Nevada Bull Elk

Nevada Bull Elk Setup

Nevada produces big bull elk. So, from the day each of my kids were old enough to apply for big game tags, I’ve put them in for trophy hunt bonus points in our home state. My daughter cashed in her elk points several years ago. She tagged a nice six-point Nevada bull on that long hunt. She certainly showed herself to be as tenacious as any hunter I know. For years, my son’s work/life schedule also stood in the way of his elk hunting aspirations, but this year the stars aligned. This year he drew his third choice for bull elk and he would have the time to hunt it!

In 2003, my wife drew a muzzleloader tag in my son’s hunt area. It turned out to be her fourth or fifth choice, and there was no provision for returning the tag in those days. With a nervous lump in my throat, we started that hunt. It turned out to be a challenging and tough one. My wife took a beautiful 6-point bull that year with her muzzleloader, and in hindsight the draw was good for her. We understand this area and it was with great anticipation that I approached my son’s 2018 Nevada bull elk hunt.

Nevada Elk Draws

Nevada manages their herd to yield mature animals. When the herd is growing and growth is important, it is relatively easy to skim off a few choice tags and let hunters tag huge bulls. Once the herd gets big, the management agency must increase numbers to keep the herd in check for the habitat. At this point, hunters compete more for the trophies and age-class bulls become increasingly scarce. Witness any OTC elk state and you know exactly what I’m saying. In short, hunting Nevada bulls isn’t quite the piece-of-cake it once was.

Nevada uses a point system and a 7-year post-award waiting period. The point system allows you one point per year, and in year one, you get a single chance. The points square, so in year two you get 1 + 1 or 2 chances. In year three you get 1+4=5 and in year four you get 1+9=10 and so on. By the time you have eight elk points, you are getting 65 “lottery balls”. You can draw on your first try, but it is normal to wait 10 or 15 years or more for the right tag. The waiting period means once you draw that tag, you can’t even apply again for points or tags for 7 more seasons! My point? Getting a Nevada elk tag is rare.

Trophy Nevada Elk Everywhere?

Elk hunting is hard, I don’t care where you hunt. That said, if your intention is to harvest a six-point bull, Nevada is less hard than most. Don’t think for one minute that your Nevada bull tag shouldn’t be punched on anything less than a 350 bull, however, or you are quite likely to be sorely disappointed. It is true that almost every Nevada elk unit can yield one or more 350+ bulls each year, but competition for those bulls will present a real challenge.

Now, every year about half of the rifle/muzzleloader and 70 percent of the archery Nevada bull elk hunters go home without a bull at all. This, after waiting 10 or 15 years to draw the tag and facing 7 years to even start trying again. Many of the remaining successful folks will take something less than a 300 inch 6-point. You must not take this tag for granted if you want a bull and be careful about worrying yourself over trophy bulls. If you do land the tag, do your homework and be willing to work very hard to punch it. If you really want that 350-class bull or if you even want to tag a bull at all, you need to work. It is important to do both up-front research and a lot of scouting. Even then, luck matters.

Our Preparation

We know well the area my son drew for his Nevada bull elk. Our team have harvested three bulls and countless cow elk in the area since 2003.  I also knew from the experience of my daughter’s hunt that the late bull hunt was the hardest of all. Both her and my son drew this hunt that falls after the archers, muzzleloaders, and first set of rifle hunters have taken the pick of the litter as best they can. We took to the field to scout the area with all of this in mind.

Water and feed mean everything, with plenty of cover and the breeding season over. The crazy number of feral horses would also complicate things. We took a Cat-in-the-Hat approach developed by Dr. Suess: “Calculatus Eliminatus”. We systematically visited water sources in outlying parts of the hunt area to determine if elk were using them. Our best odds were to locate some elk that other hunters weren’t bothering with.

Some Concerns

As our scouting progressed and hunting season drew near, it became clear that our core area was going to have to carry the day. We found one very good alternate location, and two promising alternatives. With little time left to scout, we knew those would be contingencies and not the main event. We later learned that one of those contingencies yielded one heck of a good bull.

