HUMBOLDT — Iolan John Kress knew the hefty wild bull elk was out there.
“It was just a matter of keeping quiet about it,” Kress said Tuesday morning, one day after he bagged the behemoth bull.
“It’s the first elk I’ve ever shot,” Kress said of the animal, estimated at more than 650 pounds.
While a free-ranging herd of wild elk are kept on the Fort Riley Military Reservation in north-central Kansas, they are considered extremely rare and difficult to locate in other parts of the state.
“We assume this one came from Fort Riley,” said Bill Stange, who owns the land on which Kress bagged the elk.
The bull likely was drawn to Stange’s property northwest of Humboldt because of the herd of elk he keeps as breeding stock.
Stange saw the bull roaming about his property earlier this fall, and quietly mentioned the sighting to Kress, an avid sportsman.
They were careful not to let word spread further to avoid drawing other hunters to the area.
“After Bill told me, I went to get a tag for the wild bull elk, which is harder than it sounds,” Kress said, because the animals are so rare on private land.
Kress finally purchased the tag, through the assistance of Ben Womelsdorf, a game warden with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.
It took Kress about two weeks to spot the animal. He shot it shortly before 5 p.m. Monday.
Certain it was a clean kill shot, Kress waited with Stange until sunrise Tuesday to find the animal, not far from where he hit it.
Kress used a 65-pound draw weight bow and a 100-grain arrow in his hunt.
Local hunter bags rare wild bull elk
