Originally posted by diamond10x
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Ugh...... left hanging for a couple hours!Comment
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It's already been said, but this thread is one for the books. Very impressive.Comment
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When I grow up, I want to be diamond10x. Well done, dude.Comment
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I live up here, you guys are really hitting all the marks! Ive done float trips, they are work! Congrats!Comment
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I'm hooked on this. I have got no work done today!Comment
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Great thread!Comment
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Excited the weather seems to have passed, we get up with hope still alive and well, confident of getting another bull. Grab our packs, throw our rations for the day in there, and eat our breakfast on the hike to our spot. About halfway there the wind whips up and the skies begin to dump on us. We scramble to the nearest trees with a bit of canopy to help get out of the rain. We sit under those spruce and birch trees for over an hour waiting for it to let up. By now we’re starting to get cold and both my brother and dad have small leaks in the feet of their waders. They decide to tough it out and we try to stay as long as we can, both of them doing jumping jacks and running in place to get blood flowing and warm up their feet. Finally after 3 hours under those trees it begins to let up to a drizzle. We hurry to get on the trail to get to our spot to start calling. As we approach the meadow that had that wallow in it we can see something black along the edge in the grass, sort of milling around. The wind is good so ease up and watch it for a few minutes realizing it’s a bear. It’s definitely a black bear but we have no idea how big, all we’ve seen is it’s back and glimpses of ears here and there. We watch for about 20 minutes trying to determine its sex and if it is a sow, making sure it doesn’t have cubs. My brother is all excited cause he’s the one with the bear tag, hoping it’s going to be big enough to take, as we’re all wanting to go home with some bear meat, never having eaten it. The wind swirls and the bear stands on its hind legs and is sniffing the air, smelling us. We see it’s a young boar, not worth taking and risking blowing out a moose we know is here. He gets enough scent and decides he should probably leave. And slowly feeds off into the spruce, away from the direction of the lake. I think the only reason he didn’t take off out of there is we smelt more like a moose after handling one for the past couple days.
We head on to the lake, all the while it’s still a light drizzle, more of a heavy mist. By now it’s getting close to lunch time. We make it all of 100 yards to the lake and it starts pouring again, we take cover once more to wait it out. After about 30 min my dad steps out and says he’s going to walk up the nearest hill and look around to see if it looks like it’s gonna pass anytime soon or keep on raining. As luck would have it there’s no end in sight so we head back to camp.
Back at camp we check the meat and tarps and everything is good. Running low on our water so we tie off an end of a tarp so the rain will run down and we can catch it in our water bags. Fill up all the water bags and get back in the tipi to get our stove going to dry our clothes out and warm up. We end up spending the rest of the day in the tipi just trying to stay dry. Boredom is starting to set in. We have only 3 days of the season left, 5 days total to make it to our pick up point, and about 70-75 miles to go.
Day 12
The rain has continued and we don’t even leave camp. Boredom is getting worse, trying to stay positive is difficult. Add meat care on top of it, having to take bags off, spray things down with citric acid battling bacteria not being able to get the meat dry with so much moisture in the air. We take the bags and wash them the best we can in the river then dry them in the tent and put them back on the meat. Rain is still in full force and there doesn’t seem to be an end in site. We get the weather on our inreach before bed and it doesn’t show letting up until the 20th. Great.
Day 13
Wake up and it’s still raining but not as hard as the last 2 days. It’s the 19th, we’re all getting pretty stir crazy and discouraged at this point. We start thinking maybe we should have taken that bear. Hind sight is always 20/20 but you never know at the time and this is Alaska, nothing comes easy.
During the morning up until lunch the rain would stop for about 20-30 min then start up again. I make a decision we have to make something happen, you can’t kill nothing sitting in the tent. I convince my dad let’s go set up and call every time the rain breaks. I’ll take my sheep tarp that we can sit under to stay dry and in between breaks. This time we will set up over this meadow by the wallow instead of going all the way to the lake. He agrees and we get our gear and head out. My brother decides to stay behind and take care of the duties with the meat and watch the river.
We make it to the meadow and decide to use the same set up like we did at the lake, glassing spot 1/3 the way up the hill and rake up near the top so the sound will carry out over the meadow and into the spruce. The wind in our face so that any moose that comes in should take the easiest route and not come from up over the hill on the back side and wind us. Get all set up with the tarp and the rain stops so my dad hustles you to the hill to start a calling sequence. He gets through just in time for it to start raining again. Since it’s raining we’re not following a typical interval of calling. We are just going to do it every time the rain breaks. It’s about 6:45 now and we’re just sort of watching and also trying to stay dry. The rain finally breaks again about 7:30 and for some I decide to go do the calling (looking back this was a bad choice). I’m about half way through the sequence and I can hear footsteps down to my left in this little sort of creek/trail. They’re coming really slow, about one every 30 seconds. No sounds other than foot steps. No sticks breaking. No raking. No grunting. Could it be a big bear? Could it be that bull that has laid claim to this area? I continue my sequence as to seem like I don’t know anything is there hoping it will help coax it to come in.
At this point I can’t see my dad or the tarp to know if he hears this or sees something. I quietly back off and slowly move down so I can see him, where the trail comes out, as well as somewhat the side of this hill in case whatever it is I can see it long before it sees me. If it’s the bull it will be looking for his challenger up on top of the hill. My dad is onto the footsteps and he’s watching in that direction motioning to get ready it’s a bull...
Until this evening when I have more time.
Sorry for the lack of pictures in this one as the weather was just too bad to risk losing a phone camera and hunting points on my phone.
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkComment
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I'll say it again:
Sonofa...Comment
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Thats just mean!!Comment
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I second that! Blood pressure gets up then bam! Nothing!!! I feel like I am there with you! Great frigging write up!Originally posted by Ouch View PostComment
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Riveting.Comment
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wow just read the first 4 pages..epic.Comment
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