I had been applying for a Pennsylvania elk tag since 2002, so my jaw hit the floor when I got the call that I had been drawn for a zone 4 bull tag. One of my very next calls was to Elk County Outfitters (ECO). I have a camp in elk hunt zone 12 and told ECO right off the bat that if I had been drawn for a zone 10 or 12 tag I would have hunted on my own, but being that I wasn’t at all familiar with zone 4, I knew I wanted to hunt with ECO. I was happy to sign up with them the same day as the drawing. I come from a long line of hunters and planned to use my late father’s .270 for the hunt in his memory.
I was able to make several trips up to the area to meet with the zone 4 guides prior to the hunt and take a look around. As it turned out, my guide, Mike Griffith, had located a monster bull on public ground in the far eastern part of the zone early in the week before the hunt. This was a huge bull and one that ECO had looked at during the two early special tag hunts as well. The bull was in a bit of a predicament, though, as he had somehow managed to get a piece of chain-link fence wrapped in his rack, but the fencing didn’t appear to be an immediate threat to him. I decided I wanted the chain-link bull and had committed to at least three days of hunting him exclusively, and my Uncle Matt who was along for the hunt agreed.
Day one dawned with us sneaking into a food plot very near to where “Chain Link” was last seen, but as daylight came, there were no elk visible. However, what we did find that gave us hope was a single large elk bed in the grass of the food plot from the night before. Mike figured Chain Link was there overnight but left before daylight. As day one ended, only deer and grouse were seen.
We hunted the second day in the same area with similar results as the previous day, only with a lot more walking. We snuck out along several ridges and benches off of the food plot in hopes of finding Chain Link but with no luck. The evening hunt ended back at the food plot with a nice 8-point buck dogging several does in front of us. That evening while driving back to camp, Mike and I saw a big bull on a piece of private land that we had permission to hunt. The bull had several broken points but was big, and I decided I would be more than happy with him. Back at camp that night Mike, Matt, and I, along with the rest of the zone 4 gang, talked it over and we decided to leave Chain Link and start there on the private ground the next day.
As shooting time came on day three, Mike and I were slipping along a section of the standing corn and pine trees. It was foggy with limited visibility, but up ahead of us, we could see the shape of an elk appearing through the fog in a section of picked corn. We looked it over and determined it was a small 5x5 and not the broken point bull we had seen the night before. As we were crouched down and whispering back and forth, I noticed a rack bobbing in the brush under a distant pear tree. Even with binoculars, we couldn’t clearly make out the bull, but we knew it was bigger than the one that was in clear view.
All of a sudden, the small bull got squirrelly and was on the move. The big bull was instantly in tune with the small bull and moved clear of the brush and pear tree. Once clear of the brush, we instantly knew this was a monster bull and no doubt a shooter, but he was now blocked by the other bull and there was no shot. Both bulls turned and ran around the corner of the standing corn. We quickly scrambled to get around the standing corn just in time to see the rear ends of the elk disappear into the standing corn. Almost as quickly as they disappeared, the small bull was back into the picked corn and running for the woods. I quickly threw up my rifle in anticipation of the big bull to follow suit. The big bull burst out of the standing corn on a dead run for the woods, but I was ready and fired a shot freehand from around 100 yards, which dropped the bull instantly. As we neared the downed bull, he jumped up to run, but I was able to fire a few more times and the bull was down for the good.
We stood in awe over his massive 10x9 rack and huge body. It was not the bull with the broken tines we had seen the night before but one even bigger and in the same class as Chain Link! Extraction was a cinch as the farmer was glad to help with his tractor and bucket. He was thankful to have one less elk eating his corn.
At the check station, my bull weighed 670 lbs. field dressed on the scale. It had an estimated live weight of 807 lbs., making it the heaviest bull harvested during the hunt. Also, the 10x9 rack had the most points of any bull harvested during the general hunt as well. As it turned out, ECO had several velvet trail cam pics of my bull from the cousin of ECO guide Charlie Ulrich, but he had managed to be a ghost to ECO otherwise.
Back at camp, Mike, Matt, and I were gathered around the bull in the back of the truck when the other zone 4 bull hunter, Jason, and his guide, John, returned. The two stopped in their tracks and their jaws dropped when they saw the bull. It was the bull they had been after for three days. John and Jason had seen my bull Sunday morning before the hunt in a remote series of food plots on public ground 7.5 miles away from where I had shot him. After that Sunday morning sighting, they had decided that was the bull Jason was going to go after, but they were unable to relocate him again and now they knew why.
ECO passed along all their information about Chain Link to the PGC elk biologist in hopes that they would be able to locate him and possibly tranquilize him and remove the fencing before something unfortunate happened. Several of the guys have been back to the area where he was last seen through the regular hunting seasons, but there have been no more Chain Link sightings that we are aware of and the elk biologist has not been able to catch up to him either.
Thanks to ECO for helping me on my hunt-of-a-lifetime. My bull was officially scored after the 60-day drying period and came in at 424 5/8” gross and 4-4 2/8” net, placing it currently in the #8 slot in the PA record book.
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