Bump your favourite hunting stories

[CheesyLimper]

Like the title says bump a good story, yours or someone else's. A lot of us may be stuck at home and are sick of reading about coronavirus.
Stay safe out there
Patrick

[wideopenthrottle]

immy down:


Went to a similar area as last year but this time we did not stay in a wall tent in the bush, we stayed at buddy's dad's house/cabin....it sure makes for less stuff when you don't need to pack "home base". only a handful of bull moose tags are issued as LEH in this area but there is a GOS for immys


Last year, we had 2 snow falls with a nearly full melt in between but this year was clear and cool but not unpleasant.


This was a combination hunt where we worked together to push some bush as a team as well as occasionally separating to road hunt (quads) or walk alone. my overall strategy was to putt putt to the end of the road branches park and walk 1-4km depending on available terrain, type of bush, wind direction, nearest high spot.


Every day we were out we had spotted moose but none were shooters. This fellow was the 3rd moose I saw and the only legal one seen by the group. Previously, I had driven up on a small cow? but it was too dark to confirm either sex as I was quading my way back to camp. I also was able to sneak up on a pretty big cow a couple days later and I had her in the bino's for at least 2 or 3 minutes trying to maker her grow antlers...she had her butt towards me and I was pretty sure it was a cow but I decided to let out a soft bull grunt to see what it did...she instantly started to pee (which confirmed it was a cow obviously because of where it came from. she then went a few steps and let out a growl like sound before trotting off to the thick stuff....at that point I was ready to say even if I don't get one this trip I got all the hunting I needed just no kill.


I did get blood on my hands later that day when I came across 5 spruce hens and pulled my bag of marbles and my wrist rocket out of my pack. took 4 shots to get one as well as a little chase of the wounded chicken before a caught and killed him....


I also saw something cool waddling down a road when I had stopped to talk to another hunter (girl on a quad)…. I was letting her know where I was gonna park and walk in the timber as a heads up because the area had lots of hunters.....while talking to her, I looked and spotted a porcupine about 75 feet away and so we concluded our talk and she hurried over to it to get a pic and I thought I might as well...that is when I realized I had not brought my phone that day..... IF YOU ARE ON THIS SITE I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOUR PICS OF THE PORCUPINE!!!


We were 4 hunters for the first 2 days then just 3 for the last 3 (which became 4 days). On our last scheduled day to hunt, we were planning to do a morning hunt then back to the cabin at lunch to pack and head home.


The time change (and us tired hunters) did manage to screw us up from getting out before first light the previous morning so we vowed to be in position before light and make the last day count.


We drove quads in the darkness up to our spot (different location than the previous days) and fanned out with the intent of meeting at noon before heading back down.


I drove to a spot with good sight lines and parked just off the trail walking up to a high spot. after about 20 minutes I am getting the urge to walk when I hear crashing above me...it went past me without presenting a shot but stopped as soon as it crossed the trail to the other side. it then started to parallel the trail going back from the direction I came in. I was quickly trying to catch up to it while staying low and it was not aware of me but moving too fast for me to catch so I ran back to the quad and was able to get within 200 yards with him going through the last open patch before the timber..i drive with my mag in hand and was able to jump off the quad slap in my clip and use some slash as a rest. he was still moving away so I let out a grunt that stopped him long enough for a shot.


CSI: nosler partition, 30-06 Remington 783 as my win m70 needs repairs, 180 grain factory bullet 7:30 am....




as they say, the work starts after the animal is down, so ill try to add some details about the work part

[CheesyLimper]

Right on, keep them coming.

[wideopenthrottle]

This was the first of 2 moose we got near Smithers a few years back.

I was with another fellow and we got out of the bush just as it was getting to last shooting light...we came out early so we could do a quick look at a new area we were thinking of after 3 days with no moose in the areas we were in at first.

We drove on the main road and passed a turnoff that looked good but we decided to go a bit further down the main road to explore. We only drove about 1km past the turnoff when I spotted 2...no, 4....no, 6 bulls on both sides of the road ahead.......We stopped about 400 yards from them and buddy is convinced his scope is all dialed in for that range...I say go ahead, I'll spot for ya....He shot and I saw the dust stir up on the road well short of the moose he was shooting at (he only saw 2 of them before shooting at one of them). 1 was a huge mature bull and 2 were about the size of the one in the pic....2 had small racks and one was a spike fork bull.

They all took off, after the shot, up a creek/swampy area that they were standing around and we went to where they were standing.....we made a plan to come back later.

The next day we hunted that area and I did not notice any moose sign until almost dark when I heard a cow start making the most unreal plea for a mate (no wonder the 6 bulls were sniffing around the creek that exited the swamp where she was bawling)...and I mean she sounded like someone trying to do a cow call (poorly) and in a non-stop desperate series of wails as well as running and splashing around....

I slowly worked my way across the cutblock to the tree line (swamp behind it) where she was calling from...as I got close to where she was calling, I let some soft bull grunts out...I got 2 replies from the tree line but on opposite sides of me and the adrenaline started pumping....I am not a great caller (I am ok I think) but the bulls would not leave the trees to present a shot and darkness finally prevailed.

