Northman999
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Southern Yukon
So, after a couple of years of my father bringing me over some cuts of Bison from his winter hunt, I got a couple of days off to accompany him and his partner for the early portion of their hunt. The plan was for me to go for the weekend and they stay the rest of the week. We were going three trucks; my dad with his truck/trailer/snowmobile/skimmer, his buddy with his truck/trailer/snowmobile/skimmer and an extra snowmobile for me and me and my truck.
Here is a summary of my first Bison hunting experience.
- Prior to hunt; hit the range and confirm zero's. Go over all equipment and make sure it is in good shape. Cut 3/4 cord of stove wood for wood stove and load, along with other gear. Purchase new shooting monopod because all the guides use them with their clients in hunting videos.
-Night before the hunt; get a call from my dad that he did major damage to his trailer on an icy road and he will need to rebuild the whole undercarriage, including axle and frame. One day delay as he and his buddy haul the trailer to the garage, buy parts, rip the old parts off, and weld/bolt on whole new undercarriage/axle/hubs etc..
-Call the boss at home and ask for two days off with short notice as hunt delayed and it takes a full day just to get in to the area. Two days off granted. They're the last two days of leave that I have; two days of long service leave (I get five days every 5th year at work). I've been saving them for a special occaision; but it's worth it since this is my first bison hunt and I'm going with my dad.
-New hunt start day (Sunday march 12th). Up at 05:00 (new time, due to Daylight Savings - lost one hour of sleep
) Agreed that my dad would come over for toast and coffee at 05:30 to head out with me on hunt together for 6:00. He doesn't show up and I call him and he's in bed. Dad tells me 06:00 departure was "old time, actually 6:00" and now because of time change we're all heading "out at the new 07:00, which is really 06:00 because of the time change". Tell dad the clock either reads 06:00 or 07:00 and there's no such thing as new or old. Remind him that a kindergarten kid can tell the difference between the number 6 and 7 and hang up. Spend an hour waiting drinking too much coffee.
-Dad arrives and we head out. Ten miles down the road I remember I forgot my helmet and head back and get it.
-Drive down highway for two hours to pull off to hunting area. Saw a huge cow moose and big calf in ditch, along with a group of 8-10 bedded down elk.
-10 minutes down side road; stop to pull dad's truck out of the ditch. Apparently driving down windy narrow road in winter and scanning the hills for bison not really compatible. Smash the wife's brand new step-up accessory on ball hitch while pulling dad out.
-45 minutes later; stop to pull other guy out of the ditch. He came across a truck with four fellows from Newfoundland in it heading the opposite direction right in the middle of the road and they didn't move over at all and he had to hit the ditch to not get into a front end collision. During 40 minutes of pulling him out his heavy bush bumper is half ripped off his truck as he connected the pull chain to it and it the bumper couldn't handle it. Also, the heavy electrical wire to his 15,000 lb winch is ripped out of the winch as the bumper is pulled away from the truck. Once the truck is out the group finds the road is super narrow as partner's trailer scrapes all the way down the side of the Newfoundlander's truck, pulling out a nice coil of body metal. As snowmobile trailers are wider than trucks, the two trailers cannot pass each other and we need to unhook them and move the loaded trailers by hand past each other with lots of zig-zagging, banging and scraping and chipping of paint and metal. Surprisingly, the Newfoundlander don't seem to mind the damage to truck or trailer, and after the incident we're almost long-time buddies. We reconnect trailers and wish each other good luck and it's all smiles.
-Another hour; I'm in the lead now as I've leap frogged from the back to the front, having been the designated puller outer of trucks. I get to where I think we're going and wait. Dad's truck comes up and he's pissed and tells me I'm eight miles to far. I tell him maybe somebody should have told me where to stop, or maybe not put the new guy in the lead. I notice my dad's snowmobile and much of his gear has busted through the front of his trailer and is hanging between the trailer and truck. Snowmobile hood is significantly damaged. The spare tire was also tied to the outside front of the trailer and one half of that front swings outwards and the spare smashes the rear light assembly on the truck as my dad starts to turn his rig around. I tell my dad this and he checks out the damage and is absolutely pissed (he's usually quite easy going). He loves his snow machine and has it tuned and customized just the way he likes it and now the hood is basically garbage.
