Leftover Cow Tag

If you’ve ever applied for any Bull Elk tag in Arizona, then you know how difficult it can be to get drawn.  Celeste Stephens, like so many of us, found out by phone that she was unsuccessful on her draw.  There were, however, some leftover cow tags in a nearby unit!  And she wanted to fill the freezer!

She applied for and was successful on the draw process for the leftover Cow Elk permit!  So on opening weekend, Celeste Stephens and her husband Clay Stephens woke up the Stephens clan.  With Celeste, Clay, Craig, Karlee, and Karson loaded up in the truck, the group headed out to start Celeste’s hunt!  Now special consideration had to be made on this hunt.  Obviously, your not going to hike three young kids miles at a time, or get them to sit still for any amount of time… and the quiet thing is completely out the window!  Clay had a high spot that he could drive his truck to in order to do a little glassing.  The plan was, if they located some elk, he would stay with the kids and Celeste would put on the moves!

Clay parked his truck at the end of the road on his high spot and had to hike to a point with Celeste about 80 yards away.  Clay put his oldest, Karson, in charge.  The emergency code was to honk the horn on the truck.

Clay and Celeste set up and started glassing while taking turns returning to the truck every few minutes to make sure the kids weren’t torturing each other.  Clay had himself set up behind his high powered binoculars set on top of a tripod, while Celeste had a little cheaper pair of binos she was trying to steady by hand!  It wasn’t long before Celeste glassed up a small group of elk heading to a dirt tank below the glassing spot!  As planned, Clay stayed put and Celeste started her decent to try and reach the dirt tank ahead of the elk.

The elk reached the tank ahead of Celeste and were just finishing up when she got into position!  She settled her rifle behind the shoulder of one of the cows and squeezed the trigger.  The elk exploded!  Cows began jumping the fence surrounding the dirt tank, but one cow stopped short, obviously hurt!  Celeste set her crosshairs behind the cow’s shoulder once again and squeezed another one off!  The second shot spun the elk!  The elk stumbled a few steps and went down!  An excited Clay called his wife on the radio and asked “did you see them?!”, and over the radio came a cool, calm reply “of course I saw them, how on earth do you think I shot one?”

 

The freezer will now be full!