By Garth Goodrich

My partner, Mark and I own the "GOOD O GUIDES" guide service. We learned long ago if the bulls are rutting hard, back off of the bugles and use cow calls. If the bull thinks he has no competition for the cows, he will come in to you in a hurry to try to beat the other bulls there, but watch out, sometimes they sneak in quiet.

Hunting buddies Troy, Craig, and Scott drew bull elk tags in unit 9 in Arizona in 2005. This was the first year they had ever applied for Arizona. Talk about lucky.

They really had no idea what to expect from this unit. The bull to cow ratio in this unit is really high and this makes cow calling very effective during the rut. It may not sound truthful, but it is not uncommon to see bulls well over the 340 inch mark. I had the privelege of guiding these hunters on this awesome hunt. All three hunters missed shots at great bulls before they ended up killing their bulls.

Troy Peterson was worn out from hunting hard day after day. He missed shots a couple of nice bulls and was feeling pretty bad about that. My partner mark had seen a big bull and shot video of him at a water tank one evening. He returned to camp and showed the video to all of us. Troy was worn out from hunting and volunteered to sit at the tank the next evening.

At 6:26 PM, the bull entered the kill zone for Troy, and Troy made his shot. Troy didn't know how well the bull was hit, so we deciced to leave the bull until morning before we went after him. It was a short tracking job though, as the bull was found 124 yards from the waterhole.

One thing that amazes me is this waterhole is next to a major road, but nobody ever hunts it. I figure it is probably because it is so easy to get to. But, year after year, we see big bulls water, fight, and gather cows within the boundaries of this waterhole.

Troy's big bull green scored 367 inches. Craig killed a nice bull that grossed 332. After missing 7 different bulls and passing on 14 other bulls, Scott killed a small bull.

Species: Elk Location of Hunt: Arizona Outfitter: The Good 0 Guides Weapon: Bow Equipment: Sworovski Binoculars, Carlton Calls, Woods Wise Calls, Sceery Calls