Oregon Bull elk Hunt

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