Libby Minister Finds Grace in Hunting Big Bull Elk
By Kevin Crough
A late-September chill had turned a light early-morning dew into frost, and bowhunters Terry Crooks and Adrian Mathis paused their hike through the devilishly-thick alder to communicate with elk.
After adjusting his bandana, Crooks let a long bugle fly over the treetops of Lincoln County, deep in the woods of northwest Montana. Crooks, a longtime Libby minister and Mathis, a resident of Columbia Falls, hunted this particular area every year. And every year, like thousands of other bowhunters throughout the country, they hoped for luck and the chance that they might cross a record elk.
Perhaps a slight flash of foreshadowing prevailed that day, the 26th of September, 1996, because a faint answer to Crooks' call came floating from the depth of the alder forest. Crooks had tried calling into several basins with a bull bugle, then switched his pace with some cow
calls.
The answer was faint. Crooks questioned the accuracy of his ear, but after he coerced another answer with some more calls, it was definitely the stammer of an American elk - the prize big-game animal of a pristine land. Crooks and Mathis had made a long pre-dawn hike into this area, pushing through the thick alder.
"You hunt an area for years without getting into some clearings or onto the sides of some hills, it's just so thick," Crooks says, revealing the dedication it takes to be a successful hunter. "This was one of those areas. We knew there were elk in there, but we had never been able to get through the brush. That time we made our way around some of the thickest alder and were able to get in there."
The hunters decided that the elk talking to them was more than 200 yards up through the alders. They quickly devised a scheme to shorten the distance between them and the bull, which meant disregarding their initial plan.
"We were actually trying to get Adrian a shot that day," Crooks says. "But it just happened so fast, we had no choice." They sprinted up the side of some steep terrain and stopped briefly for some strategy. They quickly exchanged some communication with the elk,
then heard it crashing down through the brush toward them. Crooks scrambled another 20 yards up the slope as Mathis stood his ground, creating a secondary line.
The moment would later be remembered for its chance, and the fact that not often that a hunter plays the bugling game and wins. "Rather than take the girls and run, this guy decided to communicate," Crooks says. "This is a deadly game for elk, and they learn really quick what man is
doing." Mathis watched as his longtime hunting partner scurried up the hillside. The two had met as young men and experienced many hunting adventures in the Butte area years before. Both had become successful hunters and Crooks now finds himself with three of the largest elk ever
taken in state history. They knew they were gambling by making a move upward toward the elk. They were hoping the elk wouldn't halt in its tracks and hear their
movements, which would mean a sure get away for the elk. Crooks sprinted as far as he could before the elk was obviously close. He stopped, his 65-pound Bear Kodiak recurve frozen in shooting position.
Waiting....waiting....waiting.
The elk then emerged into a small opening. Mathis from below was able to view the animal's massive rack and he figured it was a large non-typical. But then the elk stood still, breathing in for a cow scent. Crooks was afraid to even shake his pupils.
"If your camo is working, they don't see you there," Crooks says of his position about 15 yards from the elk. "I was afraid that even any eye movement would scare him. I had my bow up and in position. He was staring down through the brush."
Crooks feasted his eyes onto one of the largest bulls ever taken in the world. With only a few yards between him and a gigantic wild mammal, Crooks was overtaken by the animal's stench.
"The aroma of his rut was intense," Crooks says. Taken aback by the elk's extraordinarily-dark cape ("I wondered if he was that dark because he grew up in the brush," Crooks says.), Crooks noticed how menacing the creature was. "He looked evil." But there he was, a potential shot looming. When the possibility of a shot presents itself, it's a defining moment for a hunter. But, keeping
with the tradition of famous hunting statements like "the kill isn't as important as the hunt itself," most hunters have a solid sense and reasoning why it's important to hunt big game. The spread of the enormous antler rack was later measured at 62 3/8 inches wide and it scored 407 3/8.
But Crooks was running out of time.
"I thought, 'this isn't going to work, he's going to be gone'," Crooks says. "Because if they don't see anything, another elk, they'll take off. I figured this was just moments away." But the elk moved forward slightly and Crooks saw his opening in a clearing in the pine just above the elk's vitals about the size of a
volleyball. With no time to think, Crooks drew his recurve and released. The elk lunged forward and Crooks spotted the yellow fletching of his arrow flagging the shot that centered close behind the elk's right front
shoulder. The elk went about another 70 yards before dying.
"When we first saw the hit, Adrian was whispering excitedly, 'did you see the size of the bull?' over and over again," Crooks says.
Crooks, who was not as familiar with record scoring, couldn't fathom its size. "I just kept apologizing to Adrian, I just said, 'I'm sorry you didn't get the shot'. I just wanted him to have the opportunity, but of course he was just happy to see that I got it," he says.
A fight through the alder to bring the elk out ensued. Crooks remembers thinking 'how can an animal with such big antlers live in such a place?' as they pushed and pulled the record antlers through the thick alder with all their might. The rack couldn't fit under the canopy of Crooks' pickup, so they made a cautious drive home to Libby.
Crooks in 1997 took another elk, ranked 216th in the state, that scored 318 7/8. During rifle season of 1996, he got the fifth-largest non-typical elk in Montana and the 17th in North America with a score of 407 3/8.
"Those bulls are not even from here - they're from another place," Crooks says. "He really belongs to Montana and all Montana bowhunters, who get up each year long before dawn and run up and down these mountains. They
go through their hardships just to get close enough to the animals to get a shot."
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