Mark Zacher writes, "This was the greatest weekend hunt two buddy's could have, we put in eleven years together to get drawn for South Dakota elk season. My best buddy, Kevin Martin of Rapid City South Dakota, shot a nice 6x6 bull on opening morning.
We started to walk in towards a morning meadow and he cow called a couple of times and had some light bugles and then I bugled and holy cow they came to life, this bull he shot came right out charging when Kevin let him have it with his 30.06 at 100 yards. This was his first bull elk, I think he did a great job with this giant bull.
It was a very warm day so once we got him loaded up we hauled butt back to Rapid City to get him in the cooler, grabbed lunch and went back up to find me one (Mark).
As the day went on we came on about 15 more bulls, big ones, small ones, but none that I could get a real confident shot on or wasn't sure quite how big they were. These animals are a lot smarter than you realize sometimes. But, I went home empty handed. So, Sunday morning, the second day of season, we blasted back up to the Black Hills. With 30-40 mph winds, no bugling was going on. We was 3 more bulls, but no shots.
Afternoon came quickly with no sign of bulls, so we changed area towards evening, and did a little trail driving and glassing, had about a hour of legal hunting time and I pretty much said heck with it lets go home and we'll hit hard the next weekend.
While we were driving out I spotted a bunch of cows in a meadow, we glassed it pretty hard when my son, Tony, glassed the bull in the trees, and he said its a shooter dad. Lucky enough he came out of the trees to herd up his cows and he gave me a shot at about 300 yards. My 7mm Mag was set for dead on at 300 yards, so it worked out well and I dropped him on the money. He did get back up and had to shoot a second time.
He was a lot bigger than I expected!

Special thanks to my great hunting buddy, Kevin Martin, my son, Tony Zacher, for his great eyes all weekend and muscles, and our good friend, George Clinton, who helped us locate our bulls. Great friends and family are so important to have especially when you're elk hunting.
(Kevin's Bull - Top Two Photos)
(Mark's Bull - Lower Two Photos)