Lance Corporal Benham - Hunt Story

I received a phone call from Thomas Wagner from Heroes Rising Outdoors, Tuesday November 26.   He informed me that he had a late season bull elk tag for  unit 6A. The hunt starts on Friday November 29th.  That gave me 3 days to prepare for my hunt to go after a bull elk.  So the packing and preparation started.   It was all hands on deck.  My son (Tate Benham) came over and we started loading anything and everything we thought we would need for the hunt.   We arrived in unit 6A Thursday night November 28th and set up camp to prepare for the morning hunt.  It was 28 degrees when we arrived at camp.  When camp was finished being set up we decided to hit the sack for a 5 AM wake up call.  

Day 1

The alarms went off and we rolled out of our sleeping bags got dressed for the 21 degree weather and then headed out for the hunt.  As the sun was just coming up we see 2 cow elk 5 min after shooting hours start. Our hopes of harvesting an elk rise and the excitement raises.   After not seeing a bull with the cows we continue our hunt.  After hours of scouting and glassing and a lot of miles later we spot a cow elk off to our left.  We stop and hunker down and patiently wait.  After about 30 min we now have about 6 cow elk , 75 yards in front of us and 3 more 50 yards to our left.  All of the elk keep looking to their left so we decided to move about 50 yards to our right to see what they keep looking at.  As we settle in again we start to see more elk coming over the ridge in front of us.  Fast forward an hour and we are now surrounded by about 20 to 30 cow elk.   My son Tate said bull, bull, I see antlers.  Off to our left a young spike bull walks into view at about 60 yards.  Being a late season hunt and the elk have been being chased all over the unit for months I decided to harvest this animal.  It was an amazing day 1 hunt.  He may not be the big 6x6 trophy that everyone is looking for but he is a trophy to me.  I would like to thank the Arizona Elks Society and their HRO program for this opportunity. I would also like to thank RAK Hunt Outfitters (Ray and Kim Byrne).  After harvesting our elk they graciously offered us to use their skinning station.  RAK Hunt Outfitters is a nonprofit hunting guide services that works with the Arizona Elks Society and the Hero’s Rising Outdoors program to take disabled veterans on hunting adventures in Arizona.  I would also like to thank my son Tate Benham for helping me on this adventure.   This is another trip that made some amazing memories for me having my son with me throughout this adventure. I would also like to thank my wife Ginger for being supportive and allowing me to go on this adventure over the holiday on short notice.