his is a hunting picture coming out of East fork basin, a great hunting day.But this is about another type of hunt. Aimee wanted me to write about a wild bucking bull I hunted for seven days. A few years ago I sold some of my top PBR bucking bulls to Thomas Teague. A major share holder in the PBR. I had eight days to deliver them to Jerome Davis in North Carolina. On the day we went to load they were gone from corral. I quickly found HellsARoarin and Cool Hand Luke and got them back to the barn. Two days later, we found Pump Jack in the thick timber behind Bald mountain. Three days we chased in thick timber with no results. On next day we took a cow and calf up there, put four way hobbles on cow and left them overnight. The cow and calf bellered at each other all night long. Sure enough Pump Jack was laying a hundred yards from them come morning. Me, Jeremiah, Aimee, Randy Weurtz (our local Game Warden then and friend) , his wife Maribeth and Sue went up with Randy’s dogs next morning. We made a plan and circled him, Pump Jack ran right through us over the dog and we missed him with the rope. He came down off Mineral Mountain, hit the road. Aimee’s horse went lame, she had to go back, so it was just Jeremiah and I. Pump Jack ran by two wood cutters who were in shock and when we came galloping by they said it “we knew it had to be you Warren Johnson.” Pump Jack was easy to follow for 3 miles up then dove off into dry grass into Bear Creek. Three hours of the hardest tracking I’ve ever done and I pride myself on the ability to track and this was the best! I had close to $70,000 dollars riding on catching this bucking bull. Pump Jack finally hit the North Fork trail. Jeremiah and I started trotting, we came around a corner to find four back packers coming out of the trees scared to death! Pump Jack was easy to track to wilderness sign then we lost him again. So we backed tracked and about hundred yards found him bedded down to our left hiding in some thicket. Jeremiah and I made a plan. I jumped him out towards Jeremiah and it worked perfectly! The next two minutes were the most amazing things I’d ever seen a cowboy do in my life. On the steepest hill you’d ever want to go down, Jeremiah was galloping as hard as his horse could go. He made two swings from his rope and made a perfect loop around Pump Jack’s horns. Jeremiah dallied up, when Pump Jack hit the end of the rope, Jeremiah and horse bounced twenty times down that steep hill until the bull hit into a tree. Seventeen hundred pounds of the most hot blooded bucking bull in the country and my son never let go of his dallie’s on his rope once. The rope burns are still in the tree! I got my rope on him, we took him between us for about a half mile, then Pump Jack sulled up. Jeremiah held him with his rope, I teased Pump Jack so he’d chase me to the next tree, then I put my rope on that tree. But I quickly found out there is three foot of stretch from a 40 foot of rope, when I felt his horn in my backside! Between Jeremiah and I we got him a mile from the trailhead and he finally quit us. We were worn out, as were horses and the bull. So we snugged Pump Jack up to a tree for the night. The next morning we came up with fresh horses and Scott Sallee. After about two hours of cat and mouse, dragging him, we finally got him into the horse trailer. There was a guy named Denny at the trail head who told us what we should have done and how to do it. If I hadn’t been so tired and sore I’d have roped that guy, tied him to a tree overnight and let him think about it!! After many 88 -90point rides Cool Hand Luke slowed down and ended up at legendary Harry Volds company. Never heard what happened to the other two bucking bulls. I’m sure people have seen or think they may have, but I’ve never in my lifetime seen a better job of cowboying when Jeremiah roped that bull on the STEEPEST spot and never let go, when most would have never even dared to rope in the first place. The horse Jeremiah was riding, I bought as a colt from Leo Cremer from Big Timber, MT, Ol’ Hatchet went on to be a great pickup horse in the rodeo’s. Hope you enjoyed this, to all my Italian friends and Drew my brother from another country !
Respectfully. Warren
