Editors note: Jim and cameraman, Todd Bissenden, spent the past ten days in spike camp scouting for new areas in the Yukon territory before Jim’s first clients arrive. While Todd spent the past month at home enjoying summer and over-indulging, Jim was hiking Mongolian mountains at 9,000 feet in elevation. Jim would like to make it known that Todd's recently-acquired double chin was gone by day two and Todd has been sucking air trying to keep up with his 52-year old boss.   

Two days earlier from the Yukon... Today we saw six bulls, four of them were big ones. We were seeing them from way up high on the mountains, glassing for miles. Even at 40 power on the Leupold scope they were just specs. We traveled all the way over to them on the ARGOs and went up to the one bull first and crawled up a mountain so the wind was good. We got within 47 yards; he was bedded and that’s the closest we could get. He stood up, but there was no shot with my Alpine Bow. It was just too thick; the willows were too tall. I could have done it easily with a muzzleloader or a rifle but with a bow, no way. So we couldn’t get closer. He ran off and we saw another one, but it was too young. We thought it was 65 inches but it just looked like a young bull so we didn’t go after him. Then we spotted a great big bull that we went after the first day. To get to him, we came all the way across the valley, right up top and came right down the mountain on him. He was on a ridge but there were a bunch of cows; there was no way I could get closer than 300 yards to him. Rather than take a chance on spooking him, I decided to take a chance and go back to camp right at dark. After watching them until literally the last second we could, my plan for tomorrow morning is to head back there if the weather permits and try to find him in the same spot; it’s a big gamble, but sometimes patience pays off when you’re hunting.

The Next Day…

Got up early, assumed we would be able to find that bull. We went back into that same mountain peek to look down on the valley. We saw three cows so we figured the bull had to be around but we couldn’t see him. We snuck all the way down, literally crawling on our hands and knees and finally sliding down a hill on our rear ends. We spotted one of the cows bedded at 150 yards so we waited all day long, just sitting there and watching for the bull. It was a boiling hot day, the sun was shining; we were cooking hot, wearing all our warm gear. We waited, waited, waited, from 10am until four in the afternoon. Then the cows started standing up; four cows stood-up and started feeding away from us, which was a problem. Then the bull stood up at 150 yards but there wasn’t a good shot.  He walked out to 200 yards and we slid down on our rear ends in the brush to within 175, then I hit a cliff so I couldn’t go any lower to get closer to him. We waited for another hour, then the bull walked out in front; I made a shot, got him.

He’s the same bull we went after the first day with the Alpine Bow that we had at 50 and 75 yards. I knew that he was big, but we had no idea until we walked up to him. He’s over 70 inches wide, probably 72 to 73, but we’re not sure, we don’t have a tape measure; 17 points on one side, 17 inch-wide pans and 45 inch-long pans.  He’s an absolute giant. The other side is weak as far as points go. That’s the only thing that kept him from being about a 240 bull. So as it is, he should make Boone and Crockett and probably world record with Muzzleloader, depending on what the tape measure says in the end. But he’s my biggest bull by far in terms of width and he has a magnificent, huge body – I had no idea he was that big.

Today was my last day of hunting because I’m heading back to the main camp to guide the Potterfield women, the mother and daughter, Sarah and Brenda. They got a big caribou yesterday in their camp, but they aren’t seeing any big bull moose so I’m going to go see if I can bring them back here to our spike camp. Hopefully the weather will stay on our side and we’ll see some more big bulls tomorrow.