Well, he's no monster but he is my 7th bull elk in 7 years with archery equipment. Here's the story:
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After hunting VERY hard for about 12 days this season I finally took my archery bull this year. That makes 7 for 7 on archery bulls since 2000. I was being rather picky this season, holding out for a 320+ bull but wind/luck/karma/Murphy were all conspiring against me. Things weren't looking good to continue "The Streak" but this morning things panned out. I went into this final weekend with one intention-take the first bull that gave me a shot. Well, we had a doosy of a storm blow in last night and dumped a bunch of snow in my usual area so about 8:00 we got to an area with less snow and an area I knew had a few elk thanks to some helpful scouting and information sharing by my other hunting buddy Tory and our very own Purist1, Dan Mead (Thanks guys). Not even a 1/2 mile from the truck I give a locator bugle and get no response. My buddy, Gary, and I take 3 steps and look up to see a bull, a calf, and cow come flying of a hillside straight for us. We are absolutely stuck in the middle of a clearing with only a little knob between us and the 3 elk. I still have my bow in it's sling, Gary's is still on his backpack. Quite the scene. Two very experienced elk hunters making a whole list of rookie mistakes. Well, I manage to get my bow out of the sling and knock an arrow but the calf busts me. She is just staring a hole through me. The bull is still behind the knob in the middle of the clearing and hasn't seen us so I start softly cow calling over my shoulder. I starts around the knob to investigate and I draw. He stops broadside @ 35 yards and I hold my pin (set @ 30 yards) high on the chest and let her fly. Complete penetration about 2" high of a perfect hit. The bull runs about 40 yards and falls over backwards. THE STREAK LIVES!!! And did I mention we were less than 1/2 a mile from the truck!?!?!?! That NEVER happens to me. I bet my average pack-out is in the 5 mile range, of course, always uphill.
Honestly, I couldn't be happier with this bull. I've hunted long and hard this season and this bull was well earned. Plus it was a very exciting, if not unusual, hunt.
And did I mention it was less than a 1/2 mile from the truck?!?!?!

Here he is:

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This year's bull was the 2nd smallest of the streak (2002 was a spike). Here's the largest of the streak taken in 2004: