So far a hunt that had been a snowy wet mess of a goose chase had yielded no animals harmed on opening day, or the next morning. My dad and I headed over to any area of the Murderers Creek unit that had been good to us the burn. We pulled up around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Leaving the truck we hiked up from the base of the ridge, and about a third of the way up the ridge my dad glassed up some cows moving on the top. Deciding it would be a good idea to get a better look we went around a different ridge. Once we crested over the back side of the next ridge over we glassed up the biggest spike bull I have ever seen. Ranging it at 480 yards quartering away I got bull fever and decided to let two rounds fly. Both clearly missed as we hustled over to get another shot, or maybe see a blood trail. Once where he had stood we saw the bedding locations of at least 3 dozen elk. I immediately followed there tracks, and upon emerging from treeline the whole ridge was moving with elk. This included about 10 spike bulls and 4-5 4 bi's. I hustled to the top of the ridge where I waited for a bull to show himself not surrounded by cows to get a shot off. After about 3 bulls passed through my sights surrounded by cows. A spike emerged unprotected by females. I put my sight on him and squeezed the trigger. "Click" the sound no shooter wants to hear. I quickly thought I hadn't chambered my third and final round so I threw the bolt open, but instead of nothing popping out as expected the only round I had flew out landing in the snow. I quickly dug around in the snow and found the round. Throwing it back into the rifle and racking the bull had frozen in place it seemed. I let that round fly. Knowing I was out of ammo my dad ran up and tried to hurry me to load and drop a bull. I was still frozen; then I pointed out to him that I had dropped my first bull ever with that one round there on the top of the ridge. (Range 65 yards) The work as it always does began then. We quartered one side and hung that in tree and hoped the other half would cool off in the snow that night. I took the head off and Proceeded to pack that out that night. We came back the next morning bright and early to pack the rest out. 11/1-11/2/2012

Wake up call 4:30 am. We were all prepared to do what must be done. We had glassed up quite a few bulls the night before, and had decided on a plan of attack to bag one at first light opening morning of the hunt. Loading gear into the truck we took off. Arriving around 5 am we began the hike to get into position. The hike was somewhat difficult we spotted up our first bull around 7:15 am and he was beautiful except for the fact he had a massive five, but had been beaten down to a very small two. Looking around we spotted another great five by five this time intact. Putting my scope on him; he was ranged by John at 365 yards. I decided to take my gloves off for a more accurate shoot. Mistake glove got caught on the trigger bull fever caused mistake. This may have actually helped bull froze in place letting me get off a broad side shot which connected. This tough bastard wasn't done yet he kept moving at around 10 more yards away per shot I connected 3-4 more times as he moved up and away from us finally going down on some nasty ass terrain. He slide a few feet before being hung up by the tinniest bush. Our work far from done we headed over to pack him out. It took us just about 45 minutes to get to him. Then the real work began practically on a cliff. Sliding all over the place cutting with your arms above you head it was done, and loaded to pack out in about an hour and a half. Then we hiked out. No one seemed to care how hard or long the hike was since we had one in the books with opportunity to bag another. (My Uncle had a tag as well; which would be filled a couple days later.) 11/30/2012