-Get to camp area; pull out my snowmobile bibs and find a 6"x6" hole melted right through the right leg. They had fallen off the passenger seat onto my dad's spare truck battery on the floor and battery acid has eaten the hell out of them. Put on nasty, acid-ridden bibs as that's all I've got.
-Three hours later. Camp is set up and we're all tired from working in 3 ft deep snow, and the day is already starting to feel a bit long. Decide we can still get in a few hours of hunting today and head out on snow machines. My loaner is an old Indy that runs great but has only about 3" suspension on it once I get on it. The other two guys have much newer, much more comfortable machines. After three hours of driving around looking for Bison, we've seen tons of sign, but no animals. I have heard that the are getting very wary of snowmobile noise and often take off from 2-3 km away when they hear machines. Being the new guy, I'm not sure how we are supposed to find them if this is the case. I'm absolutely aching from my machine bottoming out on very bumpy snowmobile trails. I've also had to help pull my dad out from his tipped over machine three times as the trails are really narrow and windy, and if you get one ski off the trail on a corner it sinks in 3 feet and your machine tips over, and his Bearcat 660 4-stroke doesn't turn worth crap. Back at camp I notice my new shooting monopod is gone from where I had velcro'ed it in - apparently a victim of the relentless banging on the trails.
-That night; I've not had a good time at all and I'm seriously tired and my back is hurting from the no-suspension snowmobile and honestly my testicles are hurting from bouncing on the seat of the snowmachine. Brooding a little about the smashed step-up on truck, the acid-eaten bibs and the shooting monopod I never got to use at all. Can't complain to the other guys as they've got more damaged things than I do however. Looking forward to a good night's sleep, but don't get it. I haven't used my -30 sleeping bag since I was a teenager and I find out too late it's too small. With my feet jammed in the bottom it's about 6" too short and I can't zip it up all the way because now I'm 225 lbs and not 150 lbs, and my shoulders are just too wide. Somehow throughout the night (as it gets colder) I manage to get all the way in the bag and zip it, but wake up in significant pain as I'm all cramped and too tightly wrapped and my muscles are refusing to accept this. Unzip bag and carry on with a chill down my side for the rest of the night.
-Day two; wake up tired and aching. Tell the guys I'm hunting with them all day, but going home tonight as I need real sleep at night and I'm not really having fun. Have breakfast and we want to head out for a "real day" of hunting. The plan is to snowmobile about 30-35 miles in to where the guys got their animal last year. Patch up bibs with a facecloth (for insulation) and duct tape. Head out.
-Two hours into it, and two more tip-overs in corners where we need to pull my dad out from under his damn machine (Today, when the machine tips over, we have to open up the machine to see if oil is leaking down a hose from one part of the machine to another, which apparently can break then engine and apparently we should have been checking yesterday. I don't know the details and don't care to.) and we get to the top of the mountain range we're on and we can see for a couple of miles around us. Bad news is there's no more bison sign - haven't seen any since the lowland valleys. My dad's buddy informs us his snowmachine is not running well at all and he barely has power to get along. We put anti-freeze in the gas tank, but think that's not the problem as it's pouring out blue smoke and we think the injection system is giving it too much oil. Keep on going.
-Take a pic of my dad on the peak of a mountain...
-An hour of searching above treeline bowls and valleys and my dad pulls up beside me to glass a valley and his snowmobile is missing it's skimmer. Send him looking for his skimmer and half an hour later it is found with the hitch connector smashed right off. Put this skimmer in the other skimmer. Decide to head back to camp to do repairs as the one snow machine may die any time and we're 25 miles from anywhere, and also down one skimmer.
-Half an hour later, I'm in the back and I find the working skimmer with the other skimmer inside it laying on the trail. The hitch is bent 90 degrees and not usable. Drive like hell and catch up to the others who come back. Tie skimmer to rear of snowmobile with bailing wire and rope and keep going to camp.
-Fifteen minutes later, find skimmers on trail ahead of me again. Wait for other guys to come back as trail is too heavily wooded and narrow to pass. Re-tie the skimmer with heavy tow cables and am told by the other two guys that enough is enough, they've never seen anything like this, we're all heading home.
-Two hours later, make it to camp uneventfully.
-Three hours later have everything loaded back up, including three skimmers full of wood we brought to the tent and did not want to leave behind. While loading the last snowmobile, we had to use a winch as the tilt-trailer was too steep for the snowmobile to get up. While doing this the winch wires catch fire and sparks fly from the winch and the connection appears now to be arc-welded to the outside of the winch, instead of bolted on. Use a mechanical-come-along to finish the job and hope the winch is okay.
-On the drive back out the other guys are way more cautious and nobody hits the ditch. We do run into another group on the road loading up and have a 20 minute wait for them as they're blocking the whole road.
-Get home about three hours after that.
-The next day find that the scope on my rifle seems to have slid clockwise a little, most likely from all the banging in the rifle case on the snowmachine. Kind of surprised since it's a .375 RUM set up with steel rings that can handle RUM recoil, but apparently not the suspension on my snowmobile. My dad calls to tell me he's lost a scope cap from his scope on the trip too, same probable cause.
-Total damaged or lost items: one snowmachine needing mechanical work for oil injection problems, one snowmobile needing a whole new hood assembly and touch up paint on bumpers, two skimmers needing new hitch assemblies, one snowmobile trailer needing a new front (decision made to pull new undercarriage off snowmobile trailer and build a whole new trailer around that), one step-up hitch destroyed, one pair of bibs destroyed, one shooting mono-pod gone, one winch in questionable condition, one scope needed re-adjusting, one scope needing new scope cap, rear light assembly on Dad's truck destroyed, buddy's bush bumper needing fixing and re-attachment and new wiring for 15,000 lb winch needing to be installed, cosmetic damage to friendly Newfoundlander's truck and trailer, lower back and testicles in questionable condition.
-No bison were harmed in the making of this story.
Here is a summary of my first Bison hunting experience.
- Prior to hunt; hit the range and confirm zero's. Go over all equipment and make sure it is in good shape. Cut 3/4 cord of stove wood for wood stove and load, along with other gear. Purchase new shooting monopod because all the guides use them with their clients in hunting videos.
-Night before the hunt; get a call from my dad that he did major damage to his trailer on an icy road and he will need to rebuild the whole undercarriage, including axle and frame. One day delay as he and his buddy haul the trailer to the garage, buy parts, rip the old parts off, and weld/bolt on whole new undercarriage/axle/hubs etc..
-Call the boss at home and ask for two days off with short notice as hunt delayed and it takes a full day just to get in to the area. Two days off granted. They're the last two days of leave that I have; two days of long service leave (I get five days every 5th year at work). I've been saving them for a special occaision; but it's worth it since this is my first bison hunt and I'm going with my dad.
-New hunt start day (Sunday march 12th). Up at 05:00 (new time, due to Daylight Savings - lost one hour of sleep
) Agreed that my dad would come over for toast and coffee at 05:30 to head out with me on hunt together for 6:00. He doesn't show up and I call him and he's in bed. Dad tells me 06:00 departure was "old time, actually 6:00" and now because of time change we're all heading "out at the new 07:00, which is really 06:00 because of the time change". Tell dad the clock either reads 06:00 or 07:00 and there's no such thing as new or old. Remind him that a kindergarten kid can tell the difference between the number 6 and 7 and hang up. Spend an hour waiting drinking too much coffee.-Dad arrives and we head out. Ten miles down the road I remember I forgot my helmet and head back and get it.
-Drive down highway for two hours to pull off to hunting area. Saw a huge cow moose and big calf in ditch, along with a group of 8-10 bedded down elk.
-10 minutes down side road; stop to pull dad's truck out of the ditch. Apparently driving down windy narrow road in winter and scanning the hills for bison not really compatible. Smash the wife's brand new step-up accessory on ball hitch while pulling dad out.
-45 minutes later; stop to pull other guy out of the ditch. He came across a truck with four fellows from Newfoundland in it heading the opposite direction right in the middle of the road and they didn't move over at all and he had to hit the ditch to not get into a front end collision. During 40 minutes of pulling him out his heavy bush bumper is half ripped off his truck as he connected the pull chain to it and it the bumper couldn't handle it. Also, the heavy electrical wire to his 15,000 lb winch is ripped out of the winch as the bumper is pulled away from the truck. Once the truck is out the group finds the road is super narrow as partner's trailer scrapes all the way down the side of the Newfoundlander's truck, pulling out a nice coil of body metal. As snowmobile trailers are wider than trucks, the two trailers cannot pass each other and we need to unhook them and move the loaded trailers by hand past each other with lots of zig-zagging, banging and scraping and chipping of paint and metal. Surprisingly, the Newfoundlander don't seem to mind the damage to truck or trailer, and after the incident we're almost long-time buddies. We reconnect trailers and wish each other good luck and it's all smiles.
-Another hour; I'm in the lead now as I've leap frogged from the back to the front, having been the designated puller outer of trucks. I get to where I think we're going and wait. Dad's truck comes up and he's pissed and tells me I'm eight miles to far. I tell him maybe somebody should have told me where to stop, or maybe not put the new guy in the lead. I notice my dad's snowmobile and much of his gear has busted through the front of his trailer and is hanging between the trailer and truck. Snowmobile hood is significantly damaged. The spare tire was also tied to the outside front of the trailer and one half of that front swings outwards and the spare smashes the rear light assembly on the truck as my dad starts to turn his rig around. I tell my dad this and he checks out the damage and is absolutely pissed (he's usually quite easy going). He loves his snow machine and has it tuned and customized just the way he likes it and now the hood is basically garbage.
-Get to camp area; pull out my snowmobile bibs and find a 6"x6" hole melted right through the right leg. They had fallen off the passenger seat onto my dad's spare truck battery on the floor and battery acid has eaten the hell out of them. Put on nasty, acid-ridden bibs as that's all I've got.
-Three hours later. Camp is set up and we're all tired from working in 3 ft deep snow, and the day is already starting to feel a bit long. Decide we can still get in a few hours of hunting today and head out on snow machines. My loaner is an old Indy that runs great but has only about 3" suspension on it once I get on it. The other two guys have much newer, much more comfortable machines. After three hours of driving around looking for Bison, we've seen tons of sign, but no animals. I have heard that the are getting very wary of snowmobile noise and often take off from 2-3 km away when they hear machines. Being the new guy, I'm not sure how we are supposed to find them if this is the case. I'm absolutely aching from my machine bottoming out on very bumpy snowmobile trails. I've also had to help pull my dad out from his tipped over machine three times as the trails are really narrow and windy, and if you get one ski off the trail on a corner it sinks in 3 feet and your machine tips over, and his Bearcat 660 4-stroke doesn't turn worth crap. Back at camp I notice my new shooting monopod is gone from where I had velcro'ed it in - apparently a victim of the relentless banging on the trails.
-That night; I've not had a good time at all and I'm seriously tired and my back is hurting from the no-suspension snowmobile and honestly my testicles are hurting from bouncing on the seat of the snowmachine. Brooding a little about the smashed step-up on truck, the acid-eaten bibs and the shooting monopod I never got to use at all. Can't complain to the other guys as they've got more damaged things than I do however. Looking forward to a good night's sleep, but don't get it. I haven't used my -30 sleeping bag since I was a teenager and I find out too late it's too small. With my feet jammed in the bottom it's about 6" too short and I can't zip it up all the way because now I'm 225 lbs and not 150 lbs, and my shoulders are just too wide. Somehow throughout the night (as it gets colder) I manage to get all the way in the bag and zip it, but wake up in significant pain as I'm all cramped and too tightly wrapped and my muscles are refusing to accept this. Unzip bag and carry on with a chill down my side for the rest of the night.
