Between a flexible job and a fantastic wife 
I get out hunting a fair amount year round, but I try to plan at least one 'fun hunt' and the last couple weeks were my big treat for the year. I had ten days off to spend in northern BC chasing moose and caribou in the valley bottoms and sheep and goats in the alpine. A quick flight from the coast landed me in Grande Prairie, AB where one of CGN's finest (David Doyle) met me at the airport with a brown bag lunch. We spun back to BC, had elk tenderloin for dinner, packed our hunting packs and set the alarm for an early rise. By afternoon the next day we were hiking in some of BC's finest wilderness (all hail the Muskwa-Kechika!) and dreaming of the action to come with 8 days food, a rifle and not a care in the world!
We saw several caribou that night as they moved around in search of 'companionship' and I told DD "My wife said to bring home a caribou- mind if I kill one tomorrow so I can concentrate on sheep and goats for the rest of the hunt?". Being the agreeable type he said to go for it while he scouted a valley he was interested in for sheep. We setup camp that night on a tiny island in the middle of a huge river wash that would give us good visibility in case of 4 legged midnight visitors and spent the eve chatting around a campfire and generally feeling the stress of work life fade away as the sparks rose into the night sky.
We spent the morning of the second day scouting a promising valley for sheep and in the afternoon I took off on my own for a spot I had marked for caribou. It was down on a huge river bottom about 2.5h away and when I arrived I realized that being on the other side of the river was a better spot to watch from. Lacking a handy bridge I did what any reasonable hunter would: stripped to the waist, put on my river crossing Crocs and started wading with my rifle in one hand and my twig and berries in the other! Did I mention the water was cold AND deep????
Just as I got across I did a quick check up and down the river and spotted a caribou splashing up the bank a few hundred yards upstream of me. Even at that range the antlers were easily visible and definitely worth counting the points on!
I threw my pack down on the ground and lay down behind it with the binos out. Left antler: 1,2,3,4.... crap. Right antler: 1,2,3,4,5! By the time I had confirmed that count again the caribou was about a hundred yards away and rather keyed up at the small black object on the ground watching it (me). He circled off to one side and passed by me down in a river channel (the river is ~500m wide in the spring and a couple small deep channels in the fall) so all I could see is the antlers moving by, but the second he was downstream of me the bull felt safe and popped back up over the bank to check me out. Big mistake! I put the crosshairs just behind the shoulder and BANG, it was all over.... sort of. The bull didn't even flinch, jump or show any sign he was hit- he just ran. Like Ben Johnson ran, except more like Ben Johnson on speed with his ass on fire! When people say a caribou can run 30mph on flat ground I have seen them do more than that over large river cobble! Knowing the shot was good I watched him go and go and go and after about 200m he faltered once climbing a bank and then all of a sudden the front legs gave out while he was moving so fast his back end flew up in the air so his tail was straight up in the air! While all this had only taken a minute since I first crossed the river, I was relieved to cross back over and finally put my pants on.
Hunts are split into two halves: the fun and the work. The fun part was over. Lucky for me the day before I left for the trip I had been treated by another fine CGN'er (SBranson) to a brand new, custom made hunting knife. A fan of quality tools, I couldn't wait to try it out and his custom knives are second to none in both looks and performance. I got up to my elk, thanked him for a year of meals and a lifetime of memories, took a couple photos and started processing. A hot piano wire passing through butter would have given more resistance that that knife did! Big enough to make easy work of removing the head and rear quarters but delicate enough to I completely skinned it, removed all four quarters, the backstraps, the tenderloins and the organ meat all in well under 1.5h unassisted while taking regular 'check over your shoulder' breaks in case my rifle shot had been a dinner bell for a local grizz. Not super speedy for sure, but not bad. With the sun in the trees I left the meat to cool on large boulders away from the guts and headed back to camp with a couple tenderloins in hand.
With our freezers now kick started for the year we both spent the night feeling relaxed and enjoying the rise of a near full moon over the mountain peaks while we sat by a campfire.
