Justin Paola writes, "We left our four wheelers and loaded up our pack frames for the long and steep walk up to elk camp. It was just after first light on opening morning. We decided to wait until opening morning to walk up hoping that there might be some snow up above driving the bigger bulls down.

It was over cast and cold as we started our ascent up the trail. We had been hiking for about an hour, and finished the toughest part of the trail. We decided to sit and rest under a tree and do a little bit of glassing before continuing up. We sat there for about fifteen minutes, and didn't see anything, so decided to continue up to camp.

We had gone about fifty yards when Dad suddenly started to "Psssst" at me. I turned around to see him glassing right below us. I walked the few steps back to him and saw a bull feeding about two hundred yards below us. He said, "I think it's a good bull." I put my binoculars up just in time to see him raise his head and look in our direction. He had no idea that we were even there. He looked good, but just wasn't that wide bull I had seen earlier in the year.

The bull continued to feed. We moved up the hill just a few yards to get a better look at him. We sat down and I got my range finder on him just in case I was wrong about his size. I ranged him at 228 yards. My Dad kept saying, "I think he is big enough." I put my binos on him again and watched him for awhile. He wasn't going anywhere. I watched him feed for a couple minutes and he finally raised his head again. Still, not that wide. Then, he looked to the right and that was all I needed. I could see long front tines, long main beems, and thickness. I had left my shooting sticks at the four wheeler, so I used my pack frame for a rest. I put the bull in the crosshairs. He was quartering to me and slightly to the left. I put the crosshairs in front of his closest shoulder, hoping to break the opposite shoulder in the pass-through. At the shot, the bull ran towards us about ten yards and fell over. I had put it right through the boiler room.

When we walked up to the bull, I still thought, "Not that big". When I got a side view of him, I realized I had just shot the biggest bull I had ever seen in Oregon on the hoof. He green scored 332 and change."