Well, I am back in Whitehorse again and tomorrow will head back to central BC for elk and mule deer. These have been two very interesting days to say the least. And my body is somewhat the worse for wear too.
Yesterday we went out, two of us on one ATV that is built for one rider, a long ways back into the mountains around Keno. The ATV was unhappy, as was my bad back, being jolted around for about an hour of pretty rough tracks and trails. For the final assault on the summit, Phil kindly volunteered to walk while I took the bike up the very steep slope. He said he could walk up in about fifteen minutes – fat chance! It took me that long to coax the bike up. Three quarters of an hour later, Phil met me at the summit, overlooking a high alpine meadow where we had seen moose previously, and where Phil and another buddy had played hide and seek with a small bull before my arrival. Things were pretty quiet, but after a while I spotted two, and then three moose – a small bull, a cow and a calf. But they were about a mile away..........and the bull was not apparently interested in a cow in heat bawl. The wind was in our favour, pretty well straight from them to us, so we put a stalk on the bull. Crouched over, carrying our rifles but no packs (I KNOW BETTER!!!!!), we covered about a thousand yards or more of pretty broken country, pausing from time to time to see if the bull was still there. Now in my pack I carry things like water, a compass, a GPS, a whistle, you know – the usual stuff a hunter wants to have handy. But my pack was on the ATV, at the top of the mountain.
Eventually we reached a spot where there was no real cover in front of us that could conceal our approach. We were still a solid 400 yards, probably more (my laser range finder was, you guessed it, in my pack). Phil offered me the use of his monopod shooting stick to take the shot if one offered itself. I could not get a steady rest with it – whether this was due to exhaustion, dehydration, excitement, or infirmity I know not – and I refused to consider taking a shot, telling Phil he could try one if he thought he could make it. The bull then gave us a very good glimpse of his rack, which was pretty small, but definitely confirmed that he was the bull and not the cow or calf. I was watching through my binoculars, and just finished saying to Phil that it was a damned long shot, when a .300 Weatherby Magnum went off in my ear, causing me some disorientation, blurred vision, concussion and deafness even more than my usual. Phil apologized for shooting about a foot from my ear, and said he thought he had hit the bull. When I re-focussed my eyes and put the binos back on the spot we had been watching, I saw the bull with his head up, running around in circles, and through my nerve-damaged ears also heard him bawling like a lost calf. I then lost sight of him.
I suggested that I stay in place, with my eye on where we had last seen the bull, while Phil went forward to check it out. He said he thought he could get the ATV down to where I was, and off he went back up the mountain to retrieve the bike. Did I mention that my water, range finder, GPs, whistle etc were in my pack on the ATV? Quite some long time later I heard Phil yelling at me. He was on the opposite side of the valley, on the side of the next mountain, probably six or seven hundred yards above the spot we last saw the bull. He wanted me to come to him – which of course meant that I would lose the eyeball on the aforementioned spot. Conversation was essentially impossible, us being the better part of a thousand yards from each other. So I picked up my rifle, Phil’s rifle, his shooting stick and hunting coat, and struck out across some truly nasty terrain, eventually joining him at the ATV. My throat was dryer than a popcorn fart, and I inhaled half a bottle of water when I finally got to my pack again.
Phil announced that he had good news and bad news. The good was he figured he could get the ATV down this very rough track all the way to the moose. The bad was I would have to walk. So off we went, he atop his bike and me on shank’s mare. He had not made much progress when the terrain forced him to abandon the bike as well. By now we were in hellish country, moss-covered rocks with deep holes that would snap a leg in half instantly if a fellow stepped in one, with tag alders and thorn scrubs, all on a fairly precipitous downhill slope. We finally made it down to the spot where we thought the bull should have been. No blood, no bull, lots of fresh tracks, and after a couple hours of fruitless searching we decided that he must have missed after all. I think the bull was probably bawling for his mother, as in “Where the heck did you go, Ma? There’s some crazies shootin’ at me.”
At this point we were near the bottom of the valley on the wrong side from the mountain where the trail led back to civilization. Beyond this mountain there is literally nothing but wilderness. So of course we needed to re-trace our steps to the ATV and then back to where we had started. I got on to a very good moose trail and was soon about a hundred yards above Phil, who was having trouble finding the ATV. Fortunately I could see it, and was able to direct Phil to the bike. I asked him if he wanted to follow me up the trail, since I was on his downhill track. He assured me that he would be able to back-track, so off I went again up the mountain. I was probably three hundred yards above him when I heard him yelling for help. Wearily, I turned around and gave up that hard-earned altitude, only to find Phil with the ATV on its side on quite a considerable slope, nowhere near the track. I have a bad back, and righting an ATV, uphill, is not something that I would normally contemplate, let alone attempt. With some help from the winch, but ferocious effort from the two of us, we finally righted the machine. After that I had Phil follow me, as I kept on the trail and he navigated the ATV through the rougher bits. This became something of a death march, and eventually I collapsed. Regardless of any other consideration, I had to get on to that ATV with Phil, and brave the brutal beating on my battered body to get back onto the trail. Many hours had elapsed since Phil scared me out of my wits with his .300 Weatherby.
It was not a big bull – in fact we had seen it a total of three times, and my name for it was Tinkerbull – but it would have been fine table fare if ever we could have got the meat out of that hell-hole if it had been shot. It is a heck of a thing to admit, but I am GLAD that Phil missed that moose. Otherwise we would still be on that mountain – Phil carrying out moose meat and me in a shallow grave.
That was the end of my moose hunt, and next time I write up one of these posts I will describe the harrowing journey back to Whitehorse.
Doug
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