Roseau siblings each shoot trophy bulls during northwest Minnesota elk hunt

Sep. 15—KITTSON COUNTY, Minn. — The hoopla is starting to subside — at least a bit — but siblings Gary Przekwas and Shar Peterson of Roseau, Minnesota, say they're still soaking in the thrill of drawing once-in-a-lifetime Minnesota elk tags and then shooting trophy bulls.

It all started when Peterson, 63, checked her mail one day in early July to find a postcard from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources indicating she'd drawn a landowner tag in Zone 30 of Kittson County — the Caribou Township area — for Season A of Minnesota's elk season, which began Saturday, Sept. 9, and continues through Sunday, Sept. 17.

The family has owned land in the Zone 30 area of northeast Kittson County for decades, but Peterson says she wasn't thinking of an elk tag when she saw the DNR letter.

"I thought it was something with registration or something," said Peterson, who retired last spring from LifeCare Medical Center in Roseau. "I opened it up, and I was sitting in my Ranger at my mailbox, and I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me.' And it says landowner permit; well, that's why I got one, because the odds are greater. There's only so many landowners in Zone 30. "

The next morning, Peterson had coffee with her brother, like she does most days and told him they'd switch the land from her name to his next year. That would up his odds of drawing a license.

As things turned out, that wouldn't be necessary.

Later, Przekwas checked his mail, finding a package of hooks he'd ordered online — "of course, they were the wrong ones," he said — and some letters he just threw in a pile.

Then he noticed the DNR postcard.

Like his sister, Przekwas also had drawn a tag for the early season in Zone 30, beating exponentially higher odds because it wasn't a landowner license.

Without diving too deep into specifics, there were 3,724 applicants for

Minnesota's 17 elk licenses

this year, according to Jason Wollin, area wildlife manager for the DNR in Karlstad, Minnesota.

"I opened it, and it said congratulations, and I just about frickin' hit the ditch," Przekwas said. "I called Shar and told her about it, and she's like, 'This is the craziest thing that's ever happened to us.' "

When he got to work, Przekwas, an assistant water and wastewater superintendent for the city of Roseau, told his boss, "I can't work today — I'm in shock.

"He goes, 'Oh, you look fine to me,' and I said 'I just drew a Minnesota elk tag,' " Przekwas said. "Well then, the whole city crew was jumping up and down. It was pretty cool."

Three either-sex elk tags were available for Season A in Zone 30, and Przekwas had drawn what is called a "10-year history license," an allocation for people who have applied for 10 years or more.

Knowing that elk often change their habits, Peterson said they didn't get too serious about scouting until a couple of weeks before season. Still, there was ammo to buy, rifles to sight-in and other preparations to make.

"We scouted every day — I did, anyway — from the Friday before Labor Day weekend all the way until we hunted," Przekwas said. "My gas bill was $700."

Opening morning, Peterson and her son, Kevin, of Hallock, Minnesota, hiked into a neighbor's land to post. She saw the bull she ultimately shot but didn't have a good enough vantage point to pull the trigger.

After a break back at camp, they returned later that afternoon, and the bull appeared in the thick brush about 7 p.m.

"I waited like 15 minutes with my hand and my eye on the scope waiting for him to step forward," she said. "And then when he stepped out, he walked really fast."

A squeaking noise got the bull to stop, she says.

"Then I pulled the trigger," Peterson said. "He was way out — 250 yards — and then my gun jammed. I was too excited, and I didn't pull the bolt back far enough."

Fortunately, one shot with the 7mm-08 Remington was all she needed, and after about 30 seconds, the bull dropped where it stood. It was her first bull after shooting a cow elk on an out-of-state hunting trip.

"I was just full of shock and relief and gratitude," Peterson said. "I was just like, 'Wow, I just shot a big elk.' I just couldn't contain myself.

"What an experience. It's just beyond what you can comprehend — exceeded expectations, is what I'm going to say."

The bull had a 7x7 typical rack, the designation for symmetrical antlers, with a "very unofficial" green score of 367 5/8 inches, she says.

Brad Penas of Moorhead holds the record for the No. 1 typical Minnesota bull,

which had a 6x7 rack and measured 393 2/8 inches.

Hunting a different part of the same property, Przekwas was in pursuit of an 8x8 bull that was bugling within 100 yards but wouldn't come out of the woods on opening day. He also passed up a 6x6 that "anybody would have shot in a heartbeat."

That night back at camp, they'd finished skinning Peterson's elk and celebrating her successful hunt when Przekwas got a call about 1 a.m. from a neighbor, who'd spotted a big 10x11 nontypical bull on his trail camera.

"As near as we could figure out with all the neighbors after the smoke settled, he'd only been sighted five times in three years up there," Przekwas said.

After an uneventful second day — "no buglings, no sightings, nothing" — Przekwas got an early start Monday, Sept. 11, and was out of camp by 4:45 a.m. Bull elk were actively bugling, he recalls, and it was raining, which improved his odds of not being scented.

As he was walking down the driveway, Przekwas heard an elk bugling in a nearby patch of woods and also saw two smaller bulls he had to move away from so they didn't sense him.

He didn't know it at the time, but the single bull was the big nontypical his neighbor had spotted.

It took several exchanges, but Przekwas eventually coaxed the bull out of the brush with a cow elk call, and the excitement kicked up several notches.

Przekwas shouldered his .300 Ultra Mag rifle and pulled the trigger. He hit the bull, but said the shot wasn't very good, and the elk turned and headed the other direction.

He fired again, and jumped the bull in the brush while looking for blood but wasn't able to get another shot before the bull headed into even heavier cover.

"I was just sick to my stomach," Przekwas said. "I've shot 10 elk in 10 years in Colorado, and I've never had one run away like that after I've shot with that gun. I just thought I blew the whole thing."

He walked back to the cabin for a break, where his sister, Shar; nephew, Kevin; and niece, Lisa Mack, heard about the encounter.

"We had to calm him down and say, 'You know what, you've got to think positive," Shar Peterson said.

After breakfast, the crew headed back out to search about 10:30 a.m. They found a blood trail, and Przekwas eventually got the killing shot that had eluded him earlier.

"It was quite an experience," he said. "It was such an epic hunt — I just can't explain it."

Thanks to digital photos and social media, word of the successful hunt spread fast.

"I guarantee you we had over 100 people there that afternoon," Przekwas said. "It was Grand Central Station, people coming and going. We drank a few beers, that's for sure."

Przekwas' bull had a 10x11 nontypical rack and green-scored 413⅞ inches. If the score holds after the mandatory 60-day drying period, it will be the No. 2 nontypical bull in Minnesota and the largest nontypical bull ever killed by hunting, said Randy Dufault of East Grand Forks, a certified measurer for Boone and Crockett.

The No. 1 Minnesota nontypical, which was found dead in December 2010 in the same part of Kittson County, had a 6x7 rack and scored 458 4/8 after the 60-day drying period, according to Herald archives. The current No. 2 nontypical measured 362⅞, Dufault said.

Sportsman's Taxidermy in East Grand Forks is mounting Przekwas' bull, he says, and Peterson is having hers mounted by Rudy Finney, a Kittson County taxidermist.

"It's funny, one of our friends, Jody Nelson — he's a carpenter up here — he goes, 'With you two hunting, it's going to be legendary,' and I just laughed," Peterson said. "I thought, 'Yeah, we probably won't even see one.'

"And lo and behold, it ends up legendary."