“Bull coming in.” I sent that text to my hunting buddies on Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023 at precisely 4:15 p.m., as we sat, separated by several hundred yards, on a north-facing meadow in the mountainous terrain of southeastern Kentucky.
It’s a text I never expected to be able to send, mainly because I only had a day and a half remaining of a very long elk season, which had me wondering if we were going to get it done at all. Just a couple minutes after sending the text, as the bull came slowly into bow range, I came to full draw on a Bluegrass State 5×5.
In an instant, 25 years of dreaming, 13 years of applying for this tag, 7 months of preparation, and 220 hours of blood and sweat had come down to this one shot opportunity. I steadied my 40-yard pin right behind his left shoulder, took a long breath and released the arrow.
And… then watched my arrow zip right under his chest. It was hard for me to comprehend that I had just blown my one shot at the only elk I had in bow range since archery season opened three months earlier.
An Elk Hunt Years in the Making
I first learned about the Kentucky Elk Restoration Project back in 1998 in my high school library in Linton, Indiana, while reading a hunting magazine. The state of Kentucky successfully partnered with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to procure seven elk donated from Kansas, and in 1997 the restoration of a once-plentiful herd of Eastern elk in the Appalachian Mountains was underway. I thought this might be an awesome opportunity to someday hunt elk in a neighboring state, and began dreaming of a time when I might have my chance to participate.
Fast forward to 2010. As I was buying an online license in preparation for a turkey hunt in Kentucky, I added $10 on a ticket in the Bluegrass State’s elk lottery. Needless to say I did not get drawn that year, but I did continue to go turkey hunting for the next few years in Kentucky, and each year when purchasing my nonresident turkey license, I would enter the elk lottery. And for the next 13 years I continued to apply hoping my luck would change.
Kentucky announces their lottery winners live each year at various outdoor shows throughout the state. The date and location for the 2023 event was set for May 13 at the Kentucky Elk and Outdoor Fest in Bardstown. On that day I was helping out in softball tournament concession stand when I received a phone call from one of my hunting buddies. All he said was, “You lucky dog!” Not knowing what he was talking about, I asked him to further explain. He said, “Dude, you got an archery tag!”
I still didn’t know what he was talking about and I could tell my buddy was frustrated with my thickness so this time he raised his voice just a little bit and said, “Kentucky elk lottery, man! You drew an either-sex archery tag!”
I had totally spaced the fact the draw was that day, I honestly don’t even remember what the next words were out of my mouth. The next 30 minutes consisted of me calling and texting just about every hunter I knew, to let them know I had just drawn the unicorn tag.
According to Huntinfool.com, in 2023, 78,590 hopeful hunters applied for the elk lottery. Of those applicants, 36,791 were non-residents. A total of 594 overall tags were issued. Only 57 of those tags were awarded to non-residents, and only 17 of those non-resident tags went to archery hunters.
Reality in Coal Country
By that evening, reality was setting in that I had absolutely no idea what the next move was. I didn’t know a single person who had ever been drawn for the Kentucky elk lottery, so I had no idea where to start. This forced me to become a Kentucky elk hunting sleuth for the next few months. I can promise you there is not a video on YouTube that has the words Kentucky and elk in the description that I did not watch.
Once I was assigned my unit, I did manage to squeeze in a couple three-day scouting trips over the summer, which was crucial in helping me gain knowledge of the terrain, and allowed me to lay eyes on multiple elk. Archery season opened September 9 and ran through September 22, then took a couple months off to fit in the various rifle seasons, before a late archery season ran from December 2-8.
On Sept. 8, I found myself, along with longtime hunting partner Mike Parks, back at that same campsite I had become so familiar with over those summer scouting trips. After setting camp we hopped on the ATV and took off to get some glassing in before dark. Unfortunately the only thing we glassed that evening was hunters, and lots of them. I discovered through both of my early archery trips in September, the same features that attracted me to some of these huge coal-mine properties appealed to many other people as well, and not only elk hunters. I had numerous encounters with deer hunters, locals running bear dogs, and families out joy riding on their ATV’s.
