Running with the Devil

On the second afternoon of the hunt, we decided to try a new area and look for a bull a good friend of mine had seen while glassing. The bull was too far away for him to describe specific features of the bull, but he could tell he had a big frame with real long tines. As we worked into the area where the bull had been seen feeding on previous evenings, we found a good spot and just sat and listened. After about a half an hour of silence I let out a bugle. Almost immediately, we got a response just a couple hundred yards down the draw from us! We slowly worked around below the bull making sure we kept the wind in our favor. We were in a spot I felt we should have been able to see the bull, but could neither hear nor see any sign of him. After several tense moments wondering where he was, I again let out a small bugle. The bull answered back from where we had just come from!  Anticipating him to come back to his original location, we climbed up the ridge and waited to ambush him. The wind was perfect and the plan was in place. Watch as we get to see the devil bull up close and personal for the first time.



What an awesome bull! This sequence lasted for over 12 minutes before he walked away from us! At this point we decided to call him the Devil bull due to the unique devil tines he has on each beam. After the bull walked away, we once again got the wind right and tried to circle below and get in front of him. It seems you never get a second chance at a bull of this caliber, however everything was going perfectly and I thought we may get this bull after all.



Just as the bull was approaching our shooting lane, the wind shifted and he didn't stick around too long. This wasn't the last we would see of him though......
The next morning we were in position early and waited patiently to hear the Devil bull bugling. There were several different bulls bugling, but we hadn't heard one that we thought was him. Finally, just as it was getting light I heard the Devil bull and we made our move. We had to get by a couple other bulls on our way but soon found ourselves only 100 yards away from him! We were in the cover of the trees waiting for him to move to his bedding area again, but he had picked up several cows overnight and it made it much more difficult to stay in front of him without being seen. Eventually the cows move by us and we were able to sneak in on him. Enjoy the footage of Michael's close encounter with the Devil bull!