Canyon Owens

My first hunt started out like many others do by waking up at 5:30 in the morning. We started to head up on the mountain, although we couldn't see it through the dense clouds that hung over it. About half way up the mountain it started raining. We got up to the top in a blizzard. We stopped the truck to listen. We were sitting there for about 2 minutes when we heard an elk bugle about 150 yards away. We got and and started following the sounds of the elk bugling. We then heard another elk and my dad said that it would be a satellite bull and most likely a spike. We topped over a hill only to hear a jeep about 250 yards to the north and then an elk busting out of the quakes about 60 yards to our right it was a spike but it was running so fast through the quakes I wouldn't have had a shot. Come to find out that the jeep we heard drove through the trees were there wasn't even a road. After that we drove around the mountain in the blizzard and got a new paint job on our truck, mud brown. On Monday night we went up into a place where my dad had seen 5 different spikes about 2 weeks earlier. We got up there and headed down to a place we call the blown down which was one of the places my dad had seen some spikes. We were coming over the hill when we heard a bull bugle and bugle as it was coming closer. We crouched down under a pine tree and about a minute later, we see a bull come around the hill(a pretty six point that would go about 340, its sword was about 25 inches long). We were watching it as it came closer and closer to about 35 yards when we heard something big on the other side of the hill. The bull took off and we walked over the hill only to find a dead spike(I found out later that my friend had shot it on opening night. Before we went up there that night my dad called his cousin to check out a place we had seen 5 spikes in last year. That night when we got back home my dads cousin called and said he had gone up there and seen a spike. The next day I left school early so we could make it up there in time for the night hunt. As soon as we got to my dads cousins house we headed up on the mountain. We were there for about 10 minutes when we heard a rhino coming up the road. We knew the guy was going to go down into where these elk were and he would scare them out of the country so I grabbed my gun and started to walk down into where the elk were. The guy topped over the hill and seen us going down in there so he turned around and left. We had to walk about a mile til we got to where the elk where going to be. When we got about 100 yards down the hill and told us the elk where at the spring. We where walking down a four wheeler road that was total gravel so it was going to hard to be quite. When we got out of the oak we could see the elk about 700 yards away too far and we knew where they were going so we decided not to shoot. We walked down a little ravine and then topped back over the hill and could see the spike at 412. My dad layed down his pack for me to shoot off of. I laid down, put my scope on its highest power(9), and my dad said put it right on it, then he said you're on the spike not the bull right. I took a deer breath and.......BANG! did I hit him I i asked as soon as I had reloaded and looked back into the scope. Yeah hes limpin' shoot him again my dad said. By now excitement had set in BANG! you missed my dad said BANG! you missed BANG! you missedNow we had to reload as I was handing my dad the bullets he dropped one, I gave him th last bullet I had with me BANG! you missed BANG! you missed CLICK I had'nt gotten a bullet in you're jerking the trigger my dad said oops now the elk laid down and we had to move so I could get a good shot. BANG! you hit him low in the leg. BANG! the elk starts tumbling down the hill. After about 5 shots my cousins started coming down. We were sitting there looking for the bullet we had dropped when I look back over at the elk. The elk is looking at us but I had broke its back and it couldn't stand up. We found the bullet but didn't shot from there incase I missed again. We walked over there and I finished him off. We started quartering it out when I realized I had left my license in town. We called my cousin Seth and he brought it up to us. What can I say I got excited and couldn't hit the thing.