That early archery season basically consisted of lots of walking, lots of glassing, lots of people, lots of ATV’s, lots of rain, lots of bears, ATV trouble, trailer trouble, and no elk. September proved to be a bust for me and I honestly wasn’t sure I would return in December for the late archery season.
I had a couple months to feel sorry for myself, but thanks to the motivation and encouragement of local southeast Kentucky Conservation Officer Kevin Miller, I decided to suck it up, change up my strategy, and try again.
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Final Shot
On my final trip down to Appalachia, I now had longtime hunting partners and high-school classmates Jake Gennicks and Andrew Bredeweg with me. However, this time I decided to change things up a bit. Instead of hunting large tracts of land on the southern end of the unit, I decided to check on some smaller pockets of public land in the northern part of the unit.
On the six-hour drive down from Linton the three of us discussed potential strategies we might be able to use on a late season hunt to be successful. My plan was simple, but not easy. In Fred Bear’s “10 Commandments of Hunting,” one of his tactics is, “Don’t ignore fresh sign.”
So the morning of Saturday Dec. 2, opening day of the late archery season, found us pulling into a public spot before daylight in hopes of getting on some of that fresh sign. After a short discussion with some rabbit hunters we parked the truck and headed up the mountain, where we eventually came to a very high point which allowed us the opportunity to do a lot of glassing and walking. We saw some beautiful country that looked “elky” to us, but no fresh sign.
Another one of Fred Bear’s 10 commandments is “Hunt where the game is, not where you think they should be.” So, as good as that spot looked, the lack of recent sign kept us from burning too much time there. We spent the rest of the day covering a lot of ground, hiking almost 11 miles. We saw elk sign almost the whole time but nothing super fresh, so that night we drafted a new plan for Day 2.
The fact we had cell service everywhere proved to be a game changer for this hunt. We decided to split up on the second morning and communicate regularly on our findings. About halfway through the morning hunt, Jake texted stating he was on the freshest sign we had seen yet.
During a short lunch around the tailgate we studied onX and checked the wind to help determine our plan for the afternoon. We pushed in deep and until we came to an opening that was once a beautiful meadow. Cedar thickets and autumn olive were beginning to take it over, but it was evident the meadow was being used regularly by the local elk. We found a heavily used game trail, fresh tracks, about a half dozen beds, and droppings that were still wet and shiny. “We found ‘em,” Andrew said.
We decided to treat this like a slow afternoon turkey hunt. Knowing the rut was pretty much over, I didn’t bring a bugle tube, but I did have calls with me. So we popped up a Montana Cow Decoy, and I built a ground blind between two small cedar trees with the wind in my face. Andrew went low and to my left, and Jake went high and to my right to expand our visibility.
The next few hours were spent eating the occasional snack, checking on football scores, and carefully glassing the mountain hillside opposite of us, while gradually cow calling every 20-30 minutes.
As I looked up into the meadow, and before I could get my binoculars to my face, I saw antlers! “No way,” I thought to myself. I couldn’t believe our plan had worked.
I had ranged the decoy at 33 yards and the bull was working in from the 12:00 position beyond the decoy. I was on my knees in my natural cedar ground blind, bow in my left hand, rangefinder in my right. The bull was working slowly, eyeballing the decoy with every step. As he drew closer, I think the bull started to realize this was unlike any cow elk he had seen before, but he was just young enough, and lovesick enough, that he continued on to check her out a little more, just to confirm.
As the bull was closing the distance I tried to range him but the various rank grasses in this reclaimed meadow kept giving me false readings. So I ditched the rangefinder, got clipped in, and prepared for a shot. Something caught the bulls attention and as he looked back toward the ridge he came from, I slowly drew my bow, an Elite Ritual 35. Shortly after I drew, the bull turned directly broadside. One more glance at my decoy had me estimating the bull right at 40 yards, which by now, you know wasn’t accurate. I brought the string to my face and settled the green 40-yard sight pin right behind his shoulder and released the arrow.
