The common thread of hunting is often the fiber that weaves together unusual alliances, but this past fall veteran guide Ed Beattie, a consultant for Cabela's Outdoor Adventures, found himself with an exceptionally diverse group.

Author: Frank Ross

Trial attorney Mark Sledge poses with his fine 6/5 bull.

This group of five hunters from Mississippi was comprised of four lawyers, and two of them argued cases from opposite sides of the judicial fence. The final member of group was a catfish farmer.

How did a catfish farmer end up with four lawyers hunting elk in north central Wyoming? All lawyer jokes set aside, it was a quite natural gathering according to Mark Sledge, a trial lawyer from Jackson, MS.

Sledge has a professional relationship with the other attorneys, and Jones is a boyhood friend from his hometown of Yazoo City.

"I've hunted in the west several times and in Canada, and always wanted to go elk hunting. A friend of mine, Ralph Chapman, an attorney from Clarksdale, MS went with Ed last year and had good things to say about his trip. My law partner, John Stevens, wanted to go as well. Ralph called to tell me that he was going to apply for a permit, and asked if we wanted to submit an application as a group, to see if we could all go together."

"We were drawn for our hunt in North Central Wyoming the first time. When we arrived, it was a relief to find that the mountains we would be hunting were relatively small and not huge, extremely steep climbs. Where I live the elevation is 300 feet, and it's always tough for us to go somewhere with really high altitudes. It takes a week to acclimate, and that makes it real tough. I think the highest peaks on the ranch we hunted were about 7,500 feet," he said.

The group flew into Riverton and stayed over Saturday night. The following morning, Ed Beattie and his group of guides picked them up as arranged, and they drove about an hour and a half to the camp they had already set up. There were wall tents with cots and mattresses, and a cook tent. Sunday afternoon was set aside to shoot their rifles and make sure they hadn't been knocked off on the flight. While they were checking their scopes, Ed and the guides set off to check the elk herds and make sure they were where they were supposed to be.

"Ed had told us that this ranch had a large herd, but that when hunters pressured the elk from the surrounding areas, other elk would move onto this ranch. Unfortunately, they had not found that to be the case so far. He explained that the drought had been a factor all over the west during the summer, but when Ed came back, he reported that they had found two more herds that they had not been able to locate before. He wasn't sure if they had just moved onto the ranch, or if he had just not been able to locate them, but he assured us the numbers were there now. He told us that we could take a few days for some nature hikes and then close the deal, or we could go out in the morning, but he assured us that we would all have a shot at a quality bull. Naturally, we all wanted to close the deal the next day," Sledge surmised.

Sledge summed up the following day's hunt enthusiastically. "Scot Spragins, an attorney from Oxford, MS and I were assigned a guide, and we left early the next morning. We drove several miles, parked the truck and started climbing. Our guide was considerate of lowlanders and let us climb at our own pace. By the time we topped the mountain, it was just getting light enough to see", he said.

Sledge and Spragins were standing with their backs to some dark timber and looking out on a sage field below. Their guide was staring at something with his binoculars and Sledge asked him what he was looking at? "Elk," he said, pointing down toward the sagebrush. "The light was pretty bad, but when I looked with my binoculars there were several hundred elk in a draw with some really nice bulls. There were 8 to 10 bulls bugling all the time. I grew up hunting turkey, and this was a lot like that. You didn't have to guess if there were elk in the area," Sledge added.

"Our guide pointed left to a "camel back dip" in the ridge. He explained that when the sun came up that the herd would move through the ridge and up into the heavy timber. Scot had agreed that I could take the first bull, since he had already gotten an elk last year. We moved into position, and the elk did exactly as the guide had predicted." Sledge was shooting a 300 Win Mag Remington. He tried two or three times, but couldn't get a good shot. "The elk were moving, and several times they were running or trotting to catch up with the herd's lead bull. By now, the best bulls were in the heavy timber and moving."

"The elk were heading toward a dip in the ridge, a draw, where they could cross between the two ridges. Our guide told us that there was a large bowl on the other side where they would hold. We had to move back down the mountain, basically in the same direction we had just come from, and climb the far ridge to get into position on the bowl."

"By now, it was 8 a.m. and the wind had started blowing pretty hard. When we got near the top, our guide told us that we had to slow down our pace because we could come over the top and be right in the middle of the herd. That's exactly what happened. We found ourselves in the midst of the herd, on the same side of the mountain as the largest bulls. We were in the dark timber 100 yards from 5 or 6 big bulls that were bugling. The cows were calling back, Sledge added."

"I asked our guide, what do we do, should we set up and start calling? He told us we were too close to call, and that all we needed to do was get set up for a shot. By the time I got set against a tree, it couldn't have been a minute until a big mature bull stepped out. He had a massive rack with dark antlers that indicated he was a mature bull. Our guide whispered, "That's the bull you want, take him."

Looking through the scope, Sledge was very excited to see a 300+ quality bull that filled his scope. While the bull was expected, he wasn't expecting such a close shot. "If I get a good rest, I'm confident up to 300 yards", Sledge said. "But this was a real close shot, and he was standing still and broadside."

"He was about 150 yards away when I fired. He took off and I shot him two more times before he stacked up about 350 yards away. I leaned my rifle against a tree, and walked to the top of the ridge to get a good location on him with my binoculars before we started up to him."

At this point, the shooting had obviously disoriented the herd, and the elk were moving in several directions. As Sledge looked up from his binoculars, another huge bull stepped out of the timber about 40 yards away. "He stepped out of the timber, looked in another direction, and obviously didn't know where we were, or where the shots were coming from. I ducked down and told Scot there was a fine bull that he should take. Our guide looked at him (the bull) and told Scot that he should take him, so that's what he did. His bull ran in the same direction as mine and stacked up 50 yards short of where mine fell."

By 8:30 in the morning, Sledge and Spragins had taken two fine bulls. "We took a lot of pictures. Mine was a fine 5x6 that was missing an eye guard and not perfectly matched, but it was a real fine bull. Scot's was a perfectly matched 6x6," he said.

Everyone filled their tag that first day. After the guides field dressed all of the bulls, and took them back to camp, the hunters visited the facility where the animals would be packaged and then flew back early- and very happy.

Austin Jones got the biggest bull.

Austin Jones had bagged the big bull, but until they got it to the processor, they didn't know how big it was. The processor was a veteran of 28 years, and Jones' elk was the biggest bodied bull they had ever processed.

"Mine was bigger than Mark's, Jones said with a chuckle, "but the record at the processor didn't last long. The next week, another bull beat out mine by four pounds."

While the elk was the first for Sledge, neither had illusions about the ease in which it all came together.

Jones, a veteran hunter with numerous antelope, elk and mule deer trips to the west summed up the hunt from an experienced point of view. "This was my third elk hunt, and was the best by far," he said. Before his involvement with Outdoor Adventures, Jones booked two previous trips for elk. "I spent a week in Colorado riding around on horseback and never got a shot. The hunt I booked in Montana last year was the worst hunt I have ever been on. I finally got a spike, but I wanted to go again until I got a nice bull. This was an exceptional bull, and an exceptional hunt with top quality guides and facilities. I'd go back in a minute," he added.

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