World Record Bull

[TAM]

A guy just has to wonder if this bulls previous sheds have been recovered. Seems we would have seen pics of those sheds. Am I suspicious? Just a wee bit.

Have 400+ bulls come from that area before?

Have folks up there been watching this bull for how many years? Or did he just show up one year?

Am I accusing anybody of anything? Nope, 'cause I sure as heck don't know. Just seems a bit queer that 400+ bulls aren't a dime-a-dozen, then pops up a 500" bull?

Has there ever been a 500" bull - ever - under any circumstances? If so, where was this 500" bull?

Last question: Will some people do just about anything for money, power, or fame?

Suspiciously,

Mike

 

Just curious as fellow hunters why we need to be so suspicious and critical of other hunters when they find success? Does this type of criticism really do anything to benefit our passion? Do you have any evidence to justify your concerns? Mike, I really respect your input on this site over the years, but this one seems a bit out of character for you?

 

I'm not trying to start a fight, just think we should be careful what we say in public until we have the facts sorted out. I've been on the Monroe and yes it does produce 400 inch bulls. Yes there have been 500 inch bulls killed in captivity and free roaming. Seems like this bull just showed up this year, but what's wrong with that? Bucks and bulls just "show up" all the time? Look at the 300 inch mule deer that the kid in Colorado killed a couple years ago. That buck just showed up? The Monroe is HUGE country and it's not completley out of the question that there are other huge bulls and sheds out there that no one knows about. Yes, some people will do anything for money, but now you're accusing Mossback of breaking the law? Without evidence, why? How are your comments going to improve our sport and the public preception of hunting?

 

If I'm wrong and the guy did something wrong then throw the book at him, until we have some evidence why not congratulate him?

 

[AzHunt]

Tam, good commentary. I think success envy transcends hunting into all aspects of life. Fishing has been hit by envy rage. The man who caught the world record striper over on the east coast went through he!! after he caught the fish. I believe the guy(s) who caught the world record bass had similar experiences. We preach about innocence until proven guilty, yet, without any true facts seem to condemn this hunter.

[Rembrant]

Tam,

Thanks for the counter ballance, I'm good with that. BUT, I'm not envious, and I did not directly accuse anybody or group of people (read it again), and as I stated earlier, I don't know squat about this bull or the area.

I only question the validity of 500" bulls. Just seems too rediculous to me.

I'm looking at the 1995 Arizona record book. There are 4 entries in the typical catagory that score over 400, and seven in the nontypical. It took up until 1995 for these 11 bulls to get harvested (this doesn't include archery). Nowdays 400+" bulls show up dead every season. I wonder what the latest edition will yield. With hunting popularity being what it is now, I would expect to see an increase in monster bull harvests, but 500 inchers?

Putting people on the "Great hunter" pedistal sets us up for the fall. Some of our heros in this sport have fallen hard, as well as a lot of other hunters who fall to the pressure of keeping up a reputation. The technology is available to create super animals. I am raising the question, "Is this happening"?

Maybe there is a test that a super bull harvester can submit tissue to to disspell the notion. Asking questions about legalities and validities does not hurt the sport. But if people are doping animals for any reason, if this is happening, this would certainly be detrimental to hunting.

Mike

[Brian Payne]

sdr hunter,

I read the blog that you posted the link to. I thought Wayne's (Denny's son) post was very insightful. Denny seems to be a very upstanding citizen and a dedicated hunter. Am I jealous that he has the money to spend on a hunt like that? Yes. If I had the money that he had would I spend it on high $$$ hunts? Probably.

 

I think it has become societys nature to be largely skeptical about new accomplishments or levels of success. Society has been burned by people motivated by greed and fame that are willing to cheat to get to the top. I think major league baseball is a prime example. The people that did cheat ruined it for the clean players. Now no one can hit 50 home runs with out being accused of juicing. Do we need to eliminate high fence hunting and doping of animals? I don't know, but as long as it is out there, people are going to be skepticle and that is just going to have to be the price to pay for the people in the spotlight and they should be willing to face it. If they are not in it for the fame then it shouldn't matter.

 

If this is truly a legitimate animal and legitimate kill then there should be nothing but respect for the animal and the hunter and we as hunters should be excited about the fact the public land holds the genetics and space to grow a 500" bull.

[TAM]

It's all good Mike! You're right no direct accusations, just stirred the pot. Sometimes that's a good thing. I'm not sure how much you followed the Spider bull deal, but they watched this bull all summer long! Not just the Mossback guys but lots of people from miles around. He was VERY visible and many people got to see him. I heard reports that as many as 30 trucks a night were parked on the edge of the meadow he was using.

