Monday, November 14, 2011

Sherri's Bull


Sherri Roose has done a lot of elk hunting across Arizona over the years.  Listening to her stories of her past hunts, about the endless miles spent chasing elk, the long hours put in while hot on the trail of elk, the terrible weather encountered while elk hunting, and her well deserved bragging rights, showed us she was motivated and above all excited for her first bull elk hunt during the rut.

Having spent the entire month of September archery elk hunting in two states had the MuleyBull bunch ready to switch it up, and trade in the archery equipment for something that shoots a little further.

Day one put Sherri in some broken up Unit 10 country.  Up to this point, the rut seemed to be lacking a little excitement this year.  The archery hunters had packed up camp and headed home, many disappointed in the low rutting activity.  However, things seemed to be trying to pick up.


Just before daylight on day one of her hunt, Sherri was sitting next to the truck listening to a few bugles off in the distance.  All were sitting quietly listening to the elk scream back and forth to one another, once we had an idea on which direction we wanted to move, we geared up and started in.

As usual, the elk were moving away from the hunters.  Sherri crossed several draws and canyons, when finally the bunch stopped late in the morning to take a break. With ADD kicking in, P.T. decided to drop down into some country where the elk were last heard.  As P.T. crept through the thick cedars, he finally got his eyes on some elk.  Moving quietly through the thick trees put P.T. within easy archery distance of a handful of cows and a 6X7 that was feeding, occasionally chasing a cow or two.  P.T. pulled out his video camera and got a few minutes of tape before returning to where Sherri was located.

After watching the footage on the video camera, Sherri was game to go after the 6X7.  A short time later put her in the area where P.T. had filmed him.  One bugle from P.T. was all it took.  The bull immediately answered and started to move toward Sherri.  Within minutes, glimpses of the bull could be seen as he closed the distance, grunting and glunking the whole time.

Sherri barely had time to get set up when the bull began to round a cedar tree at 40 yards!  As the bull came around the tree, Sherri set the crosshairs where she needed them (this is about the time P.T.'s video camera died), and wait for the bull to stop. The bull cleared the tree, stood there looking for the intruder bull that had pulled him off his bed and BANG!!  It was as fast as that!  The bull went strait to the ground without so much as a twitch of an ear!  This is where things really got loud!  Sherri jumped up screaming, hollering, jumping and spinning.  This was the first time she had ever seen a bull come to a call, and was her biggest bull to date.


A great time was had by all.  Sherri and her bull made an appearance in the Williams Newspaper, and the Lake Havasu City Newspaper, not to mention the hundreds of picture texts that Sherri sent out to her many friends.




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