling sad for Scottie.  He was just out of surgery, and I had my bull.  I wish he had been here, and could have taken this one, or the “first night” bull.  We will never know how that would have played out.  I wasted no time when I got back home, and called him to see how he was.  It was 3 days after his surgery for the ruptured disc, and he was still on pain killers.  He was truly happy for me, but I knew he was hurting more than just physically.  This was supposed to have been his dream hunt too, and he had been waiting since that hunt in 2000 to go back.  His quest for a big bull was now at 25 years, and I understood what he was feeling inside.

Some stories do end on a happy note, however.  The phone rang in early November, and it was Scottie.  “My back is feeling better, and the doctor is getting tired of me whining, so let’s go back and get me a bull”!  It had only been two months since his surgery, but if he was game, I sure wasn’t going to say no.  After a call to Ken in Alberta, we met at the trail head at the start of the last week of the season.  The weather was cold, and there was snow.  This time, it would be different – again!

After an adventurous trip to camp, across the Panther River 12 times with treacherous ice shelves on both banks of the river, we settled into our bunks to try to get some sleep.  Morning came early, and we were in the saddle in pitch dark, headed for the Dog Rib canyon.  Scottie had taken his morning dose of pain pills on top of a big breakfast, and was tolerating the horseback ride with only his eyes revealing his discomfort.  We made the ridge top above camp, and then into the bottom of the canyon at the start of legal shooting light.  Scottie’s guide Paul was in the lead, then Scottie, then me.  I carried my rifle and both a mule deer and a wolf tag.  But I wasn’t about to shoot at anything until Scottie had his bull.  I was essentially a “tag along”, and happily so.

Rounding a bend in the trail, a high grassy slope started to reveal itself on the right as the canyon widened to allow a narrow meadow to appear between the opposing ridges.  We were paralleling a small stream that crossed the foot of the meadow in front of us.  For some unknown reason this area was dubbed “the swamp”.  Paul suddenly reined his horse up short, dropped off to the ground, and signaled us to dismount.  As he slid back along side Scottie and me, we heard him half-whisper “We’ve got bulls, and they’re crankers”!  I hadn’t heard that expression before, but the meaning was clear.  Settling in behind some trees, we glassed the far hillside about half way up, and saw two big bulls bedded in the snow below the timber.  The sun had not yet touched the top of the ridge above them, and they were just loafing.  As I scanned the hillside, I caught a glimpse of antler below and to the right of the two bulls, and tucked back on a small shelf below a patch of mountain poplars.  Close study with the spotting scope revealed the head and shoulders of a third bull, and he was a “cranker” also.  I stayed with the horses while Paul and Scottie disappeared in the timber to get closer.  With a convex slope below the bulls, they would not be able to see to shoot if they approached on the same side of the valley as the elk, so they would have to approach from the opposite hillside, and shoot cross-canyon.  It would be a long shot.

After 30 minutes had passed, I was certain they were in position, and the elk were starting to move.  It was well past the start of legal shooting light, and the sun was starting to slide steadily down the grassy hillside toward the bulls.  The bull highest on the hill was a heavy 6×7 with one broken point, and he stood and wandered into the timber when the sun hit him.  The second bull, an excellent 6×6, followed shortly.  Then number three – which had proven to be the best one – stood up, and was meandering slowly along the ledge toward the timber about 50 feet ahead.  I wondered why Scottie didn’t shoot.  I didn’t have long to wonder – the canyon reverberated with the unmistakable sound of his .340 Weatherby, but he missed!  A second shot echoed through the Dog Ribs, and it found its mark.  The third shot that followed about 5 seconds later would eventually prove to have been unnecessary, but it put the bull down to stay.  I rode one horse and led the others to the base of the slope below the bull, and met Scottie and Paul crossing the valley.  As we climbed the mountainside, Scottie told me the shots had been at 458 yards, by rangefinder.  Good shooting!  I got up the slope to the bull well ahead of Scottie, who was favoring his back quite a bit by this time.  The back pain couldn’t mask his smile, though.  Paul had already reached the bull, and was lying casually on his back in the snow, admiring the sunny morning.  (I had 25 years on him, too)!  I walked up beside the bull, and called down to Scottie “Hey, there isn’t any ground shrinkage on this one”!  It was a heavy horned perfect 6×6, and green scored 356+ B&C.  It was9:30 AM on Monday morning, and we were a very happy group!  A search that started for me 40 years ago, and 25 years before for Scottie, had come full circle for both of us.  Two close friends, two great bulls, and the magnificent scenery of Alberta— The cliché “It doesn’t get any better than this” somehow seemed pitifully inadequate.

Scottie has finished building his trophy room, and the shoulder mount of his bull is the centerpiece on the end wall.  And Noah holds the spot of honor on the end wall in the family room of my home, and friends have come to visit.  As the conversation turns to hunting, I face the inevitable question:  “Where did you get that bull”?!  In typical hunter fashion, I smile and say “Right behind the front shoulder”.  And then I hold them captive for (at least) the next 30 minutes, while I re-tell my story, and once again re-live the memories of the Panther River.

 Jim Clark