According to www.mossback.com this bull green scored 500 4/8 inches. To bad it didn’t make it to 500 1/2 inches.
It seems like that truck parking in front of the local Honda dealer got a lot of attention. Here are a few pictures sent to us by a reader, thanks for the pictures, this is one amazing bull that we all want to see more of!
I want to hear everyone’s thoughts on the spider bull. I gotta be honest I was pulling for a hunter that was lucky enough to draw out and had the hunt of his life. Nothing against Mossback they did a fantastic job bringing this bull into the spot light and keeping tabs on it until they could get a shooter on it.
This bull was taken on a governor’s tag. Most states have these they are auctioned off and big outfits will pick them up for large amounts of cash. If you do your job right you then scout out a nice bull make a video and market the hell out of it. If you do your job you will get a nice client that has lots of money looking to purchase their next big hunt. This is what happened with the spider bull. I think it’s great that Denny took this bull, if you watch the Mossback site he takes a record size bull or buck with Mossback every year.
The money raised in the governor’s tag auction goes to wildlife resources. Here is my question. There are a lot of huge animals that are taken every year in states all over with a governor’s tag. But 90% of the hunters that are dedicated and addicted to hunting in that state will never afford that opportunity. Is the governor’s tag worth it? Are you addicted to hunting when you buy your animal? Are guides going to far to provide the next best animal? give us your comments.
Here is a photo of the rack in the truck.
This photo was sent to us last night by one of our readers. It is not the spider bull. It is a real nice looking bull. I want to thank Dan for noticing the difference in the antlers and bringing it to our attention. We are working on getting some real photos of spidy and will post them when we get them.
So in Mossback fashion he has locked the photos of the Spider Bull so it can’t be spread across the internet. He wants everyone to go to his site. I was able to find this one photo. Keep checking back for more.
I never thought of hunting with a leather jacket before.
Team Mossback just broke the news that the spider bull has been taken by Denny Austad. Rumor is that it was on a governors tag two days ago.
Congrats to team Mossback, they were the ones to first spot this amazing bull elk and they were able to lead Denny in to take this monster of a bull!! We all look forward to pictures of this bull.
Here are some photos of a real nice bull Mike, the owner of Timber Hawk Packs took this year in a limited entry area here in Utah. He took this bull in an area we like to call the Hilton.
He has named this bull Tripod. If you look at the right side the 4th and 5th make a nice looking Tripod.
This bull rough scored 335. The mass and main beams on this thing is incredible. If it wasn’t missing it’s 3rd on the left side this would be a 350+ class bull. Look at the green still in the antlers.
Here is the tough part. Its a 4 mile hike into the Hilton and another 4 miles out. Good thing it’s mostly down hill.
Look at that mass on the Tripod. What a fantastic bull.
Congratulations to Mike and his successful hunt. What a fantastic bull to have hanging on your wall.
OK here is a picture to go with the previouse post. The red line is what we hiked.
We figured it out to be 5 miles as the bird flies. Man I wish I was a bird somedays.
OK so you were searching for tips and found this title, your on the wrong site. He didn’t actually attempt to kill me. Now that I have your attention I can explain.
My neighbor called me up the other day and wanted to go up and hunt Elk on Today. He is the owner of TSI Outfitters a local archery/hunting store. He has been hunting non stop since August 16th the opener. Here in Utah the have a extended archery hunt that begins the day after the regular season and goes through the end of November. The key is you have to hunt the Wasatch Front. The reason they do this is to keep the wild life in the wild and not in the city. We are pretty fortunate the Wasatch Front here has been ranked number 1 for mule deer for some time now, and the Elk herds are not doing so bad either.
So its Thursday morning 4:30 AM the alarm goes off and I go through with the normal ritual of showering with the special scent away soaps. I had packed all my gear the night before so I carried acrossthe street and loaded it in the truck. I made sure that my 2 liter bladder in my pack was full. I have hunted with Scott before and know that he is part billy goat. We headed up to the top of the ridge we were hunting its always nice when you can start at the top. When we arrived there were 3 other guys getting ready to hit the trail. We talked to them for a minute and they told us they had spotted a bull three days in a row crossing the top so they were going in early to set up on him. We had planned to hunt a few drainage’s over from the spot they described so no worries. We got our packs on and headed out. Its a 2.4 mile hike to the drainage we were focused on but like I said we started up on top so nothing major. About 1.5 miles in Scott realized that he left his release in the truck. Luckily I had my back up in my pack so we stopped and got it out. I had never used this release just had it in case I needed it. It needed some adjusting so I carried Scott’s bow while he made the adjustments. He got it adjusted and we were good to go. It had a Velcro wrist strap so Scott wanted to pull his bow back a few times to work out the stretching noise. As he did this we heard a load crashing noise right below us. We spilt up and started cow calls, this bull wanted nothing to do with it and we could hear his antlers hitting branches as he took off. We were stumped to how the bull had busted us. It was still fairly dark and the wind was in our favor. As we came around the bend on the trail we discovered the other hunters he had taken a shot and missed over its back. (Side Note: if Scott would have remembered his release we would have walked right on top of this bull) I had to add that for Scott’s benefit. We decided that we better hurry down the other drainage because that bull would most likely circle around and try to get over the ridge.
