Dutton LE Early Rifle Hunt

Well I finally got back and settled in from my long, grueling hunt on the Dutton. Ox knows what happened but for everyone else who doesn't here is a recap.

Scouting started out slow. I scouted an entire week before the hunt. We only succeeded in spotting 4 bulls none of which were over 330. We covered a lot of ground and saw very few elk. Spike and cow hunters on the archery season definitely changed the entire rut no doubt. It sucked!

Well pro left the Thursday before the hunt and skullcrazy showed up. We quickly relocated to another area and quickly found a 390 type bull and a few 350's. Still not much rutting action but at least we found them.

Day one found us sitting in the spot we thought the 390 bull would cross at. About 30 minutes into the hunt someone shot a 350 bull we spotted at first light and passed. The loudmouth then proceeded to whoop and holler for the next 2 hours sending every elk in the area packing. That evening we hunted the same meadow only to find zero elk and about 10 other hunters.

Over the next few days we spotted several different bulls. Rutting was never very hard but at least we were seeing elk. I passed on a solid 360 to 370 bull we called pretty boy of which we got excellent video footage of. I also passed tender foot and his enemy. Both of which were 6x's with 48" inside spreads, long heavy beams, but short tines. 350ish type bulls. well about day 7 we were back where the big boy was first seen. right off the bat I saw a huge 7x7 pushing 45 inches wide with long beams and decet tines. I was ready to shoot when doug pulled me off him and said he was only a 5x. I got out of shooting postition only to hear him say no,,,,, I was wrong, shoot him. Too late he was gone. Well the next day we got above the saddle he went through. Doug quickly called and said he's below you heading your way. We got into postition but never saw the bull. The next day we decided to go in after him and succeded in only pushing a bull and cows out. We had no way of knowing since nothing was talking. That evening we were back at the same area and didn't see a thing. However 2 miles down that draw ray was watching a solid 380 to 390 bull with his video camera. Needless to say I was very upset. the final day found us back at the spot we kept seeing the big ones in. Again, no noise, no elk no nothin. I set down for about 20 minutes and all of a sudden I could faintly hear rocks rolling beneath me in the canyon below. I quickly got to a vantage point only to see one of the largest bulls I've ever had the pleasure of putting my scope on. No spotting scope necessary. I knew this was the bull I had been looking for and quickly drew down and let fly. My second shot hit him in the neck. all shots after that were taken through trees at the bull and didn't connect. We let him set up for 2 hours before going in for the final kill. a couple of quick shots a 300 yards finished him off. We were estatic as we approached him and couldn't believe his size. We then quickly noticed that somewhere between the time I first saw him and now that he had completely broken off his double g2 and g3 and 2 inches of his left g5. Broken this bull gross scores 353. From what we saw of him before we are fairly confident he had a 15" second g2, a 16 to 17" g2 and another 20+" g3. Thats around 50" of horn he broke off. We estimated his 6x6 frame to be around 380 to 385 and his nt frame to score a little over 400. I will post pics up when I finish working and get back to my computer at home.

Thanks for the updates ox and for keeping in touch.