The Land of the Giants!

How often does this happen? I was on my family vacation in Maui Hawaii, at the Hyatt Regency on Kaanapali Beach, trying to relax, sipping on Mai Tai's. My son, Michael, and I knew that the Arizona draw results were coming out but we can not get our computer to work in the hotel. There is a five hour time difference from Hawaii to Arizona, so when I woke up and turned my phone on, I had several messages. Figuring it was my office, I didn’t listen to them. After all, I was supposed to be in Hawaii relaxing. So I tried to get online again with no luck.

My phone rang, it was my brother in law Brian and he answered by asking, “Are you sitting down?” I replied, “Don’t tell me I drew a sheep tag!” “Nope, but you have drawn the coveted Unit 9 elk tag you have been waiting on for the past nine years!” My wife looked at me and asked, “Should we start packing?” Then I was anxious to find out if anyone else in our family had been lucky. Fortunately, my son, Jr., drew a tag for the late rifle hunt in Unit 8 and he began to do a moon walk. He was excited. Unfortunately my other son, Michael failed to draw a tag, but he has drawn five bull tags in the last six years so he was not in a state of depression. Around my house the day of the draw is a time for celebration or some Prozac. I am usually the one looking for the Prozac.

So as I tried to relax in Maui, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I needed to do, where I needed to be and wondering who else had a one-week jump over me on the scouting. I had spent so much time in this unit during the spring and in the past, that I convinced myself that it was not important. But like any other junkie, I needed a fix and the only fix would be pulling into Valle, Arizona and setting foot in Unit 9.

Scouting for "The King"

Throughout the spring and early summer, I have seen some decent horn growth. Last winter we had some good rains and snow, but the spring had not brought any significant moisture to date. I was worried that if we did not get any rain the racks would not show their usual top growth. When I got back home from Hawaii, I helped my wife unpack our luggage, repacked my bedroll and optics, trade my flip/flops for Danners and headed to the Land of the Giants. On my way up there, I noticed there are some thunderheads building and I realized the summer monsoon had started while we were gone. That relieved me and I prayed for good horn growth.

I spent several days scouting, actually thirty full days before September 1st. In the mean time, Bill Maquire called me looking for some help in the unit. He told me that we were referred by Brady Dupke and I informed him that we were not sure if we would be taking on any clients during the archery hunt, as my guide partners wanted to focus on just killing a great bull without any distractions. I let Bill know we would get back to him. After talking things over with my guides, the two Jeff’s (Hemphill & Polacek), we decided to assist Bill. My good friend, Alan Kenson, also drew a tag for the same unit and we decided to build a base camp together. I moved to camp on September 1st and planned to stay there until the season was over. Later I decided to return home for my 20th wedding anniversary, but my wife forced me out of the house and told me to go back to my other love, chasing big bulls! What a woman! I can’t tell her how much I love her.

The day before the hunt I still had not made up my mind on what I was going to do. The main two bulls that I wanted to hunt had vanished. The winner of the Arizona Statewide Raffle Tag killed a the grand bull a week prior to my hunt. I believe it was one of the bulls I had located earlier and the big non-typical bull we called the king, had crossed into Grand Canyon National Park.

100 Bull Elk Screaming, 50 Yards from Our Camp!

I spent seven days looking for this bull without any success. I did not see one elk and heard no bugles. At my base camp, the bulls are screaming so loud that you could not sleep at night. There must have been over 400 head of elk in the area with a hundred bulls screaming as close as 50 yards from my camp. It was music to my ears but it made for long sleepless nights. In Arizona you usually don’t sleep much at night on elk hunts during the rut. We spend most of our time locating bulls at night and early morning to see which pockets of elk are the most intensely into the rut. On the night before the hunt, Teresa Sullins, the camp cook, met up with Bill Maquire and brought him to camp. Daryl Macintosh (Mac) showed up to give us a hand and Alan planned to join us later. Jeff Hemphill and I head out to the “Land of the Giants” and Mac headed to the “Boys Club”. These are our code words for our honey holes. We left a message for Alan, “When you get here, head for the Hole.”

Jeff and I arrived in the Land of the Giants after a one hour drive. We put a plan together and took off in separate ways. I told Jeff I was going to sit in the meadow until one hour after dark to listen for any late comers to the meadows. Jeff said he will do the same. The sun finally went down and the hour passed resulting in another frustrating night, no elk, and no bugles. Nothing! I thought to myself, “This really sucks! The bulls must be gone.” This part of the unit did not get blessed with any moisture and even though we had found some great bulls, there was no water.

"The King" Had Left the Hall

Jeff showed up at the truck and asked, “Did hear that bugle?” I replied, “No, where?” He said as he was walking off the ridge, he softly cow called and 200 yards away a bull answered with a deep low tone growl and that was all. There was a full moon that night and Jeff said he felt like it was something out of a scary movie during Halloween. My excitement rose hoping it was one of the remaining bulls that we had seen and praying that it was the big non-typical 8X8 we called the “King”. This bull had double tripods off his sword tine and looked like two crowns. He was a very large bull and would score high in the non-typical category of P&Y. If it was not him, it could have been the large, heavy 6X6 that I had seen with the 7X7 which the raffle tag holder had shot.

We headed back to camp trying to locate bulls on the way out. No luck. We did not even hear an elk until we got back to our camp. After dinner I left for a red eye run searching for calling bulls at night trying to find where the bulls were the hottest. There is no doubt that it will be hard to find a better spot than around camp, but you never know. Well, I was right. Camp was cranking like nowhere else in the unit. I finally got to bed around 2:00 am and got up at 3:30 am. (1-3 hours of sleep is pretty standard in our camp during archery hunts in the rut.) We usually try to sleep when the elk sleep, during the mid afternoon.

Continue with Part 2