He shoots, he scores

Kalispell hunter goes for elk hunting 'hat trick'

Dan Moore is a bow hunter. And he's no hockey player. But he's shooting for an unusual hat trick this year.

Moore, owner of Big Sky Archery in Kalispell, has already killed two bull elk with his bow this month in Nevada and Arizona. Now comes his chance for a Montana bull and the third score in his hat trick, as the Montana archery season winds to a close Oct. 16.

September already has been good to him.

Moore drew nonresident elk tags in Nevada and Arizona, a feat that is remarkable in itself. This year, Nevada doubled its quota for nonresident permits in one district to a total of two permits, and Moore was lucky enough to draw one of them. Only four resident permits were given out in this area.

In Arizona, one of the top elk-hunting states in America, Moore drew a rare nonresident permit thanks to a court case that threw out the state's right to limit nonresident elk permits. (That court action has since been overturned and nonresident hunters will again face tough odds to draw an Arizona permit.)

In Nevada, Moore hunted the Table Mountain Wilderness, where he was seeing 300 to 500 elk daily. He was hunting aspen-covered mountains on public lands, nine miles into the wilderness on horseback.

Seeing elk wasn't the problem.

The challenge for Moore was that for every bull elk he bugled in, it came with about 200 cow elk. "It's hard to sneak up on an elk with 200 sets of eyes looking at you," Moore said in an interview at his archery shop Tuesday.

He killed the elk on his third day of hunting. The animal scored 325 in preliminary Pope and Young scoring.

Eight days later, Moore found himself hunting the high, dry country of Arizona near Flagstaff, an area with little water.

Moore scouted for three days prior to the season opening on Sept. 16 and didn't see an elk the entire time. He almost gave up to come back to Montana to hunt.

Then, while driving to his hunting area in the early-morning darkness of opening day, a small bull crossed the road. "I thought, 'Well this is the place I'm going to hunt,'" Moore said.

Moore hiked for about three miles and never saw the bull. However he had seen numerous elk rubs (antler markings on trees) and decided to hunker down and bugle. After his first bugle, he got an answer, but Moore figured it was another hunter. He changed positions, bugled, and got three responses. This, he knew, was a real elk, not another hunter. A three-point bull came in to the call; Moore passed. Then three spike bulls came in to within 10 yards, and a five-by-six-point bull charged in close, tearing up the ground and urinating on himself and the ground, marking his territory.

Moore decided to move again. Here came the spikes, "following me like the Pied Piper," Moore said. He calmly let them move off.

Then Moore spotted a big bull not far away. Moore let out a rip on his diaphragm bugle. "He swapped ends and came into me like he was on a rope," said Moore.

The bull stopped at 30 yards and set about thrashing a small tree.

The elk continued to circle the tree, whipping it with its 40-inch wide rack.

One of Moore's tricks to getting a bull into shooting range is to rake and whip sticks and branches, imitating another bull elk marking a tree.

This bull eventually came to within 10 yards and Moore made a fatal shot with his compound bow. The elk died about 50 yards away.

The animal scored 388 in preliminary Pope and Young scoring, the largest of Moore's career and his 14th Pope and Young bull.

The world record nontypical

elk came from the same hunting district. Nick Franklin's bull scored at 442 4/8.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to get the meat back to Montana without spoiling, Moore gave the meat of the Nevada bull to his brother in California. Moore had his Arizona bull butchered and frozen and brought the meat home.

As the owner of an archery shop, Moore is able to stay abreast of elk hunting trends, but his technique for calling elk is a bit against the grain. He prefers to strictly bugle and never uses a cow call. His theory is that by bugling and raking, he's always able to attract the herd bull, which is often the largest and most aggressive bull.

Some areas of Montana see extreme pressure from elk hunters and the elk become "bugle shy" after a while. "Some people say you can't bugle a bull in the Missouri Breaks," Moore said, "but if you're a good enough caller, you can call bulls anywhere, any time."

In one recent year of hunting in the Breaks, an area in central Montana known for abundant elk and large bulls, Moore shot the 23rd elk he had bugled in. "I always go after the herd bull … the bull with cows," he said.

With nine entries in the record book, Moore has one of the highest numbers of bull elk in the Montana Pope and Young ledgers.

Moore's record entries are not all the largest; that distinction belongs to renowned bowhunter Chuck Adams, who killed the world record and Montana state record bull elk in Rosebud County in 2003.

This week, Moore will leave for the Missouri Breaks to try to arrow his 47th bull elk of his career. If successful, the kill would cap off his best year of hunting since he started bowhunting in Montana in 1972. He shot two elk in one year before, but this is the first year that both elk - so far - have qualified for the Pope and Young record book. A third Pope and Young elk would be his best year ever.

At age 57, Moore said he has plenty of years of elk hunting left in him. On the way home from the Arizona hunt, he and his hunting partner heard a country song on the radio that captured the essence of their hunt. It was Toby Keith singing, "I'm not as good as I used to be but I'm as good as I ever was."

"He wrote that song for us old elk hunters," Moore said, sitting in his shop, surrounded by hundreds of mounts and photos of animals that he and other hunters have killed.

When his all-terrain vehicle is ready this week, he's off to the Missouri Breaks. "I'll be there until the season ends or until I pull my hat trick."