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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend September 30, 2004 Trophy elk puts in past anguish of bowhunter Outdoors By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune GRANTS PASS — When a huge Roosevelt elk appeared from the bushes 35 feet beneath his tree stand Aug. 29, it instantly reminded bowhunter Johnny Costello of last year’s brush with archery’s darkest stigma. A similar bull had presented itself to Costello in the same area and in the same manner. Costello had drawn back and fired what he thought was a perfect kill shot. But it only wounded the bull, which bounded away and never was seen again. Presumably, it died in the woods, its meat wasted. "I spent a month of nightmares trying to recover that elk and I failed," Costello recalls. "Not recovering that elk was horrible. Now, there I was 35 feet up a tree and it was like I was reliving that whole strange experience from last year." With this year’s bull at his feet, Costello fired nearly an exact replica of last year’s shot. This time, the bull dropped dead not 30 yards away, catapulting this 50-year-old asphalt paver into the annals of North American archery hunting. Advertisement The massive 7-by-8 point antlers on the bull Costello shot in the Pickett Creek basin west of Grants Pass are poised to be recognized as the second-largest set of antlers from a Roosevelt elk taken by a bowhunter anywhere on the continent. The antlers’ preliminary score of 365½ inches leaves it less than 2 inches shy of archery’s all-time record of 367 inches — a bull killed in 1985 in Tillamook County. After the mandatory 60-day drying period, the antlers will be remeasured and the results submitted to the Pope & Young Club, the official repository for bowhunting records in North America. "It was a pretty impressive animal," says Steve Mazzola, an official Pope & Young scorer in Grants Pass who measured the elk’s antlers. "The tines were long for a Roosevelt and the antlers had some big bases." The various measurements not only added up well, they also sported enough symmetry that the deductions for asymmetrical tines were low, Mazzola says. "Symmetry is really important," he says. Bagging the big bull also was an important feat among the tight band of elk bowhunters in Josephine County, an area known for good black-tailed deer hunting but widely considered an elk wasteland by outsiders. "It’s really amazing," says Dan Syfert, owner of Wapiti Archery Shop in Grants Pass and Costello’s hunting companion. "All the guys who hunt around here are really proud of him." Pride was not something in Costello’s heart last year. One of bowhunters’ greatest fears is not the shot that misses an animal, but the one that misses the kill zone. Most practice hundreds of hours not just on drawing and firing, but also on targeting the precise area around the heart and lungs where a single arrow can drop Oregon’s largest land mammal. Last year’s shot seemed perfect when Costello let it loose. He followed the elk’s blood trail, eventually finding the broken back part of his arrow in a brush patch. But he couldn’t find the elk. So he returned to search again the next day. And then the next. He brought friends, hoping they would find the carcass before it spoiled. Still, nothing. "I knew I had a good hit," Costello says. "There was no way that elk possibly could have survived. It was just a terrible, terrible experience." Costello notified Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists, who helped him contact area landowners to look for the bull. He received help from the Oregon State Police to enter a non- hunting corridor along the nearby Rogue River, just in case the big bull had managed to lumber that far away before dying. He took days off work, never hunting, just searching. Even his fiancee, Lisa Coates, helped search. The elk was nowhere. "I really let myself down," Costello says. "The guilt I had for wounding an animal and not recovering it was a horrible burden to shoulder." Syfert suggested that perhaps the elk survived. Maybe Costello’s arrow embedded in a rib and wasn’t the lethal shot he assumed. Friends in the Pickett Creek drainage this summer reported seeing a big bull, maybe the same one Costello had wounded. "That thought," he says, "is what kept life in me." And that thought got him back in his tree stand Aug. 29, when the record bull — even bigger than the bull from last year — wandered into Costello’s range. This time, the bull died in Costello’s view. He scrambled down the tree to inspect it. The elk also appeared eerily similar to the bull he lost last year. Costello inspected the hide, but found no healed wounds. So he and friends packed the nearly 800 pounds of quartered meat out of the woods. At the butcher shop, the butcher cut into the prime rib area and abruptly stopped. There was Costello’s arrow tip from last year, embedded in a rib, just as Syfert theorized. The muscle around it was completely healed. It took a year, but Costello finally found his lost bull. "To know he survived and did well was amazing," Costello says. "I never thought I’d see him again." And just like that, last year’s nightmares disappeared, replaced with a reward bowhunters dream about. "What a wonderful experience," he says. "I finished something that I started. I redeemed myself. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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