Nope. The one good chance my buddy had at a cow in range of his smokepole, he was fussin' with his clothes an' water an' such, an' didn' t see her. I spooked her tryin' to git his attention. Yeah, I called the bull. He would answer, but not come. I had to slip into the timber on my belly, cow callin' ever so often. The bull would run back an' forth blowin' an' rakin' his antlers against a tree. Finally, I stood up behind my last cover. I peeked around to see the bull starin' at me at 50 yards. I raised my rifle an' stepped ' round the tree and fired. Hit him a lil' back as he whirled to head up the hill. I knew he was hit, but he kept goin' to a place I knew would be tuff to git the mules to. So I ran an' fired, ran an' fired as he darted up the slope. When I got to a lil' clearing, I had a clear lane to where I thort he was heading. Sure enuff, he not only entered the lane, but stopped broadside to me on a outcroppin' of rocks. That cinched it. My next shot took the top of his heart off at 70 yards. I love the heart, but I sure didn' t want to chase this feller any more. I was startin' to feel my age. After the shot, the bull still didn' t drop. He merely turned and started walkin' up the chute another 30 yards, then collapsed. He groaned for an eternity, and was still movin' when I got up to him. Then he rolled over, looked at me, and took his las' gasp. A fine bull he was. Wouldn' t give up, even with two 180 partitions in his chest. The partition that took out his heart was unner the off side skin, having entered behind one shoulder an' penetrated the other. Its nose flattened & seperated, but got pushed in front of the base to the point it stopped. My friend commented on how the hide made him feel like his knife was dull, even though it weren' t. Elk hide is tuff stuff, an' many bullets stop when they hit it on the back side.

On the matter of the early rifle hunt in my unit, I love it for bulls. It ain' t much good for cows, cause they' re all herded up with one or two bulls, an' any pressure pushes the herds back an' forth over huge mountains. Solitary bulls hang in lil' groups or alone an' are a blast to play with. We called in several nice 6x6s jus' to play with them a lil' early in the hunt.