Drainage #1
So we headed down the ridge it wasn’t too bad it was a mixture of pines and open areas. As we got to the bottom we found an area that had a rub and tracks. We let out a bugle with a few cow calls. A bull answered one more drainage over. So we headed that way. Then the crazy hunters up top, knowing exactly where we went apparently didn’t know we had bugles because they sat up on top and bugled non stop for 1.5 hours. Someone should tell him that bulls do not chuckle like a child that can’t stop laughing. We didn’t care about him it was the bull in the bottom. We knew that there wasn’t too many hunters crazy enough to go all the way to the bottom so we worked our way up the ridge to the top and back down the other drainage.
Drainage #2
So we made it to the bottom of drainage #2 and it looked good. The bull had bugled a couple more times but had been silent for some time now. We came across a trail that worked down the drainage it was beat up with tracks that were fresh. The leaves are now falling and some of the tracks didn’t have leaves in them. As we worked down this trail we came across a water hole. It looked as if this was a good water source for them. There was a spring that was coming down the hill side to this little water hole. We are curious individuals and wonder where the water came from. So we headed up the spring which disappeared into the mountain. Since we were already half way up the other side we kept on going. We came to an area that was hammered with tracks. We stopped and bugled and cow called for awhile, nothing not a sound. So up we went. About 3/4 of the way up we decided to take lunch. After lunch we had two choices Circle around and back to the water and sit on it. Or we see whats on the other side of this ridge. (refer to the curious comment). So up we went, as we got towards the top we started seeing rubs on every other tree and tracks that make you think cattle had been in there. This area is now called the Holiday Inn. We found a trail heading out of the Holiday Inn and followed it to the top. The tracks were pretty constant over this ridge and down the other side. Again we had a choice hike the ridge line the .5 miles to the main trail on top or visit drainage number 3. You guessed it……
Drainage #3
As we headed down Drainage #3 we head down the the bottom and find more tracks and another area that looks and feels like a bed room. We headed down the drainage to look for more sign. It was the afternoon now so we were mostly scouting and hoping we could jump something out of its bed. We had gone down this drainage for some time and came up a little disappointed as there wasn’t any water in it and there was more deer track then Elk. At this point we were a long way from the truck we were more or less at the bottom of the mountain and would have to hike back to the top and then back over to the truck. We have hunted this area before and knew that at the bottom there was a lake and the main road. We decided that it would be best to head for the main road.
Never ending drainage
So as we headed down the drainage the terrain turned into thick oak brush. It was impossible to navigate. We finaly get to an area where it clears up and we believe we are within a half hour from the road. So we take a break and make a few calls to see if anyone would pick us up at the bottom and drive us back up to the truck. So Travis accepted the call and headed to come get us. We headed up the ridge line and as we got higher we realized we were substantially further away from the road then we had guessed. We hurried up to get to the road within the next half hour. We were pushing up the hill in this thick oak brush. As we get to the top of the ridge we could finally see the road but it was still far far away. Travis was already there and we still had a long way to go. The hill we had to go down was running at a 75 degree angle. I know Scott is laughing right now because I may be exaggerating a little. Needless to say I fell down on my butt 7 times, I was out of water, my legs were cramping up and we still had a bit of a distance to go. After another half hour we manage to get to Travis.
In the end we probably ended up walking 10 miles up and over 4 ridges through countless acres of oak brush and saw nothing but a lot of sign.
There is that saying curiosity kills the cat. Well it about got me today. I of course will blame this on Scott for several days now. Its 10:30 PM now and the only thing that does work on my body is my fingers. I’m gonna sleep like a baby tonight.
Well Kody tagged out Saturday, he took a nice bull but not the one he was after. He never saw the infamous spider bull, neither has any other hunter I’ve heard about since the opener. So that bull is still out there. While it looked to be a perfect hunt for Cody this bull got massive by being smart and he has holed up since the opener. I know the Monroe area is a limited entry and the hunt Kody drew was limited but there may still be some hunters able to go after that bull during rifle season, I’ll look into that and find out. So far that bull has evaded all of the attention and hype, he’s proven how he got so big!! I’d love to see someone take the spider bull but it’s going to be a tough one!! Despite knowing the area he’s in, no hunter has been able to bring him in. Well congrats to Kody on his bull, he’s estimating it as a 320 class, send us some pictures Kody!!
I want to know if you have ever been lost while hiking, or hunting in the woods. The closest I have ever come to being lost was on a rifle hunt with my Uncle Mark and my cousins Ryan and Mike. Utah has it set up so we have to choose if we are going to hunt archery, or rifle for a certain species. We used to be able to hunt both, but those days are long gone. The state made a special rule one year that any hunter under the age of 18 could hunt until he filled his tag, or the rifle season ended. This meant I was able to hunt archery with my usual hunting group, then rifle hunt with my Uncle and cousins.
I did not have success on the archery hunt, so my Uncle and my cousins were gracious enough to let me tag along with them on the rifle hunt. We got up to our spot very early that morning and Ryan and I headed down the mountain. Me and Ryan are the same age, and we had hunted for years together while growing up. When the state made us choose which hunt we wanted to go on it really disrupted our hunting group. Ryan and his family have decided to hunt rifle every year, and my family hunts archery every year. It had been a couple of years since we had hunted together, and we were both very excited that cold morning. We used to go out squirrel hunting together, while our dad’s were out all day, and I have several fond memories of hanging out with my cousin Ryan. So you can imagine the excitement we had that we would actually be hunting deer together, rather than just hunting squirrels.
We set up on the mountainside and tried to stay warm all morning. It had snowed the night before, and it was still coming down. After a very uneventful morning we decided to do a little hiking to warm up, and hopefully spook something out of it’s bed. Our plan was for me to go low on the mountainside, and my cousin would go high and possibly we would scare something to each other.
I started down the mountain and did a huge loop back up to the top of the mountain. The only problem was when I got to the top I was not where I thought I should have been. It was not a problem though as I could see the peak where we were hunting and I started to make my way back. On my way back I came across some deer prints, so I started following them. I probably followed that deer for about a mile and never saw it, or heard it. As I have previously stated, it was snowing, so I could tell the tracks were fresh and I must have been pushing him. As I was tracking the deer I came across a road, now this is where I started to panic a little bit because I had never seen this road before, and I had no idea where it was going. The clouds had really started to drop, and I had very limited visibility. I could no longer see landmarks to help me get back to camp, and I lost all sense of direction following the deer tracks. I was wet, cold, tired and lost. I had never been lost before, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I started to panic, and trying to remember what I had learned in scouts about surviving in cold conditions. I didn’t have any food, limited amount of water and my clothes were wet. I tried to calm down by telling myself that maybe someone would drive down this road and could take me back to camp. However, there were no fresh tire tracks on the road so I knew that was a slim possibility. I also knew that my Uncle Mark would eventually start looking for me, but how would he know to look on this road? I had hunted this area for years and I didn’t know this road existed, and I had no clue where it led to.
After a couple of minutes of the worst case scenarios rolling through my head, I realized I could track myself back to camp. I turned around and it was as if my footprints had runway lights surrounding them with arrows pointing me in the right direction. I followed my footprints all the way back to camp, and met up with my hunting party about 3 hours after our designated meet up time.
Here is the best part of the story; after I had followed my tracks almost all the way back to camp, and I knew where I was again, I looked up the hill and saw a nice 2 point watching me. I tried to get my gun ready, but he had bolted before I could get my scope on him. He was standing about 50 yards from our truck when I saw him, and he had come across the mountain right in front of where I was set up that morning. After all that work without seeing any deer, my best chance came right outside of camp. It was not very funny at the time, but now I look back and laugh at that situation and how ironic it was.
While I was lucky this time, I will never forget that initial feeling of being lost and how scary it was. I will always be prepared, and have a good compass and map on me at all times. I will also have some food, and water just in case I need it. It was a great learning lesson for me, and I was lucky that it turned out fine.
When you are lost it is easy for your mind to play tricks on you, and the best thing to do is try to calm down and think about every option you have. While it may not be as obvious as tracking your footsteps in the snow, you may be able to find an easy solution to find your way.
Have you ever been lost? We would love to hear about it in the comment section. Let us know what you did to find your way, so we can hopefully all return safe after our hunting adventures.
