Toughest game retrieval situation?

Picture that swamp in the picture but at the bottom of a god knows how tall steep ass nearly impenetrable Devils clubbed hill. I dont answer my brothers phone calls anymore during hunting season. Two days strait uphill leapfrogging come alongs.
 
Worst I can think of. :) Once nailed an Elk at the edge of a disused road above the Ya Ha, early in the morning, no vehicle access and we were hunting with horses. Figured it would be a piece of cake. buggar died and slid about 1000 ft. down a sleep slope, almost into the creek below. Spent the rest of the day getting him back up to the road in pieces. Long story, but involved a lost camera and an outfitter pissed about us shooting the elk in "his" territory. Had to restrain the wife from killing him and then her horse shied on the way out and almost dumped her. Late at night when we got back to camp. One of those memorable Hunts. Almost forgot. The Fish Cops were waiting on the way out and we got a thorough going over. Seems someone had shot a grizzly sow and her two cubs there the night before. they eventually caught the guy and I was subpoenad to testify at his trial. that was an experience in itself.:rolleyes:

Grizz
 
Last edited:
I often shot first then thought later when I was young.

When I was about 30 we were hunting Moose in Northern BC. One of the guys in camp was hiking high every day looking for Caribou. He came in one night and said he found three bulls hanging out in a valley a couple miles off the road and on the other side of a Mountain ridge. After about three days of not seeing a bull three of us decided to go for it. He dropped two bulls within 30 seconds of each other and spent the next two days packing 8 quarters out on our back. It was brutal but very memorable.

When I was about 28 I shot a goat in Golden BC. I literally shot straight up as it was looking over an edge at me. The shot was excellent and it died instantly but came off the ledge and landed as perfect as if you set it there by hand, right on the peak of a rock sticking out the face of the cliff. We tried all day and just couldn't get to it. That night my friend called a favour and a fellow went in the next day and climbed the cliff then repelled down the face with a rig and hooked up to the goat and finished the repel with it strapped to his back. I bought that guy the spirits of his choice.

At about 31 I shot a bull moose across a lake in Dease Lake BC. I hit him a tad high and he only had use of his front legs which he promptly used to drag himself out about 100 metres from shore. When I canoed over to him I discovered he was in a foot of water and three feet of loon sh*t. That's was not a fun day.
 
rral22- Most of the problems we had in the instances I mentioned were related to not having heavy enough rope to attach to the end of the come-along to pull the moose in. It is amazing how much stretch there is in some light rope. In some cases enough to pop the rope before it would actually start to pull.

Jim
 
Two moose and a chain saw winch did the deed.
Clear a path and git them to the Zodiaks.
Then paddle thru the obsticle course and unload at the beaver dam.
Hoist the Z's over and reload the fur.
One thing 'bout mewsies, the more the merrier.
Biggest consirn was worrying 'bout the grizzlies around there.
We lucked out.
 
Nice story and pictures MackForce.
Road hunting with an old fart for moose and he was watching up hill and I thought I was to watch down hill along the road. He looked at me and said what I was doing looking down hill because I wasn't allowed to shoot anything downhill from the road. I hold that advise dear to my heart, unless there is 2 twenty somethings along to pack it out. I'm the old fart now.
He told of stories where it took 2 horses 2 days to get a moose up and out of a valley. I have hiked in 5 miles and seen 5 moose and let them walk because of the 5 mile pack out.
 
Thanks for the advice tigrr! I hear you. I'm just too young to turn my back on a valley or swamp moose yet. I have a son in training... If he sees me let it go I'll never convince him "we all did it" when I'm using his muscles one day.
Love the stories folks. Thanks. Bbq is this weekend. Got a guy who does a mean moose rib.
 
mossyhorns said:
...

When I was about 28 I shot a goat in Golden BC. I literally shot straight up as it was looking over an edge at me. The shot was excellent and it died instantly but came off the ledge and landed as perfect as if you set it there by hand, right on the peak of a rock sticking out the face of the cliff. We tried all day and just couldn't get to it. That night my friend called a favour and a fellow went in the next day and climbed the cliff then repelled down the face with a rig and hooked up to the goat and finished the repel with it strapped to his back. I bought that guy the spirits of his choice.

...
Click to expand...

Rappelled down the cliff with a mountain goat on his back !?!? It didn't happen without pictures. ;) Damn fine recovery - if it's true.
 
I've got a few ugly recovery stories as well. I won't talk about the hired rock climber who had to rappel down to one of my goats though given the doubters.

Early 2000's I passed on a buck that was good, but not great, one morning as I was headed to work. (I was burning slash piles in blocks we'd logged previously). And then spent the rest of the day kicking myself as I could have spent the next few weeks hunting geese with my dog. Low and behold, driving out, what is standing on the switchback? The same muley that was juuuuust barely as wide as his ears, but with good mass and deep-ish forks. What the hell. I waited for him to walk to the high side of the cutbank (to make loading him easier), and then very carefully shot him quartering away with a 140gr X out of my 264 mag.

