2-14 SS Judging Bull

 Judging a bull elk from a distance. I had a chat with Guy Eastman from Eastman’s Hunting Journals and picked up some tips about how to judge a bull way off in the distance. “The 1st thing you want to do is answer the question, why do you care. The answer to that is elk are big animals, they are like horses on a hillside, you can see them from a long way away but you want to be sure there is a good bull in the bunch before you waste a lot of time and energy going 3 to 4 miles to put a stalk on one. A lot of times from that distance you cannot even see antlers so here is a good indication. If there is a good bull in the herd, you want to judge if it is a mature bull. The 3 things  you look for at a distance are body size, coloring and body language. How are the elk acting and reacting to each other? A bull has a different gait, different mannerisms, he acts differently than a cow or a young bull so you are looking for animals that are different in color, much larger than the rest, and acting different than the rest.