It was an interesting traverse out in the complete darkness. I was in intermittent radio contact with the buddy down in the truck but I was about 3km away and I had cut through about 1km of thick stuff to get to the cutblocks that were road accessible but from a different direction than I needed to go...I found the road out of the cutblock and started to walk it out but when I pulled out the compass I was going in exactly the wrong direction from the truck....at this point I had no idea how far it was around by road back to the truck and I was already 1 more km in the wrong direction and had not hit the other main road yet.

After a few loud swears I got up high enough to call buddy on the radio and tell him I was giving up on finding the long way out on the road and was going to dial in the compass and head straight back to the truck....I told him to sit tight for about an hour and a half and I would see him at the truck...it was pitch black by this time but I like the peace of the woods at night and am never nervous at night ....the middle part of my return trip was also down in a depression so no radio until I was about 1km from the truck. I made it back on time and emerged right at eh small skid trail straight in line with the truck...I was pleased but tired by this time....


With 2 tags between us, we made a plan to return with the whole group (all 4)......The next morning we were all pretty excited about the prospect of having a cow call the bulls in for us and we were joking around as we finished our coffees and waited for enough light to proceed....Same buddy as the night before, says "hey, you shoot 30-06 right?" I said "ya" and he said "I have had this one 30-06 shell with the silver tip in the center console for a long time, do you want it?".....I said jokingly "Only if it is a magic silver bullet".....He replied "well you never know" and we laughed before I said "Ok, I'll load it in the mag last so it will be first up".

We all slowly went up the skid trail with a plan to split up before working our way to where the cow had been in the swamp....

As we got to the end of the skid trail, it split to 2 different cut blocks, one on the left and one straight ahead.....Behind the block straight ahead was the depression of thick stuff for about 1km so we were just on the verge of splitting up to head across to the cutblocks by the swamp with the cow.

I was leading and stopped to let everyone catch up so we could discuss final plans when I heard a bull grunt......I looked straight ahead on the skid trail and there standing broadside is a decent bull.....I dropped to one knee as I said "moose" and put the magic silver bullet right in the boiler room.......he did not even flinch and i will always keep shooting until it is down.....2nd shot was to the neck (one of other buddies also shot at the same time as me)..... he went down but was still thrashing about so I walked up and put one in his skull....we got this fellow at about 100-150 ft away......

When we gutted him out we saw the bullet results...... The magic silver bullet had hit at lung high but hit a big rib bone dead center....the rib bone snapped and somehow managed to deflect ALL the shrapnel down into the ribcage...Definitely would not have killed the moose any time soon....

The two in the neck/hump/spine area were only a couple of inches apart and the bloodshock from buddies 325 WSM was huge compared to my little ole '06 which had almost none....

We left a camera on the gut pile over night but that is a different story...heheheheh

[wideopenthrottle]