He stiffened up, set his feet, and I could see a rather impressive gush of blood start to POUR out of his rib cage tight to the close shoulder. Being young and dumb, and knowing I'd broken his off side shoulder, I stood up, unloaded the second round from my rifle and stowed it away back behind the seat, and quieted my big lab (he loved to kill things and retrieve them). And looked back at the deer to see him very carefully walk off the end of the switchback into the timber. Burnt timber.

Frantically yanked the rifle out, and tried to find a hole to put another one in him. No dice. He walked across the hill 300 yards and then died. And promptly slid down the hill to the creek on the 2" of wet snow. Did I mention the blocks we'd logged were yarder blocks?

When I got down to the NOW dead buck, I could hardly move him. At all. He was the largest bodied buck I've ever encountered. Tip to tip ear spread was 28" on the nose. Buck scored just shy of 181".

It took me over an hour to slide each half to the truck, one pull at a time. (I was about 210 myself then, and really active).
The worst part though, was the spilled diesel in the box from the day of burning. I had to muscle the halves up onto a big fir butt, and then dead lift them up the side of the box to get them onto the dry box to keep them clean.
One of a 4 mulie's I've seen that were weighed on butcher scales, that indicated a live weight of better than 400lbs.
 
One of the other really fun recovery stories I have, was up North. I ended up hunting solo, with my spouse back in camp. I rode my atv across some interesting ground for about 5 km on an established trail, parked it, walked 200 yards and let out a bugle. Instant response. Trot up the trail a couple hundred more yards, bugle, and get two responses. Two bulls coming. And then I could hear hooves pounding down the hardback trail. Drop to the ground, rack a round, and 80 yards away a very nice 5pt pokes his head around the corner, and then strolls into the opening. He bugles, the unseen bull bugles, and I smash his shoulders with a 168 tsx from my 300 Ultra. BangFLOP. And he starts thrashing his head, the other bull runs up to him (smaller thankfully) and horns him twice and then spins and wheels off. It's 7pm, full dark is at about 8:45, loads of time, right?

Go up, give him a finisher, take a few pics, and then back to the atv. Drive right up to him.
Start to gut him, and then think about the trail back to camp. Not going to drag him through the muskeg. Skin the first front quarter, and muscle it onto the front rack. Way heavier than it looked..... After it got dark, used my headlamp and headlights to do the other 3 quarters (hide on now) and peel back straps and tenders. All the while listening to wolves howl less than 100 yards away.

And then discover that my battery is dead after everything is loaded. And I'm fairly tired. Managed to pull that kodiak over three times though, and it caught.

Anyone familiar with what it's like to atv through a pounded out trail in muskeg, with an atv that is way overloaded on the racks? Every single mud hole, and there were a lot of them, had to be eased into, otherwise being off camber and overloaded ended up with a bike on its side. And then winched back on its wheels. And then winched through the hole.

Killed him at 7pm, back to camp just before 3am, to a girlfriend who stayed up waiting and texting every half hour for progress reports.

Traded off that bike that year for a big Can Am. No more worries about overloading.
 
KMG Canada said:
Here is a pic before all the unhappiness of processing began ... I am not smiling that is a grimace from trying to hold the head up!

View attachment 62616
Click to expand...

I think we call this for the win Rod!
Unless someone has a picture of a dinosaur retrieval (or a picture of a rappelling goat rescuer)
That looks like a tough job... Nice to have some bodies around though.
 
Last edited:
Back in the day I had a neighbour in northern Alberta who was hard core bush man. No electricity, no water, lived in an abandoned trailer. A cool, smart guy though. Lived completely off the land, grew and harvested all of his food. But you still need cash to live, so e would harvest coyotes and beavers for money. One of our activities was shooting beavers for him to skin. Headshots only. One evening we are sitting on a bank over a slow moving creek in the spring. I'm using my Ruger #1 in 6mm that took forever to tune but would finally shoot sub MOA. It's a HIGH bank, like 75 yards high. A beaver pops up about 100 yards away. Easy shot with a 10 power scope. I touch off, and it looks like I fired a shotgun, strikes all over the water. I had fired through a willow twig and my 75 grain hollow point disintegrated. But the beaver is floating, dead. Cool. We scamper down the bank to retrieve, only to find there's thin ice extending about 10 feet out. But the beaver is visibly HUGE. I strip down and jump in. It's COLD. Ice is like that. I swim out, grab it, swim back. Change back into my now cold clothes. The beaver was, we guessed, 75 pounds. Even if we're off by 10 pounds he would be 65 pounds. It was a long, COLD climb back up the bank, then walk back to the truck.
If I jumped into ice covered water now my heart would just stop.
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
Rappelled down the cliff with a mountain goat on his back !?!? It didn't happen without pictures. ;) Damn fine recovery - if it's true.
Click to expand...

It happened alright. I don't know anything about repelling but he came off that face with the goat cut in half and strapped to himself. He was the hero that week end for sure. I swore I'd never hunt goats again but my memory was short in those days and a few years later I repeated the misery, although that retrieval was fairly easy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom