It was before daylight on Sept. 28, and retired Army Staff Sergeant Zane Scrivner was listening for bugling bulls on Fort Sill. Scrivner had a one-day bowhunting permit on the military base, which covers 94,000 acres in southwest Oklahoma, and he was working to get close to a bull before dawn.
“At first light, I had a big bull at about 120 yards, and I cow-called to him,” Scrivner tells Outdoor Life. “He came right to me at 70 yards, but a smaller bull showed up, and he turned back and went over a hill.”
Other elk were nearby, and Scrivner thought it best to back out of the area and meet with his Army buddy Joe Cooper. The pair had scouted for elk and hunted the base the day before, when Cooper had his one-day archery tag. Cooper came close to harvesting a big bull in the same general area, and he was now there to help his friend.
“Joe added another set of eyes and ears for my hunt,” Scrivner says. “We were a team.”
Soon after Scrivner met Cooper, they heard the big bull again. Now they had to decide how to get into bow range.
“I thought I’d pushed him away earlier, but he bugled back to me when I cow-called,” says Scrivner, who’s originally from Idaho. “We headed to where we last heard him bugle, which was in a briar-infested creek that had a lot of elk sign and wallows.”
It was getting warm quickly and the briars made it impossible to stalk toward the bugling bull. So Scrivner and Cooper got into the creek for cover, where they watched and waited.
“About 10:30 a.m. a group of elk came close, and I had a nice cow at 12 yards that I would have shot with my bow,” Scrivner recalls. “I came to full draw on her, but it was too thick to shoot, so I let her pass.”
The September mid-day heat was rising steadily, so the two buddies went back to their vehicle to rest and regroup.
“We shed some clothes at our truck because it was about 80 degrees, and we needed some water. We decided that in the mid-day heat the elk would be in the creek bottom thickets, so that’s where we headed.”
Dropping back into the creek where they’d found wallows earlier, they took a seat near a downed tree. Cooper watched one way while Scrivner watched the other. They hadn’t been there long when they smelled a musky odor, and they both knew it was a rutting bull.
“We smelled him before we spotted him at 80 yards,” says Scrivner. “With binoculars we could see him thrashing trees with his antlers, and he was huge.”
Cooper stayed by the downed tree while Scrivner began crawling through briars and underbrush toward the bull. He covered about 20 yards to a small opening he thought he could shoot an arrow through. Then he knelt with his bow at the ready, and cow called to the bull.
“I was hidden in brush, and when I called, he started walking toward me. He was slashing trees as he came my way. I drew my bow when he was at 32 yards and shot him.”
Scrivner saw the arrow penetrate to the fletching and knew he’d made a deadly shot. The bull disappeared at a steady walk into some timber. Cooper saw Scrivner’s stalk and knew exactly where the hit bull was headed.
They followed a heavy blood trail for several hundred yards and found the bull alive. Scrivner shot it again through the chest with another arrow from 26 yards, which finished the elk.
It was about 1 p.m. by that point, and the hunters worked hard and fast to cape and skin the elk, quarter it, and get the meat on ice. Then they loaded everything in their truck and headed home.
Scrivner’s 9×9 bull has been officially scored by Boone & Crockett at 411 1/8-inches, and it was just recently declared a new Oklahoma record for a nontypical bull elk. In Its announcement on Dec. 31, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation noted that it was the first 400-class elk that’s ever been tagged and officially measured in the state.
Although it isn’t as wide as some bulls, the 12- to 15-year-old elk has tremendous antler mass. Scrivner says he’ll get a shoulder mount made and hang it in his Idaho home, where he’s worked in heavy construction since retiring from the Army.
“It was a hunt I’ll always remember.”
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