we're in southern Colorado hunting rutting bull elk
with some of our past EBJ hunt winners
holy smokes grab yourself some bone there dude this doesn't seem real this
is like what dreams are made you know what else
you feel like yeah
another happy hunt winner oh man yeah we're looking forward to drawing a
name out of the hat for this year and hopefully it'll be your name
we're going to start off with one of my favorite hunt winners Danny Genry
Danny's our youngest hunt winner ever at only 21 years old
he's from North Dakota and Danny's never seen an
elk
now Danny's only been a subscriber to the magazine for less than six weeks
he hasn't even got his first issue of the magazine in the mail yet
so he thought this hunt was a hoax but when he shows up in Colorado on the
first night he starts seeing bugling bulls for the first time
he realizes this is no hoax this is the real deal
on the first night of the hunt wouldn't you know it we come across a really nice
340 bull I call goofy and he's not quite the bull
that Danny's looking for of course this is Danny's first bull elk
so i'm having to try to talk him out of shooting this bull
because i think we can do better and we can find a prettier bull for Danny
so we decide to make a pass on goofy and look for a bigger prettier bull for
Danny to put his tag on
second evening of the hunt Paul and I decided to go into a deep dark canyon
and ease our way up the bottom real slow we're hoping those bulls hold into
that canyon where it's a little bit cooler we end up at the top end of the
canyon and just as it gets dark a big bull
steps out
this bull has a very noticeable growler type bugle
and he's above us in the canyon he hears us down in the bottom
he thinks we're cow elk he's trying to bugle us up out of the canyon to him
but he's 350 yards in the top of the canyon
and never offers Danny a shot so we decide to play it safe pull out of
the canyon and come back in the morning to try to get a shot at
the bull
the morning of day 4 starts out real slow but the
afternoon starts to pick up as we hit a rut fast
but the big bull isn't found yet we go on through the rut fest and up deeper
into the canyon
and wouldn't you know it we hear a bugle that is exactly the one we've been
looking for
that big 6x7 is at the head of the canyon with some cows
but he's bedded down in the brush and we can't see him
but Paul and I are 90 percent sure it's the big bull
just based on his bugle the evening is nearing and we know just
before dark that big bull's going to stand up
and push his cows down into the bottom of the canyon to feed
we wait and we wait and we wait and Danny is getting more
and more nervous as time goes on and it starts to get dark
finally his cows start to filter out of the brush
and the big bull finally makes it to his feet now Danny has to wait for the bull
to go through an opening keep in mind Danny's 21 years old this is his first
elk hunt so this shot is really gonna have to
count and sure enough that big bull eases
right through that opening and Danny squeezes the trigger and makes
the perfect shot right through the heart of that big
bull congratulations to Danny for making a
perfect shot just when it counted you know that big
360 inch bull started it all off we may have created a
monster with Danny Genery I still keep in contact with him and
he's hunted all over the west now and he just enjoys doing diy public land
back country hunts wherever offers an opportunity for a
good hunt Danny Genery is there
this still doesn't even i don't know it doesn't seem real this is like what
dreams are made smell like yeah in 2011 we pulled a name
out of the hat from Bakersfield, California
the guy's name was Kurt Tobias and he's one of my favorite hunt winners
this guy had a lot of character and was a lot of fun to be around
kurt's family's been in the farming implement business for generations
and he's done a lot of elk hunting he's killed a really nice bull with his bow
down in new mexico but he's never killed a really big bull
on the first night of the hunt Kurt and Paul and I take a peek into a canyon
that has produced some really good bulls for us in the past
we have no idea what's in here but we hear a bull bugling down in the bottom
we get all set up and patience pays off the biggest bull I've ever seen in
colorado up to this point steps out of the timber the bulls at
over 400 yards and he is rutting hard Kurt
is all set up to take a shot and he wants to try to make a shot on the bull
but paul and i know that a wounded bull is definitely not with the situation
we're looking for here how far is he sure
we think we could come back the next day find the bull again
and get him in closer so reluctantly captain Kurt decides to put his bullets
back in his pocket and come back the next day to try to
find the bull again and get closer this is hunting we come back the next day
and we can't find the bull anywhere there's other bulls where he was
but definitely not the big one Kurt after seeing that big bull
he nicknames him luther and he is bound and determined to go home with that bull
or nothing on this hunt
late in the morning on the fourth day of the hunt Paul and I finally set eyes on
the big bull he's moving from one drainage to another
over the top i'm pretty sure that he's up on top of
the plateau around the corner
just as we crest over the top and start to ease down into the canyon the bull
disappeared into so we quickly get haphazardly set up
and Paul makes a real faint squeak on a cow call
that's all it takes the bull comes charging right up out of the bottom
straight at us he's only at 40 yards and i can't tell if it's the big bull or
not once the bull gets to 32 yards he
realizes something's up
oh yeah I think it might be him the words no sooner left my lips and
captain Kurt dropped the hammer right on the bull's
shoulder Paul and I weren't sure if he hit the
bull or not it was so close from the smoke from the rifle we couldn't see
where the bullet hit but the bull disappeared down over the edge
and captain Kurt packs his stuff up and starts heading over to the dead bull
sure enough as soon as we crested over the edge of the hill
we saw the dead bull piled up captain Kurt had
managed to make a snapshot perfectly behind the bull's shoulder
and right into his heart yet another one-shot kill for a hunt winner
in Colorado on a huge bull elk my goal as a guide is to get my guys
close i hope that was close enough and the thing i liked about it is we
worked for him makes it that more memorable
in 2012 my brother ike and the gals at the office
pulled me a hunt winner from Omaha, Nebraska of all places
Dan Miller who's originally from Wisconsin has
zero elk hunting experience so this is gonna be really exciting for Dan
on day three Paul and I decide to go do some blind calling into some
canyons
about the third canyon we hit a bull lights up
real hard this bull is definitely callable and Paul and I know we can get
him in close we get Dan all set up and Paul starts
bugling and calling the bull comes down the canyon into the
bottom and up the other side to us he's really
really hot the problem is he's only got one horn
the bull blows a bugle right in his face at 10 feet
was that worth your 25 subscription Dan
on the third day of the hunt Paul and I decide to head to a big meadow that has
produced some good bulls for us in the past
right before dark a big bull emerges but we can't seem to close the distance
this meadow is so huge and so open that once these bulls get out into the middle
you're in trouble you can't get any closer than
500 yards from the bulls so Paul and I pull out
and decide to come back the next evening
on the fourth evening of the hunt Dan Paul and I decided to head back to the
meadow where we'd seen the big bull the night before
we change up our strategy and come in from a different side
we get out on the last finger of timber out into the meadow
hoping that when the elk emerge they're going to be within shooting distance
as the shadows begin to grow long the elk start to emerge into the meadow
and to our surprise there wasn't one big bull now there's two
we want to get Dan a shot that's less than 300 yards and so far the bulls are
paralleling back and forth at four or five hundred yards away Dan is a little
confused on which big bull to shoot but Paul and I clear it up by saying
whichever bull gets under 300 yards we're gonna take
about 45 minutes of this posturing and rutting activity
finally one of the big bulls steps in to 297 yards dan squeezes the trigger
and knocks out the big bull's spine
dawn winter just smoked a big bull
yet another one-shot kill for an EBJ Eastmans' hunt winner
another happy hunt winner oh man
in 2014 we drew Russell Pierce's name out of the hat
yeah we've got three bulls within about 300 yards of us right now
now Russell lives just up the road from us in Billings, Montana where he works
for his family RV business being from Montana Russell's a pretty
experienced elk hunter but this hunt is going to be a little
different than what he's used to we're going to be hunting elk during the
rut with a rifle which you can't do in montana
so the first evening of the hunt Paul and I head into a canyon where
we know some bulls have been bugling sure enough we get to within 300 yards
of some good bulls but nothing Russell wants to put his tag
on
on the second day of the hunt Paul and I decided to change it up and hunt the
water
so Russell tonight we're hunting in a place that I like to call the store
the store is a huge meadow it's probably three miles long
a mile wide and we're gonna try to guess to within about 200 yards
of just like clockwork right before dark the elks start to
emerge out of the timber there are some really nice bulls in this
bunch just as we're starting to get hopeful
that one of these bulls is going to work to within 300 yards out of the corner of
our eye step some more elk we hadn't seen before
coming from the left side of the meadow and wouldn't you know it in with these cows
is a giant of a bull we had not seen before
this bull is almost within range right away
Russell's very patient all set up for the shot
paul is watching the bull and ranging him
the bull and his cows start out at 500 yards
then 450 then 400 350 300 250 and when the bull gets within
240 yards Paul gives Russell the okay to drop the
hammer
hit him again hit him again he's down he's down he's down
after a few follow-up shots Russell Pierce has
dropped the biggest bull of any of our hunt winners
this bull is a 370 inch plus giant of a bull probably one of the
prettiest six-point bulls i've ever set eyes on
just remember you have the same chance of winning that hunt as any of these
guys that were on this show did so make sure you subscribe to Eastmans'
Bowhunting and Eastman's Hunting Journal get your name in the hat
and hopefully mike will be calling you next august to tell you to pack your
bags you're headed to Colorado to chase some big bugling bulls during
the rut