One Heck Of A Ride

50 More Antlered Game Entryway to the 80,000-acre Twisselman Ranch between Los Angeles and Sacramento. Guide Nolan Twisselman and author with tule elk “management bull.” California, 2002 an SCI past president, learned I had bought a landowner permit for a tule elk, he called me to learn more about the hunt. I told him my research had led me to book a four-day hunt for a “management” bull with Nolan Twisselman, whose family owned an 80,000-acre ranch in San Luis Obispo County between Los Angeles and Sacramento. In addition to raising cattle and hunting elk, the Twisselmans offered hunts for feral hogs, mourning dove and California quail. (Our conversation that day led to Doug booking a management bull hunt with Nolan a couple of weeks before my hunt. He shot his bull the morning of the second day of his hunt. It was an old six-by-six animal with long main beams but short tines. As Nolan had said, management bulls on his ranch were good representatives of the species.) I arrived at the Twisselman Ranch late in the afternoon in August 2002. After meeting Nolan, I got settled in a small but comfortable house on the ranch. The next morning, our first day out, we saw small groups of elk cows and calves as well as an immature raghorn bull but Nolan said it needed to grow to be a “management” bull. I was surprised at how hot it was. We were hunting elk in the middle of an arid desert in at least 90-degree temperatures and only God knows what the humidity level was, but it was sweltering. The terrain was rolling and not difficult to get around in. However, there was very little cover other than a few small dry washes. Stalking an elk in that country would not be easy. When we found the ranch’s main herd, Nolan took one look with his binocular and smiled. One of the bulls fit his “management bull” definition. I had been told to bring kneepads, and one look at the herd and how we would have to approach it told me why. The first two hundred yards, at least, would be on our hands and knees. We hadn’t gone far when Nolan whispered we needed to swap kneepads because I was making too much noise with mine, which we did. I was on my belly when we crawled over a small rise and found the herd was just 175 yards away. I found a mound of dirt to use as a rest for my rifle, and shot prone after wiping the sweat from around my eyes with my shirtsleeve. The bull Nolan had selected for me went straight down at my shot. Its five-by- six antlers were smaller than Doug’s bull, but its longer tines made it score better. I was happy with