YAKIMA -- Even from a distance of roughly half the length of a football field, Brad Sharp knew the elk was a big one.

Only when the Moxee hunter got to see it close-up -- killed by the arrow he had launched from that 53-yard distance -- did he get an idea just how big.

Sharp had already taken his Washington elk on the Sept. 6 opening day of Eastern Washington's early-archery season. This big 6-by-7 he had shot 20 days later in Island Park, Idaho, west of Yellowstone National Park.

Only upon measuring the antlers -- 66 inches across and 53 inches from top to bottom -- did he begin to realize he might have an Idaho state-record bull.

He didn't. When Sharp had the antlers scored, they graded out -- unofficially, since the 60-day waiting period is still in effect -- at 3617.

A Boone and Crockett spokesperson said the Idaho state record bull, a 9-by-8 taken in 1954 in Adams County, Idaho, graded out at 4125 points.