-Day two; wake up tired and aching. Tell the guys I'm hunting with them all day, but going home tonight as I need real sleep at night and I'm not really having fun. Have breakfast and we want to head out for a "real day" of hunting. The plan is to snowmobile about 30-35 miles in to where the guys got their animal last year. Patch up bibs with a facecloth (for insulation) and duct tape. Head out.
-Two hours into it, and two more tip-overs in corners where we need to pull my dad out from under his damn machine (Today, when the machine tips over, we have to open up the machine to see if oil is leaking down a hose from one part of the machine to another, which apparently can break then engine and apparently we should have been checking yesterday. I don't know the details and don't care to.) and we get to the top of the mountain range we're on and we can see for a couple of miles around us. Bad news is there's no more bison sign - haven't seen any since the lowland valleys. My dad's buddy informs us his snowmachine is not running well at all and he barely has power to get along. We put anti-freeze in the gas tank, but think that's not the problem as it's pouring out blue smoke and we think the injection system is giving it too much oil. Keep on going.
-Take a pic of my dad on the peak of a mountain...
-An hour of searching above treeline bowls and valleys and my dad pulls up beside me to glass a valley and his snowmobile is missing it's skimmer. Send him looking for his skimmer and half an hour later it is found with the hitch connector smashed right off. Put this skimmer in the other skimmer. Decide to head back to camp to do repairs as the one snow machine may die any time and we're 25 miles from anywhere, and also down one skimmer.
-Half an hour later, I'm in the back and I find the working skimmer with the other skimmer inside it laying on the trail. The hitch is bent 90 degrees and not usable. Drive like hell and catch up to the others who come back. Tie skimmer to rear of snowmobile with bailing wire and rope and keep going to camp.
-Fifteen minutes later, find skimmers on trail ahead of me again. Wait for other guys to come back as trail is too heavily wooded and narrow to pass. Re-tie the skimmer with heavy tow cables and am told by the other two guys that enough is enough, they've never seen anything like this, we're all heading home.
-Two hours later, make it to camp uneventfully.
-Three hours later have everything loaded back up, including three skimmers full of wood we brought to the tent and did not want to leave behind. While loading the last snowmobile, we had to use a winch as the tilt-trailer was too steep for the snowmobile to get up. While doing this the winch wires catch fire and sparks fly from the winch and the connection appears now to be arc-welded to the outside of the winch, instead of bolted on. Use a mechanical-come-along to finish the job and hope the winch is okay.
-On the drive back out the other guys are way more cautious and nobody hits the ditch. We do run into another group on the road loading up and have a 20 minute wait for them as they're blocking the whole road.
-Get home about three hours after that.
-The next day find that the scope on my rifle seems to have slid clockwise a little, most likely from all the banging in the rifle case on the snowmachine. Kind of surprised since it's a .375 RUM set up with steel rings that can handle RUM recoil, but apparently not the suspension on my snowmobile. My dad calls to tell me he's lost a scope cap from his scope on the trip too, same probable cause.
-Total damaged or lost items: one snowmachine needing mechanical work for oil injection problems, one snowmobile needing a whole new hood assembly and touch up paint on bumpers, two skimmers needing new hitch assemblies, one snowmobile trailer needing a new front (decision made to pull new undercarriage off snowmobile trailer and build a whole new trailer around that), one step-up hitch destroyed, one pair of bibs destroyed, one shooting mono-pod gone, one winch in questionable condition, one scope needed re-adjusting, one scope needing new scope cap, rear light assembly on Dad's truck destroyed, buddy's bush bumper needing fixing and re-attachment and new wiring for 15,000 lb winch needing to be installed, cosmetic damage to friendly Newfoundlander's truck and trailer, lower back and testicles in questionable condition.
-No bison were harmed in the making of this story.
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