Most of all, we found that water was far more concentrated this season. The elk had fewer options and they were forced to compete with the feral horses. A lot of good feed was unused because it was too far from water and the areas around water were being hammered. As the early rifle season drew to a close, we noted that at least a couple of the hunters were going home without bulls at all.

We prepared for the season and I couldn’t help but develop a gnawing concern in my gut. This was shaping up to be another very hard hunt.

A Good Start

I could not help myself…I had to take the mid-week opening morning off. So there we were in the predawn light traversing a mountain on a horse trail. My son and I had opted to head for the high country while the other half of the team were going to put eyes on the lowlands. I had mistimed my departure from home by about 10 minutes, so we were hustling to get into place. It is almost always a bad sign when you don’t need to use a headlamp to start in the morning when elk hunting.

We sat down and started glassing well before sunup. Nothing…I mean nothing. About 20 minutes into our task, we heard some horses running nearby. My son watched what was happening with the horses while I continued to glass, uninterested. To my surprise, Jason said he had a bull elk! The bull had come up through the trees and startled the horses. Since I didn’t have anything else to see, I set my scope on the nearby bull to size him up. We shivered as we watched that bull and attempted to out-wait him as he leisurely worked his way toward a bed. We sized him up as a 330-class six-by-seven and Jason elected not to hunt him on opening day. I had my misgivings about walking away from that bedded bull, but my son was firm in his decision. We would see if this came back to haunt him later…

Long Days

It turns out the other half of our tribe had located 11 bulls in the low country. One my wife figured was in the 330 class and was a bull we’d seen during scouting. The rest were notably smaller and didn’t draw our interest. We ended that day with an evening spotting session that yielded some more bulls but nothing worth writing home. We had seen a couple of bull sway up high and considered hiking in to get a look at them, but we weighed it out and decided to pass for that day.

Normally in elk hunting, each day builds on the previous. Elk hunting is a game of numbers. The more number of days in the field, the better your chances. Note: for those of you who waited 15 years to draw your Nevada elk tag, you are positively insane if you don’t give the hunt 14 days…in my opinion. I digress.Each day we saw plenty of bulls, but each day we didn’t find “the” bull. The days were long and we didn’t seem to be making a lot of progress.

Philosophizing

This has to be part of the fun of elk hunting. If you don’t embrace the lows along with the highs, you may not be an elk hunter. The difficulty in finding and successfully harvesting a bull elk is precisely what makes it worthwhile.Tenacity is undoubtedly the number-one trait of a great elk hunter. Without tenacity, you may want to take up something a little more civilized. Croquet anyone?

Our elk hunt was proceeding exactly according to plan. Wake early, hike in the dark, look often, hunt hard, readjust, repeat. These can be discouraging days,but every day has a little bit of hope scattered within, and each day we were out there my confidence grew. Put in the days elk hunting and learn each day and whether you tag your elk or not, you will be successful.

Winnowing, or Homing In

One thing we did notice very well was water. We noted that the big-game guzzlers, designed to capture rainwater for big game to drink,were either dry or frozen solid. In one case, the elk had licked holes down into the ice block but still couldn’t get to free water. We turned this information into a pretty clear direction: the elk would have to be near good water sources. This meant they would have to be near stock tanks or natural springs. Since both were in short supply in this area, we could see that time was on our side finally.

We quickly detected a trend at one named spring.The elk were coming in very early and leaving before sunrise. Perhaps because the moon was partial and setting before midnight, the elk seemed to be at the spring in the pre-dawn light. The elk were hitting the water and taking one of two basic paths into cover. We set up a plan to put Jason and at least one spotter in place to cover both paths out

Executing the Plan

The first day we tried the plan, all three of us made the hike in the dark. Unfortunately as we worked our 4WD to what we considered a safe location, we observed bull elk on the horizon about 400 yards away. Those elk turned and walked away from us so we thought maybe we’d be ok. As we were loading our gear and packs for the hike in, I thought I heard a gunshot.Knowing it wasn’t legal shooting light, and since we were making small noises with our gear, I wrote it off as just another noise. We climbed the mountain and dropped into the other side to spot our elk. Nothing. We found a bull a few miles away, but we couldn’t find anything in the basin we were hunting.