 

[Noel Arnold]

I agree with Rembrant.I have no Idea whether this bull or any other bull is juiced.And I really do not care.I think the point I would like to make is that a lot of us think that because Big horns have become such a obsession and worth so much money,there is going to be some speculation about growth hormones.The one thing that I have noticed is there have been some huge non-typicals showing up the last few years.The San carlos bull,this bull,and some others.I do know that there is a rumor that the san carlos does some feeding.I have no Idea whether this is true or not.But because in our society (win at all costs ) there is always going to be speculation.And this is very sad,because I am sure that most of these animals are not juiced.

[Redman]

The "spider bull" is a free ranging bull and was pursued by many hunters this fall. If you visit Bowsite or Monster Mullies there has been plenty of talk about this bull for the past 4 or 5 months, it eluated hunters last year.

 

Redman

[.270]

this is big bull. whether it is a free ranging bull or a high fence plant, remains to be decided. and whether it's ok to use an army of guys to find it, well that's a matter of opinion too. after all the junk that went on in the unit where this took place, well it really gives a lot of folks a black eye, and really gives hunting in general a kick in the groin. there were knifed tires, death threats, and all kindsa other presumed sabotage associated with this deal. there are gonna be hard feelings all over the place, forever, over this deal. no matter how it turns out, there will always be a controversy surrounding it. if folks have the money, time, and don't care about what really are negative things involved in this type of pursuit, then have at it, i guess. this reminds me a lot of the guy in Az. last year who waited until the last few days of a year long season and shot a bull in the subdivision. who's to say he was wrong? he was convicted of something, seems like pretty minor, but if he's ok with it, then i guess it's ok. but there were so many other ways to accomplish his goal that wouldn't have caused any problems, i don't see why they allowed things to go the way they did. and it did some real harm to the perception of hunting. and i know this, if you're going to be so close to the law that it takes a tape measure to determine if you're legal or not you oughta think about it awhile longer. same here. not that any laws were broken, but there has been a lot of damage done to the perception of hunting. it is going to give a lot of ammo to anti's and it is going to cause a lot of animosity within the hunting community because of folks being for it and against it. personally, i don't see where the amount of money that goes into hunting budgets from these type of tags is enough to cover the cost of the negative perception. but that's my opinion. a big ol' bull that deserves to be remembered better, is always going to have a controversy around it. same with the shipsey bull. monster bull. deserves to be in b&c for sure, but isn't. i mean at least the elk oughta be recognized. if the guys in the club don't like shipsey, at least recognize the elk. it wasn't poached. from what i remember it wasn't allowed because either his mother or wife or girlfriend, some female, gave him the tag as a gift and their name was on it and not his. the rez didn't care and it was legal per them. that's how i remember it went down. could be wrong, but i remember reading something about that. the b&c was not about to let him enter it for other reasons, but i'm pretty sure that was the excuse they used. what we all need to think about is what we wouild do in the same situation. i guess i'm a little different, but if i had a tag like that, last thing i'd want was a buncha folks with me. me and my boys are enough for me and i think between us we could come up with a decent animal to shoot. o' 'course it would be nice to have a buncha guys to help pack it to the road. but then, again, i have a mule. Lark.

 

p.s. does anyone know how much $$$ was brought in by the raffle tags, as compared to the auction tags? maybe they oughta just raffle all these kinda tags and not have an auction. the auction automatically excludes anyone who isn't extemely wealthy, and i think this is where most of the hard feelings come from.

[Noel Arnold]

Redman,

I followed the story on Monster muleys.I guess last year it was a 370 class bull.I do not think it was a bull brought in and dropped off.But there is always a possibility that somebody was feeding it some juice over the summer.It was coming out and feeding in the same field all summer long.Like I said before,because big horns have been such a big money thing it makes people wonder.My Dad has a friend who works for dupont and he gave us some growth hormone for tomatoes.You would put a couple drops when watering,and they were the biggest and juiceist I have ever seen.You can take any free ranging animal and start feeding it with some hormones.Just look at the big ranches in Texas,they do it all the time with deer.

[SilentButDeadly]

.................... maybe they oughta just raffle all these kinda tags and not have an auction. the auction automatically excludes anyone who isn't extemely wealthy, and i think this is where most of the hard feelings come from.

 

Agreed, they could get rid of the Auction tag; but will G&F balk at the lost currency?

 

At first thought, you would think they would make less money because there isn't a big bidder on the Gov's tag. Here's how it might work:

 

If you allow for unlimited lottery ticket purchases the wealthy guys might put their money down regardless of a guaranteed winning bid. If 10 wealthy Gov' tag bidders each put down 1/2 what they would have been willing to pay at Auction you would make up for the lack of the Gov' tag.

 

The auction raised some $130k last year at $25 a lot; the Gov' tag went for $120k;

 

For 65k a guy could have had a 1/3 shot (65k/195k) at getting the lottery tag. Some statisticians figured out that if there are alot of bidders at auction the bids track in a linear (straight) line. So for the lottery, it comes down to how many and how fast the lots decrease. At a 50% depreciation rate (next bidder puts up 1/2 as many as the first) you'd only need 10 'Whales' to push their lot buying out to 60k to make 120k.