The next day was spent packing everything out to the truck. No big deal- it was only 2 miles.... doing shuttle runs back and forth with a 50lb pack of gear and another 50+lbs of meat each! Carry the pack to a river crossing, go back to the meat, carry that to the river crossing, shuttle both across the river, repeat, repeat, repeat! By the end of the day we were both a bit frazzled and a white bag of meat got left on a white boulder in the middle of a half kilometer wide river wash full of large white cobble. No big deal to find, just spend 3h hours scouring every rock systematically in a grid search, realize that we weren't thinking clearly due to lack of food, give up and take a shortcut back to the truck for a meal and find it on the *wrong* side of a tiny island. Celebrate by crossing another river channel! Truck now loaded we beat it back to DD's house in the dead of night and spent the next day butchering, eating fresh caribou and getting the compulsory inspection. As part of celebrating our hunting heritage we even tied the head on the roof rack antlers up and dropped his kids off at grade school. It was a 50/50 split in the playground between kids saying 'Cool!' and kids saying 'Eww!' so obviously we need to work harder to recruit the next generation guys!
That night we drove back to the same area and the rest of the hunt was done in a tiny valley a couple km's away from the caribou kill. After a few extra hours hiking in we crested into a hanging valley at 5000ft elevation that looked straight out of a picture book. A flock of sheep were grazing beside a tiny tarn and there were steep rock walls on all three sides. Heaven! We spent the rest of our time watching those sheep and waiting for a mistake, an opportunity or both while hiking a few peaks in the area and building a better mental map of the ground. The ewes came out morning and evening and fed like clockwork. The rams hid. We watched and enjoyed every minute. Once, for 30 seconds, we saw 3 large rams run nose to tail from one gully to the next about 1000ft above us but that was it. Most sheep hunters would have cursed the gods but with we just took turns watching and cooking and waiting until it was time to go home.
I arrived back at the Grande Prairie airport with two expedition duffles, each packed with 49.5 lbs of stuff. One had a rifle broken down and a ton of smelly hunting clothes and gear. The other one had frozen meat! The Westjet ladies were very helpful filling out the firearms form and the xray girl's eyes almost bugged out when she saw my rifle on the screen! I waved the form and said "How can you not trust this face?" and she just laughed and passed me through- you have to love small town people!
So now I'm back in the land of rain and tiny deer but still dreaming sunny days and sheep in the alpine.........
I get out hunting a fair amount year round, but I try to plan at least one 'fun hunt' and the last couple weeks were my big treat for the year. I had ten days off to spend in northern BC chasing moose and caribou in the valley bottoms and sheep and goats in the alpine. A quick flight from the coast landed me in Grande Prairie, AB where one of CGN's finest (David Doyle) met me at the airport with a brown bag lunch. We spun back to BC, had elk tenderloin for dinner, packed our hunting packs and set the alarm for an early rise. By afternoon the next day we were hiking in some of BC's finest wilderness (all hail the Muskwa-Kechika!) and dreaming of the action to come with 8 days food, a rifle and not a care in the world! We saw several caribou that night as they moved around in search of 'companionship' and I told DD "My wife said to bring home a caribou- mind if I kill one tomorrow so I can concentrate on sheep and goats for the rest of the hunt?". Being the agreeable type he said to go for it while he scouted a valley he was interested in for sheep. We setup camp that night on a tiny island in the middle of a huge river wash that would give us good visibility in case of 4 legged midnight visitors and spent the eve chatting around a campfire and generally feeling the stress of work life fade away as the sparks rose into the night sky.
We spent the morning of the second day scouting a promising valley for sheep and in the afternoon I took off on my own for a spot I had marked for caribou. It was down on a huge river bottom about 2.5h away and when I arrived I realized that being on the other side of the river was a better spot to watch from. Lacking a handy bridge I did what any reasonable hunter would: stripped to the waist, put on my river crossing Crocs and started wading with my rifle in one hand and my twig and berries in the other! Did I mention the water was cold AND deep????
