Editor’s Note: 54-year-old Billy Bishop grew up in the White Mountains of Surprise, Arizona, and today lives in Buckeye, Arizona. He’s been an elk and mule deer guide since he was 19 and currently operates Blue Wilderness Guide Services (https://www.gohunt.com/outfitter/blue-wilderness-guide-services). His dad, Bill Bishop, was a construction worker during the spring and summer. When the weather wasn’t good, Billy and his dad trapped when fur was still selling at good prices. Once fur prices plummeted, Bill Bishop began to guide to elk and mule deer, and his son Billy became his first employee. The Bishop family has trapped, hunted and guided together most of their lives. Both archery enthusiasts, Bill and Billy have used their bows to take elk, mule deer and Coues deer when not trapping or guiding. “Over the years, I’ve called in more than 30 serious bull elk that my clients and I have harvested,” Billy Bishop, the son, reports. Billy Bishop hunts in the extreme backcountry and most often packs into wilderness areas on horseback, setting-up spike camps from where he and his clients can hunt during the season. Billy prefers to hunt what he calls “The Old Country,” areas where many older Bull elk go to retire and dodge hunters. The terrain is very brushy there and, in many instances, very steep in these regions. He’s not hunting private lands but rather Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands (https://www.blm.gov/arizona), which is for the most part, public-hunting lands. To learn more about Billy Bishop you also can visit his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BlueWildernessGuideServices/.

My dad, Bill Bishop, had put out some trail cameras before elk season in 2010 to pinpoint some mature bulls for our clients to hunt. He also had drawn a bear tag to do a bear hunt at the same time. I knew that we already had two spike camps set up in the backcountry where my dad would be moving back and forth between them, while hunting a bear. The time had arrived when his hunter would show up. Since my dad was nowhere to be found, I decided to go check on him. No matter what he was doing in the wilderness, he never missed meeting his hunter before the hunt started. I got on a horse and headed out to look for him. Before long my horse slipped and fell over backwards on me so hard that I had to return to base camp to get myself doctored. I was in no shape to go look for my dad after that and decided to try again the next morning.

The hunter showed up for his hunt the next morning and stayed at base camp, while I rode out to look for my dad. When I reached the first spike camp, I could tell that Dad hadn’t stayed there. So, I mounted up and headed to the second spike camp. On the way, there was a little water tank near a clearing. I knew Dad liked to hunt this area. I spotted his tree stand and rode through the grass until I spotted him – face down in the dirt. His bow was still tied to his pull-up string, and his backpack was tied to a second pull-up string, indicating that he hadn’t fallen out of his tree stand. Evidently he’d lowered his equipment and sat down next to the tree where he had died. We learned much later that he had a dislodged blood clot that went to his heart.

I rode back to base camp, my dad’s hunter took me to town, and I called search-and-rescue to tell them what happened. They told me to stay out of that area until they could determine what happened to my dad, who must have been dead for a full week before I found him. By that time, decomposition had ravished his body – one of the worst sights I ever had seen in my life. I gave the search-and-rescue crew directions to where my dad was, and they arrived at the scene early the next morning. They brought the medical examiner and roped off the area with crime scene tape to assure that there was no foul play associated with his death.

I rode back to camp after tending to the horses my dad had left tied close to a stream and told my dad’s hunter I’d fulfill my dad’s elk-hunting contract with him. The hunter declined and decided to return home. But then he changed his mind a month later. I took him on his hunt, and he took a nice 118-inch Coues deer with his blackpowder rifle. Without a question, that was the worst hunt ever, but my dad died doing what he loved.   

To learn more about elk hunting, check out John E. Phillips’ book, “How to Find Your Elk and Get Him in Close,” available in Kindle, print and Audible versions at http://amzn.to/17ENNqK.