 

Sure, it would make it ALOT harder to win the Lottery tag; but at least more money would be going toward game management.

 

Now whose going to complain about having to compete with wealthy guys buying 1/2 of the lots, and getting 1/2 the tags every year?

[wetmule]

I know Doyle really well and he is a standup guy and a first class extremely hard working and talented guide. The speculation about growing some super bull in a laboratory then releasing it or pumping some bull full of roids or whatever else cockamaime theory people come up with is all a bunch of hogwash and really quite laughable. Don't know why elk seem to keep getting bigger & bigger, maybe this global warming is creating a better food source and more of it, who knows. Yep they've taken some bruiser bucks in recent years but no one has even come close to the world record Broder buck taken over 80 years ago.

Utah's elk hunting use to really stink, Arizona's unit 9 & 10 use to have 0 elk in them and now they are two of the best trophy elk units on the planet. Elk are expanding their range just about everywhere. Me thinks that all the right conditions were at peak and came together and Utah produced a once in a lifetime or one in a billion bull.

[.270]

this past year has been exceptional for elk horns. look at all the big bulls killed in Az. i've seen photos of half a dozen 400+ bulls this year. i don't buy for a minute that they were doing something to make this elk big. at least while he was in the field. but there is a lot of rumor about it escaping from a elk farm. if they have antlers from last year, they could do the dna deal. i am just really tired of the negative impace these auction tags have had the past couple years. the subdivision bull in Az. and now this joke of a mess in utah. it just doesn't seem "ok" to me to flood the woods with folks to find one animal for some rich guy. ain't that sorta the way the british snuf sniffers useta hunt tigers? if the raffle tags bring in more money than the auction tag, then auction off all of em and let us poor guys have a better chance. if the money is still going in the till, why reserve the best tags in the country for millionaires only? a few millionaires don't contribute 1/1000 of what us regular guys do, when it comes to the overall take for tags and licenses. why do they automatically get the tags? they seem to really divide hunters and it gives anti's a lot of ammo to shoot at us. Lark.

[Heat]

I'll probably take a beating for this, but here goes:

 

I think a guy who scouted, hunted, and harvested a spike or a cow on his own, deserves much more accolades than the person who shot this bull.

 

If a kid out hunting with grandpa for the first time killed this bull, I would be wildly ecstatic. If Dan Sozzi would have killed this bull, I would have been on cloud 9. In this situation, I'm kinda bummed out.

 

Think about it, would you use the story of this kill as an example of anything in a Hunter Ed Class? Is this a story you will tell your kids? How about trying to justify all of this to someone who doesn't hunt?

 

In the end, it's all about antlers, and not about the pursuit in this situation, bottom line. When situations like this happen it brings our passion further away from our heritage as hunters and outdoorsmen and makes it much more about commerce. That makes me sick.

 

In this situation the bull was the underdog. I like to root for the underdog. I would have loved to see this bull show Mr. Fatwallet who was boss, and send him packing back to where ever he came from with nothing but a bunch of receipts from "Team Mossback". Oh yeah, and if you have to hire "Team" anyone to get it done, I think you've lost sight of what the heck we're doing in the woods in the first place. Dont' get me wrong, the use of a guide or outfitter has it's place, but I'm of the opinion that this was a bit over the top.

 

Just my $.02,

 

Nick

[.270]

amen. Lark.

[cjw2222]

A guy just has to wonder if this bulls previous sheds have been recovered. Seems we would have seen pics of those sheds. Am I suspicious? Just a wee bit.

Have 400+ bulls come from that area before?

Have folks up there been watching this bull for how many years? Or did he just show up one year?

Am I accusing anybody of anything? Nope, 'cause I sure as heck don't know. Just seems a bit queer that 400+ bulls aren't a dime-a-dozen, then pops up a 500" bull?

Has there ever been a 500" bull - ever - under any circumstances? If so, where was this 500" bull?

Last question: Will some people do just about anything for money, power, or fame?

Suspiciously,

Mike

 

 

that is an incredibly bold and entirely unjustified post. not to sound standoffish but people have been watching that bull for months now. i mean if you are suspicious that it was farm raised or jacked up on steroids then why would somebody let it out so early so everyone can find it and watch it. makes no sense.

 

and yes there have been 500" bulls that are free ranging. google the mike shipsey bull killed on the san carlos reservation. it was killed in '97 i believe...

 

 

and some people will do anything for money and fame???? come on if you worked hard for your money and had more than enough to live comfortably then wouldnt you want to get a governors tag? i know i sure as heck would and so would just about everyone i know. we look like jealous little kids looking at our friends gifts on christmas. i mean the guy is an established hunter, brings a TON of money to the sport, and is a respectable guy who brings good publicity to the hunting world. what more could you ask for.

 

i am sorry if this sounds stern but i just get tired of posts like these