Just as I got across I did a quick check up and down the river and spotted a caribou splashing up the bank a few hundred yards upstream of me. Even at that range the antlers were easily visible and definitely worth counting the points on! I threw my pack down on the ground and lay down behind it with the binos out. Left antler: 1,2,3,4.... crap. Right antler: 1,2,3,4,5! By the time I had confirmed that count again the caribou was about a hundred yards away and rather keyed up at the small black object on the ground watching it (me). He circled off to one side and passed by me down in a river channel (the river is ~500m wide in the spring and a couple small deep channels in the fall) so all I could see is the antlers moving by, but the second he was downstream of me the bull felt safe and popped back up over the bank to check me out. Big mistake! I put the crosshairs just behind the shoulder and BANG, it was all over.... sort of. The bull didn't even flinch, jump or show any sign he was hit- he just ran. Like Ben Johnson ran, except more like Ben Johnson on speed with his ass on fire! When people say a caribou can run 30mph on flat ground I have seen them do more than that over large river cobble! Knowing the shot was good I watched him go and go and go and after about 200m he faltered once climbing a bank and then all of a sudden the front legs gave out while he was moving so fast his back end flew up in the air so his tail was straight up in the air! While all this had only taken a minute since I first crossed the river, I was relieved to cross back over and finally put my pants on.
Hunts are split into two halves: the fun and the work. The fun part was over. Lucky for me the day before I left for the trip I had been treated by another fine CGN'er (SBranson) to a brand new, custom made hunting knife. A fan of quality tools, I couldn't wait to try it out and his custom knives are second to none in both looks and performance. I got up to my elk, thanked him for a year of meals and a lifetime of memories, took a couple photos and started processing. A hot piano wire passing through butter would have given more resistance that that knife did! Big enough to make easy work of removing the head and rear quarters but delicate enough to I completely skinned it, removed all four quarters, the backstraps, the tenderloins and the organ meat all in well under 1.5h unassisted while taking regular 'check over your shoulder' breaks in case my rifle shot had been a dinner bell for a local grizz. Not super speedy for sure, but not bad. With the sun in the trees I left the meat to cool on large boulders away from the guts and headed back to camp with a couple tenderloins in hand.
With our freezers now kick started for the year we both spent the night feeling relaxed and enjoying the rise of a near full moon over the mountain peaks while we sat by a campfire.
The next day was spent packing everything out to the truck. No big deal- it was only 2 miles.... doing shuttle runs back and forth with a 50lb pack of gear and another 50+lbs of meat each! Carry the pack to a river crossing, go back to the meat, carry that to the river crossing, shuttle both across the river, repeat, repeat, repeat! By the end of the day we were both a bit frazzled and a white bag of meat got left on a white boulder in the middle of a half kilometer wide river wash full of large white cobble. No big deal to find, just spend 3h hours scouring every rock systematically in a grid search, realize that we weren't thinking clearly due to lack of food, give up and take a shortcut back to the truck for a meal and find it on the *wrong* side of a tiny island. Celebrate by crossing another river channel! Truck now loaded we beat it back to DD's house in the dead of night and spent the next day butchering, eating fresh caribou and getting the compulsory inspection. As part of celebrating our hunting heritage we even tied the head on the roof rack antlers up and dropped his kids off at grade school. It was a 50/50 split in the playground between kids saying 'Cool!' and kids saying 'Eww!'
so obviously we need to work harder to recruit the next generation guys!That night we drove back to the same area and the rest of the hunt was done in a tiny valley a couple km's away from the caribou kill. After a few extra hours hiking in we crested into a hanging valley at 5000ft elevation that looked straight out of a picture book. A flock of sheep were grazing beside a tiny tarn and there were steep rock walls on all three sides. Heaven! We spent the rest of our time watching those sheep and waiting for a mistake, an opportunity or both while hiking a few peaks in the area and building a better mental map of the ground. The ewes came out morning and evening and fed like clockwork. The rams hid. We watched and enjoyed every minute. Once, for 30 seconds, we saw 3 large rams run nose to tail from one gully to the next about 1000ft above us but that was it. Most sheep hunters would have cursed the gods but with we just took turns watching and cooking and waiting until it was time to go home.
I arrived back at the Grande Prairie airport with two expedition duffles, each packed with 49.5 lbs of stuff. One had a rifle broken down and a ton of smelly hunting clothes and gear. The other one had frozen meat! The Westjet ladies were very helpful filling out the firearms form and the xray girl's eyes almost bugged out when she saw my rifle on the screen! I waved the form and said "How can you not trust this face?" and she just laughed and passed me through- you have to love small town people!
So now I'm back in the land of rain and tiny deer but still dreaming sunny days and sheep in the alpine.........
