One Heck Of A Ride

53 More Antlered Game The “perfect” bull the author always wanted. Its long tines and “whale tails” helped it score 445 3/8 SCI points Author (right) with grandson, Tiernan Paulin Rae hunting company to Folding Mountain Outfitters. My Grandson And I Take A Pair Of Big Elk I was in the daily auction room at SCI’s 2013 convention when the video monitors around the large room began showing photos of huge bull elk. That got my attention, and when the auctioneer announced that Broadmouth Canyon Ranch in Idaho had donated a five-day elk hunt that included meals, lodging and the trophy fee, I reached for the hunt’s description in the SCI auction booklet. It said that the hunting estate was owned by National Football League legend Rulon Jones, the Denver Broncos’ defensive lineman from 1980-1988, and that success on a bull elk with antlers measuring up to 360 SCI was guaranteed. The next thing I knew, I was the high bidder and had bought the hunt. I headed directly to Rulon’s booth to buy a hunt for my grandson, Tiernan Paulin-Rae, and scheduled our hunt grandfather/grandson hunt for late October of that year. Tiernan was nearly twenty years old and hadn’t taken a big game animal yet, and I thought this would be his very best chance to take home a good bull. A few days before our hunt began, I flew to Idaho Falls and spent some time with my daughter Paige and her husband, Aaron, at their home in Boise before Tiernan and I drove to Broadmouth Canyon Ranch. Rulon Jones had built a lodge on 30,000 acres of deeded land in the Blackfoot Mountains overlooking the Grand Tetons and created the 5,000-acre preserve where Tiernan and I hunted. The remaining 25,000 acres were set aside for free-range hunts for mule deer. Tom Brewington, the manager of the ranch’s tent-guiding area and our guide, was a mild- mannered man who was a pleasure to be with. We began our hunt with the three of us climbing a rock outcropping that overlooked a large canyon and allowed us to glass many of the smaller canyons that fed it. Right away, we glassed up seven good bulls moving toward us, but decided against shooting any of them. Our goal was to take a 340-class bull for Tiernan (I was looking for a bull in the 390 class.) None of those seven bulls, or anything else we saw that day, was what we wanted. The next morning, we were glassing from another spot when one of the other guides called our guide on his radio. He had seen a bull he thought I might be interested in taking, so we crossed the mountain and found the guide watching a big bull in his spotting scope. I took just one look and decided this was the animal I