For the past five years, I’ve been trying to shoot a bull. When I was twelve, my buddy and I tracked down a cow that had been wounded by poachers and put her down with muzzleloaders. I got close two years ago when I had my bow drawn back at a bull standing at thirty yards for over a minute. Sadly, he never presented an ethical shot, and I had to let him go.

It’s no secret that my Huntress loves big bull elk. Her first bull fell to my 7mm Remington Magnum several years ago on a private ranch near Angel Fire, New Mexico. That was a great hunt, and the bulls were bugling and herding cows in a chaotic melee of swarming elk numbering over eighty in one bunch.