Here is the whole story:
Took a friend of many years out hunting on Sun, camped by a lake. Very nice view and tons of moose signs in that area, but I've never been there. On the way into the hunting area, we headed into a nice slash, there was some snow covering the top of the hill already. So we walked intot the slash in rain, didn't see any deer but found a lot fresh signs. I decided to leave it for the futre and moved on.
By noon we set up the camp, we were soaked and wet. It's always a good idea to bring a spare pair of boots and some clothes. So we had our lunch and took a nap around camp fire.
We headed out in the late afternoon to explore this area. Lot of hunting pressure in this good area though. The terrain and bush looked very promising, but there was a truck coming in and out every other minute. So we picked a spot, hiked half way up the hill, sat down watching the whole spot. We were there till dark, saw nothing and heard nothing. I figured that the animals had changed their schedule to avoid us hunters. Oh well....headed back to the camp and cooked some good dinner.
The next morning we walked into another spot. My friend walked into the upperr part of the woods, and I sat in the lower part hoping he would flush something out. Nothing, but we saw lots of deer and moose scat and trails, all fresh. So I decided to drive to another area nearby. By the time we hit the logging road, it was 9 am alreay. That was a steep country, but the road was beautiful.
I've always believed that animals always show up when you don't expect. While we were driving my Ranger and enjoying this nice scenery, my friend yelled "Buck"! I instinctively slammed the brake, and there jumped over a huge monster out of the bush beside the road. It was like a pony, fat and huuuuge! I was able to get a quick look at its antler, 3x4. Oh man, I don't care how many points it has, I just want meat! So I yelled at my friend "Grab your gun and go shoot him!". He jumped out of the truck and grab a gun, followed the buck towards the hill on the other side of road. Then he ran back saying "I grabbed your gun!". Oh, man, oh...I was mad. How could he grabbed the wrong gun? His was a 30-06 and mine was SKS, how the heck could he grab the wrong one?! So I yelled back "Then get your f@#$ing gun!". I was pretty pissed. So by the time he got back to the hillside, the buck was over 100m up there, standing there looking down at us. I thought only goats could handle a hill steep like this, now I know I was wrong.
My friend fired a shot first, stood with no support. No hit. That dumb ass only loaded one bullet! Oh man, oh....I quickly loaded my SKS and started shooting with no support too, bang bang bang. There was no where we could find any support, and we should have sit down and shoot. Bu I kinda doubt if that position was gonna work on that spot. I think I saw the buck crouched, for a couple of sec, and then got back on his feet. That was a good sign of being hit. I quickly loaded another clip. But by the time I release the action, I saw the buck started walking upwards again and quickly disappeared.
I slinged the gun and started grab anything I could to get on the edge of the hill. Even that cost me 30 seconds! Finally we got to the spot where the buck stood, no blood. So no hit? Not necessarily. We followed this buck's fresh track he just left and climbed up slowly. Oh, that was hard....Finally we lost the track and weren't able to make any further up. There was another 50 yards also to the top, but we just couldn't continue on, too damn steep! I looked down, and I felt dizzy. That was no fun to get back down! I sat down and had a smoke. After 20mins, we heard raven singing on the top. I didn't know what it looked like on the top, but it looked quite flat.
Pissed, I decided to keep moving. Then we came to the end of the road which was a huge huge clearcut. I walked around and decided that's gonna be the target the next morning. We started heading back down. As I just drove around a corner, in front of me 2,300 yards away a beautiful fat cinemon bear was running like a meat ball. That was a fat boy, cuz I could see his fat ass moving up down while running. His legs were round, and I could see the muscle on his legs trembling. His fur was shiny. All in all, he was a dream boy I am looking for. But he was running away from us, and no way we were gonna get any closer to him. Too bad.
We went back to the camp and made an early supper. My plan was to head out around 5pm to a clearcut we came across in the morning. By the time we got to the clearcut, it was getting dim. We sat in the middle of the cut till almost dark and concluded that this was gonna be anotherr average day. As we walked back to my truck, I think I saw a piece of white patch jumping a hundred yards away. Oh sure that was a spike! This time I didn't ask my friend to shoot. I've never beena picky man, and neither was I this time. I quickly loaded the clip of bullets into the SKS and aimed at its front shoulder. If it were day time, I would have taken a head shot. But now I just wanted this buck down. I fired the first shot, no reaction. I didn't care and sent the second bullet quickly after. I think I saw the buck hump slightly and started walking quickly to the bush beside him. I sent the third bullet to him, missed.
I turned to ask my friend, did we hit him? Cant tell, he said. So we walked over to the spot. With flashlight I was fast enough to spot the blood, it was a lot with bits and pieces of bones and tissues, and drops went into the bush. My friend followed the trail for 10 feet and found the little boy lying right under his feet.
No pix on the spot as I left the DC at the camp while we headed out. Since there was water nearby, I decided to field dress the buck right on spot. Afterr I cleared guts out, I was quite pissed at what I saw in his chest. The damage done by 123 gr sp was massive. So I only popped four legs out and left the rest for the bears. Those lucky bastards.