Every single year my Dad puts in for a big bull tag for over in Eastern Washington. Two years ago he finally got drawn for it. We were so busy with moving into our new house that he didn’t have time to go for the whole week so he decided that he would go just for the weekend. I was hoping that I would get to go with him because I love being out in the outdoors and it would be nice to actually get some guy time with him. We usually don’t get guy time because my annoying little sisters always follow us around. Even when we try it never actually works though.

After 4 hours of driving we finally got to the bottom of the mountain (not that I remember any of the drive because I was sleeping). We started to head up the mountain and I was on full alert. Looking every which way possible trying to find the first elk. We got up to the spot where we were going to camp and started to set up because it’s easier to set up camp in the day than it is at night. We got set up and just walked around to try and find a really good hunting spot. We walked around for about an hour and finally found a sign of some elk, prints and a bunch of droppings on the ground. We decided to start there in the morning. We went back a made a nice fire and roosted some hotdogs. We got our sleeping bags ready and layed down in bed. Probably the best part about hunting is right when it gets dark and all of the elk start to bugle. It’s probably the sweetest sound in the world. There is nothing like that sound in the world and nothing like the feeling you get when you hear that all around you.

We woke up the next morning around 4:30. We put on our entire cameo, my dad got his bow ready, we put dirt sent on, and we headed to the place where we found all the droppings at. We arrived there and heard something moving in the bushes. My dad told me to get down so I got down behind the stump and blew the elk call. We heard more rustling in the bushes and I started to get nervous. Not really sure why I got nervous but I did. It started to get closer to us and then all of a sudden a white sheep popped out of the bushes. My dad and I just started to laugh at each other. We put two and two together and realized that it wasn’t elk droppings but sheep droppings that we were looking at. We felt like such morons. We decided that we needed to go try and go find a new spot before the end of the day.

We found this spot that was like a huge bowl. We knew there was elk around because there were trees that the elk had been rubbing on and lots of prints in the mud. We sat on top and started to glass the bowl to see if we could find any animals. My dad glassed for about five minutes before he gave me a turn. I was glassing when all of a sudden, right behind a fallen down tree I see this tan body. I said to my dad “Dad I think I see an elk.” My dad being his normal stubborn self just said “it’s probably just a rock don’t get your hopes up.” I kept looking at it and realized it had horns. “Dad it has horns. There really is an elk down there. I think it might be dead but I know there is one down there for sure.” So my dad took the binoculars out of my hand and I told him where to look. He looked and looked with nothing said and no movement at all and then all of a sudden I hear “No S***” come out of his mouth. We started to make the trek down the hill when all of a sudden we got this whiff of a dead body smell. We knew the elk was dead but we weren’t quite sure. We got down there and realized it was a 7x6 elk dead, just laying there.

We called the game warden because when you find a dead animal you are suppose to report it so they can see what happened. The game warden showed up and I meet him up at the road while my dad stayed with the elk. On our way down I was talking to the game warden and asked him what they usually do with something like this. He said they usually just let it be and let the animals eat it. We got down to the elk and the warden said “yup that’s a dead elk alright.” He said we should just leave it there and let the animals have it. All 3 of us started to head up the mountain when I asked the game warden if I could keep the antlers because they were just so big that I didn’t want to leave them. The wardens aren’t really supposed to do that but I thought I might as well ask because the worst that could happen was him saying no. So I asked and he said “I’m really not supposed to let people take horns of a dead animal but you seem like a nice kid with good intentions.” There was a long pause. The pause seemed like it was an hour long because of all the suspense when really it was only like 30 seconds. He finally was like “yeah go ahead and take it. Just leave the body because you don’t want to take that home.” We cut off the head and headed home. We got home and boiled the head to get all the meat off it then put some white stuff on the skull and still today it is hanging up in our living room. That is my favorite story to tell people because it brings back such good memories and makes me feel like I actually did something right.