Right under his chest. Ugghhh! He had to have been closer to 45 yards. Being a whitetail hunter and a pretty inexperienced elk hunter, these large animals look closer than they are.
Immediately he gave a few hops down to the lower bench in the meadow and I could only see the top of his rack.
For a few milliseconds I was frozen solid and just wanted to sulk in my sorrows. But then I decided to get back on the call. So I laid it on pretty heavy, doing my best to sound like the cow elk he heard prior to stepping into that meadow, was still nearby and interested in meeting up with him for a rendezvous.
I reached for another arrow and when I got it knocked on the string and looked back up, he was gone. “That was it,” I told myself. “The one thing you worked so hard for, the one opportunity you have invested over 220 hours into since July, and it was gone at the snap of a finger.”
Then, out of the corner of my eye at the 10:00 position I caught movement.
I slowly turned my head to see the bull had skirted around a cedar thicket, and was walking directly toward me at 30 yards. I had to draw my bow down low, behind the cover of my ground blind and hold it until I felt comfortable raising for a shot. I came to full draw and rested at my anchor point, while keeping the bow pointed at the ground. One more scan of the bull showed me he was still curiously and cautiously making his way to the sound of his potential date for the evening. I was very vigilant as I slowly raised my bow for the shot, where I started to get the shakes in both my shoulders. Maybe it was bull fever, or maybe it was the fact I had been drawn back for almost 90 seconds at this point, but in any event I had to calm myself down.
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End of the Road
The bull was still facing directly at me, as his front feet stepped up onto the bench I was on. All I could see was from his brisket area on up. As I steadied my anchor point, I placed my red 20-yard sight pin on the bottom of his throat. I had prepared many times for a frontal shot and had put myself on a 25-yard restriction. By this time the bull was standing at 20 yards and he was locked in on me. I knew I had to shoot soon, or he was going to spook. One last deep breath, and I released the arrow, this time hearing the sound every bowhunter loves as the arrow penetrated deeply into the bull. He spun and took off over the bench toward the base of the mountain he came from. I sprinted over to the spot he was standing when I shot, just in time to watch him run into the thick timber. It was at that time I turned back to see my friends coming out of their hideouts to celebrate with me in the meadow. As it turns out, Jake (who had been above me on the next bench) could see me and was able to watch the hunt unfold in its final moments.
After several high fives, fist bumps, and a few hugs, I gathered my gear and we came up with a game plan. I had to talk myself into giving the bull plenty of time to expire, as it was hard to ignore the obvious large blood trail we could easily see from where we stood.
Eventually, we followed the blood trail approximately 100 yards to where he piled up. The next wave of high fives and hugs soon wavered though, as we just silently sat in awe of this creature where we gave thanks to the bull for his life, to the mountain for providing the landscape, and to our Lord for blessing us with the opportunity.
Then we worked tirelessly into the darkness quartering the bull up. Two, one-mile trips out to the truck later and we were finished.
Seven months of preparation, reading, studying, calling, emailing, podcast listening, scouting, and hunting, and my Kentucky elk season was over. The rush of emotion continued to overtake me for days and weeks after the hunt. To think back to my 17-year-old self and how cool it was to read about the Kentucky elk restoration project, and to know 25 years later, I was one of the few, lucky, out-of-state archers to draw an elk tag, and kill a bull on a DIY, public-land hunt, is a feeling I simply cannot describe.
Being able to share the experience with two guys I was hunting with and playing football with during the time I read that first magazine article back in 1998 made it even sweeter. Of all the text messages Andrew, Jake, and myself have exchanged over the years, and will continue to exchange for years to come, I can promise we will never forget the one that simply says, “Bull coming in.”