http://www.bowhuntingmag.com PETERSEN’S BOWHUNTING 97
I
’ll never forget hearing my first
bugle. The big bull cresting the
hill and breaking the silence of
opening morning was enough to
giveeventhemostexperiencedbow-
hunterchills,letalonea 21-year-old
collegestudentonhisfirstforayafter
elk.Thathunt,myfirstoftheseason,
certainlygotoff to a thrillingstart,
butit paledin comparisonto what
wassoontocome.
I had received a phone call not
even twomonths earlier tellingme
thatI haddrawntheNebraskaSuper
Tag,a single-entry, once-in-a-lifetime
lottery tag that allows the recipi-
enttoharvestoneelk,onedeer, one
antelopeandtwo turkeyswith any
weapon,aswellastwoyearstodo
so. Now, here I was a few weeks later
on opening day, not having missed a
single day of shooting my bow lead-
ing up to the hunt, just as I’d prom-
ised myself. Being solely a bowhunt-
er, I was determined to fill the entire
tag with my bow.
My dad and I looked at each other
after the bull bugled, our eyes as big
as saucers. “That was awesome!”
I whispered. The bull chased his
cows, as well as the smaller bulls in
the herd, around for 20 minutes on
a patch of green grass just below the
hill where he had first appeared right
after sunrise. Then, just as quickly
as they had appeared, they moved
into the corn for the day. It had been
a great start, but little did we know
what the future held.
That evening, I set up on a trail
the elk had been using through a
thin strip of trees just across the
road from where we had hunted
that morning. Long story short, I
hada closecallwitha nicesatellite
bull,andhadit notbeenfora shift
inthe wind,thisstorymighthave
endedfardifferently.
After that, I looked through my
binoculars toward the green patch
theherdhadbeenonearlierthatday.
Overthehill,onebyone,cowsand
calvesmadetheirwayintotheclear-
ing. Bringing up the rear was the
herdbull.I couldn’tkeepmybinocu-
larsoffofhimashechasedhiscows
andkeptguard.
I climbeddownfrommystandat
darkandmetmydadandourfriend
MattGideon,whowasalongforthe
trip.I toldthemwhatI hadseen,and
we quickly set about developing a
plan for the following morning. With
a southeasterly wind in the forecast,
we had a perfect opportunity to inter-
cept the herd on its way toward the
cornfield. I liked the sound of that.Up & At ÕEm
My alarm went off early the next
morning. I knew we stood a good
chance of getting a crack at that bull;
it was only the second day of the sea-
son, but it seemed like we had those
elk figured out. Based on what the
herd had done the previous day, if
the wind stayed in our favor, things
looked promising.
I rolled to the edge of the bed
and sat there for a second saying
a prayer: “God, please give us a
bull this morning.” With that, I got
dressed, grabbed my bow and load-
ed my gear into the pickup.We made the short drive down
the windy gravel road that led to
the small field we had been hunting.
Matt dropped my dad and I off; he
was going to watch through the spot-
ting scope from a high hill behind us.
My dad and I made our way through
the tall grass in the pitch black and
finally got to where we wanted to set
up. Then we waited.
The sun rose on a cloudy morning
with a nice breeze out of the south-
east, just as forecasted. Not long after
daylight broke over the horizon, two
bulls and about 18 cows and calves
started making their way right to-
ward us from the south. The herd
bull stopped and let out a bugle,
then he chased the smaller bull away
from the herd. The latter gave up and
headed north and away from the
herd, leaving just the herd bull, cows
and calves. The cards were on the ta-
ble, and we were in perfect position.Nebraska’s Super Tag is a once-in-a-life-
time lottery draw. The author made the
most of his by devoting his weekends for
three and a half months to taking all five
animals — a bull elk, a whitetail buck, a
pronghorn buck and two turkeys.UNFORGETTABLE
HUNTS VIA
NEBRASKA’S
TOP TAG
By Zachary Welch