A little frustrated, we headed back to the pickup to do some midday scouting elsewhere. As we were driving out of the hunting area, my wife noticed another hunter on the hill. This hunter was boning out a 5 by 5 bull about a half mile below where we had been hunting!Since we were out there for the past three hours, I strongly suspect that fella was my mystery noise. If so, he might have been a tad early in his trigger-pulling,but I will never know for sure. We were glad he got his bull and glad to have him out of the way!

Final Day

On our next day, my Dad was able to join us so I took advantage of the second truck to split us up. He would help my wife and son to get into position on our mountain. I would take to the high country three miles away to view their position and also look for other elk from a high and opposite angle. This time I got around the mountain needing my headlamp! Once I got into position I started glassing. For about five or ten minutes, I had nothing. Finally, I found a group of bulls on the spring below Jason and Tammy.Once they saw the bulls, they adjusted their flight plan and moved to intercept where they felt the bulls were headed.

As it turns out, their plan to move down the ridge coincided with the bulls’ plan to climb up on the ridge. I could see the interception taking place. My hunch was even if they missed out on the initial encounter, we could patiently find those bulls in the pinion-juniper basin later. I could clearly see a big 6 by 5 bull that was missing a fourth.We had seen them three days earlier, and I knew that was the bull we were now after.

Nevada Elk Down!

I watched as the two teams started to come together. The six bulls were nervous and alternated between trotting for cover and grazing. I could see that quarters were getting close! The bulls approached the ridgeline at a walk with some trotting mixed in. They slowed as they entered a clearing at the top. Then, suddenly, they all came to full attention looking straight at my son and wife! I couldn’t blink and my eyes watered in the frosty morning air. I watched like this, controlling my blinks as best I could, for what had to be at least two minutes.

Confidence faded to worry as I knew something had to be wrong. Either Jason couldn’t see the right bull for the shot, or he was caught out where any wrong move would send the elk packing in a hurry. Still, I waited and hoped. As I fought off another blink, the bulls scattered in a flurry of hooves and churned dirt. I saw one of the bulls peel off to the left, but it wasn’t the big 6 by 5. Then I heard the report of the rifle, from maybe 3 miles away delayed for several seconds. The shot had flushed the herd, and as I watched the leftmost bull turn down the mountain he stumbled and flipped in a heap behind a tree! I broke radio silence to let the team know “bull down”!

Findings

As it turns out, my son was lined up on the bull I’d wanted him to shoot. It was a long-beamed bull with long points. But when the heavier bull stepped out, both my wife and son judged him to clearly be the bigger bull. When I arrived on the scene, my wife explained that my son hit the bull in the shoulder but they recovered the bullet in a rear quarter from a broadside shot. That made zero sense to me but I gave it no further thought. When I got to the bull I was amazed at how heavy his antlers were! He had broken off his main beam behind his fourth in some epic rutting battle. To imagine that his neck could take that strain without breaking blew me away.

As I finished skinning the off-side shoulder, I quickly found Jason’s bullet protruding. I handed my wife the bullet telling here I’d found the killing bullet. She seemed confused, then quickly realized that bull was packing a bullet from a previous hunter. How tough are these animals that they can break off main beams and pack a bullet from a prior season in a ham?It turned out, as I was recovering the liver and heart from the bull, that Jason’s bullet had demolished the bulls heart. This is exactly what is meant by one shot, one kill.

Conclusion

It turned out that the bull would have been a 350 to 360 bull if his remaining antler had been intact and similar to the other. With modest 51-inch main beams but massive bases measuring over 11 inches and a 21 inch fourth, he is truly a unique and beautiful animal. Whatever the score,this was a big mature bull that will put food on the table. He was harvested cleanly and didn’t suffer. It was a perfect end to a difficult and fun classic elk hunt.

Elk teach us lessons. We all learned by way of this hunt. My confidence faded a bit as the season moved forward, then it picked up a bit again at the end. My son had been kicking himself for not taking that opening morning bull, which is another lesson learned. As it turns out, extending the hunt resulted in a richer experience, full of doubts, misgivings, hard work,and elation. As it turns out, even if that bull had been a small guy, the Nevada elk hunt experience would have been every bit as worthwhile. That is really the point, to unravel the mysteries of the hunt and to experience the difficulties and challenges together.