I can't wait till i get a chance at one of those beasts.

Regardless of the circumstances... what an awesome animal.

As an E. Washington resident my whole life I'm not terribly proud of this bull. While truely a wonderful animal it just seems a slap in the face of those of us who buy a general tag for the last 20 years and put in for special draws with never being drawn, only to have someone with a fat wallet 'buy' a trophy. I'm not even so sour about the fact he got an elk, that's great, the state needs the money for the department (and hopefully 100% of that money is used for elk habitat and the like). What sours me is the fact this may be a new state record of some sort. It just goes against the grain of all of us who live and hunt here to have this represent one of the best. For the most part, the hunters I climb the mountains with all work hard all year, we all take the full 9 days off for the general elk season. We hike several miles each day and only get an elk about once every 10 years of hunting. That's 90 days of hunting for a spike bull, and we're thankful to have it when we get it.

Since special tags are drawn by lottery you have no guarentee of ever getting a bull like this, unless you get lucky (odds for the trophy areas are about 5,000 : 1 ) or you have deep pockets. Again I have nothing against special hunts like this but I do believe they should not qualify for the record books as it's not much different than hunting a fenced operation.

I will add that I don't really know any of the facts of this hunt so until it's make totally clear what happened and how, I'll reserve the rest of what I might add.

wow what a bull...

Hmm, rifle kill. Rifle kills for bull elk don't impress me, a 6 year old girl with an hour of trainingcouldharvest a Bugling bull in open country. If he had a bow in his hand, I'd be very impressed.