For those that read my previous thread about "Our road to success" in getting our first ever deer, here's a short tale of our last trip of the season.
Previous thread.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showth...-Within)-(Long
On Friday my son and I decided to head out on one last trip this season to try for another mule deer in region 2, the same area we got our first one a few weeks ago. This is an area we've scoured for years when we explore or go camping and based on these explorations as well as the connection we made a few weeks ago, this was our destination.
The drive down the FSR we use is looooooong and on friday it was covered in snow once we got to about the 30% mark, the flakes were huge, wet, and stuck to everything. That's life and was expected. What was not expected was the road closure we hit, two huge boulders and a tree had been placed across the road with a sign "Road Closed". Great, we retreated and found a somewhat covered area to hunker down for the night. We had a great sleep, in fact we slept in a bit but not too bad.
Once we packed up and started on our way we had breakfast in the Jeep while we drove back over our tracks from the night before. Actually, for the most part all that snow was now gone. We slowly explored offshoots of the FSR looking for sign. We saw none. He noticed the odometer went past 85k and noted that it's good, I noted I'd rather have it going past 5k. He said it's an achievement. I said it's an achievement if we get to 100k with no major issues.
For lunch we stopped to let my son practice with his .243, he had about 6 rounds of a lesser ammo that we wanted to get through, I then sighted it in at 100 yards with some premium-munitions. My lackluster skills produced just over a 1.5" group, not bad for a cheap rifle (Mossberg Patriot) resting poorly on a log and pillow. I don't think I'd trust my son to shoot past 30 yards when standing though. He's a crack shot with his 22 but it's light as a feather. I was sneaky and put only two bullets in the mag instead of three, then when he shot the "third" time I checked for him to flinch... noticed no flinching. More practice required.
We cleaned up our trash as well as some that others had left then headed on down the road slowly, looking for sign. Nothing.
2:30pm or so and we spot another vehicle, the offshoot we were on made a cross with another offshoot and we passed each other, we both hit dead ends, came back and passed each other again. A few minutes later I was on the main FSR and noticed they had a flat. We stopped to assist, basically just stayed to make sure they were good to go and offered to plug a hole and fill their tire if need be. We ended up chatting with them for about 30 minutes while he changed the tire. They are members of the one of the local native bands and had seen a deer run into the area where we had crossed paths. We discussed our hunts for that year and shared pictures. While parting I mentioned the road closure, sure enough they knew about it... seems a tree blew down and knocked out a bridge, apparently most trucks could still get over the damage and they thought it was still open. Better safe than sorry I guess, so someone closed it. Could have put up a sign at the start of the FSR though.
We move on down another offshoot, it's around 3:30pm now and we're expecting to start seeing some sign. We get to a dead end and have to turn around, we haul a trailer so backing up can be a chore but we've never not been able to. Except this time... normally when I backup I'll switch into 4L, easier on the clutch that way. No dice, transaxle would not change positions. Not good. Jumped out in the rain and looked under the Jeep, could see nothing. Dug out a flashlight and had my son move the shifter, sure enough the linkage was off... the plastic clip broke... $5 part, I just ordered two of them so that i'll have a spare. I was able to finagle it back on and get into 2wd, did not want to try my luck with 4wd when all I needed to get home was 2wd.
We start to back out and it's tight with the trailer and Jeep, we get into such a position that I needed 4wd to continue moving but now the Jeep is in water and I can't get under it to try for 4wd on the transaxle. In hindsight I should have emptied the trailer and moved it by hand before trying to back it out, there's a saying about that right, "Hindsight is 20/20"... yep. Anyway, I get stuck. Drivers side tire bogged down in the water about 3/4 of the way, passenger tire not doing a thing. I could have likely detached the trailer at this point or got some support under the passenger tire for grip. I decided to go the easy way out and use the winch. There happened to be one downed log about 90 feet away, our Warn made short work of that situation.
We decided it was time to go home and skip the next day. Clearly we were being told we did not belong there!
All in all, it was a great experience for my son, he got to see that not every trip goes perfectly and learned how important it is if he wants to 4x4 that he needs to learn all the can to fix them.
I already regret not staying overnight, and I already want to head back out for another trip.
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and when things go side ways slow down and look and think