so........ This was the third time I have been on a "fancy hunt"....this is the third time I have been successful as well... :Yee Ha:This time would be my first time "fancy hunting" during buck only season so I had slightly lower expectations..... My lovely wife enjoys the outdoors but does not get enjoyment from challenging conditions.....Several years ago she proposed we combine a holiday weekend (with a bit of hunting included for me) rather than us camping in the bush....Awesome, I get the brownie points for a doing a "weekend away" as well as a small amount of hunting (but during the best times of the day and not "hunting alone" quite so much that she would worry)...WIN-WIN but not really a "hunting trip"...... I will try to find my story from the trip 2 years ago (exact same spot) and link it into this one....bigshotsbc.ca/threads/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot.14462/#post-250501 (POST #33 IN THAT THREAD) The trip was planned and we were to stay at Casa del oro or something like that but my wife's senses returned and she decided the accommodations were a little too expensive.....THANK GOODNESS!!!! We decided to make it 2 nights instead of 3 and we stayed at a much more modest hotel ( Coast Osoyoos beach hotel)....it was a bit disappointing in that it is more like a motel than hotel and the hot tub was not working but there was a pool for my 9 year old daughter... The plan was to now leave Friday mid day after the School assembly that my daughter didn't want to miss as she was participating in a song and dance.... We left at noon so the Friday evening hunt was still doable but it meant I basically had to boot them out at the hotel and head towards the "HONEYHOLE" past Rock Creek at top speed..... I arrived at my spot with just enough time to get into position before dark..... I wanted to catch a buck heading back to the farms but my spot was better for catching them leaving the farms in the morning so I went up higher where I hoped to catch a buck as he would come down from the higher areas adjacent to the bench area adjacent to the farm fields.... -In my experience with WT, I look for a pinch point where deer are likely to funnel up from the farm fields into a less steep area/bench area for does and also look for some higher/nasty spots next to the bench where the bucks can get a bit more away from activity..... I set up in a spot where I had rattled in a buck in the past and got comfortable...I tried a few calls and rattles but mostly was just enjoying decompressing from all the driving......Cool thing was an owl flying right over my head by 1 foot when I stopped as I was quietly walked in and spotted him in a tree... I heard some very quiet prancing go by but nothing came in to me and I walked the 150 yards back to the road and then down the road to the truck as darkness set in..... My "HONEY HOLE" was a couple of KM back towards town from where I was parked and there is a branch road less than 1 km from my spot where peeps often camp so I figured I would see if anyone was there and let them know my plans for before first light the next morn being as close as I was to them....they thanked me for letting them know where I would be but did not mention where they were going so I figured they were going to be elsewhere and headed back to the hotel in Osoyoos... Sat morning I drove back to my spot seeing a fair number of animals hanging out near the road (also in headlights as it was still very dark)....I am 90% sure I saw a Elk cow in my headlights as I rounded a corner near Midway.....also saw a skunk trundling along the roadside and several mule deer does milling about in the ditches.....I saw one big Mule doe lying in the little flat area next to the statue of the Mule Buck that is up at the Osoyoos mountain subdivision being built up there.... (primo mule deer habitat from what I can see but I digress)....if I wasn't in a hurry to get hunting I may have tried to get a pic of that doe lying near the buck statue!!!!....oh well....also saw several WT does along the way as I got closer to rock creek and my spot..... As I arrived at my spot I could feel the tingles of anticipation but they were tempered by the fact that I had only ever seen 1 other buck from my spot in the past.....I have watched the lights get turned on in the morning there in the neighborhood of 12 -15 times ....he was my first WT buck and his rack is hanging in my garage with a wood screw holding it together :Really Mad: ( I think I may have told that story before as well so I will try to find a link to it later....) My spot is only a couple hundred feet off the road but it seems to always have some activity as day breaks ....3 times I have seen/heard deer from there as it was getting lighter and 3 times cattle have got the heart racing just before light...heheheheh.....I have taken 5 deer from within 200yds of this spot over the last 20 years.... Once it is light enough, ("light enough" to me, means I am able to see further than the noise i make would be heard by a deer, so snow/ice/wind/crunchy conditions all have a bearing)....I generally will get up from my spot and go for about a 3km loop/walk into some nice areas for them to spend the day bedded down....the direction I walk the loop depends on wind direction with part of the loop/trail heading side hill with a good trail on the ridge top on the other part of the loop.....The wind was heading towards the side hill trail so I started to slowly ascend the hill towards a knob/highest point..... When I walk, I am always counting paces....all areas I walk get a "max paces" I am allowed before I must stop and do a full look around with binos if applicable....as I was getting up close to the knob I started to side hill around it rather than skyline myself on the top..... 1-2-3 stop look......1-2-3 stop look....1-2 stop look...1-2 stop look and as I come around the back side of the knob, I am 1 step stop...1 step stop and sure enough, 3 deer are slowly passing right in front of me....First one is a huge doe....easily one of the biggest I have ever seen....behind it was one half it's size that was obviously a fawn......but!!!! NO..... IT HAS WOOD.....Up comes my m70 and I put the crosshairs on it...and all 3 of them stop for an instant...big doe to my right quartering away...dink buck straight ahead in my sights broadside...and the 3rd deer to my left that was as big as the huge doe...he was standing and looking straight at me....WHOHHHHH he;s a buck too and much bigger with much more bone showing....SCREW THAT...ill take the smaller one as it was a better size for me to handle on my own as well as likely to be better table fair (which is crucial for my wife to appreciate game meat....Boom goes the '06 at 07:15...

Last Edit: Oct 4, 2018 at 7:28am by wideopenthrottle

I drove to within cell range with it gutted sitting on a tarp, in the back of my 4runner....I phoned my wife to let her know the good news and that I would be staying in the woods till dark to maximize drying time and minimize the time we would leave it in the truck overnight....I looked for a little less than an hour to find a good spot to wash/skin/hang/cool/dry it for the day and drove back to Osoyoos with all the windows down and the skinned/cleaned/cooled/dry deer in a game bag at dark 10 hours later....

Drove home early Sunday morning...well as early as I could get the family moving...heheheh...

Gave my good hunting buddy a call and he popped over...we had it completely deboned with both back quarters into roasts, the back straps and tender loins set aside and the rest for burger a couple of hours later....

There was a bit of rib meat lost to shrapnel/poo contamination and a portion of one tenderloin had to go to dog food.....The remaining boneless meat weighed in at a couple ounces short of 50 lbs...

Ground up the burger with my little meat grinder and as long as you cleaned out the tendons and ligaments from the cutter every bowl or two it worked great..i had my daughter and cousin help for about 2 hours including cleanup....





before and after skinning headshots

[wideopenthrottle]

I was skunked in 2017 but I took this tiny bambi while fancy hunting 2016 I was desperate for game with minutes left in my hunt...I got this one within 100yards of my little buck from this year....earlier that season, I had an unsuccessful moose hunt...my wife suggested the "fancy hunt" after feeling bad for asking me to cut short my moose trip when we didn't have one yet!!!


here is my buck from 2015.....the doe hanging with it was taken by a grizz -bull river area


this is one of our moose from 2014...the one we did not have to tow home from down Babine lake

[wideopenthrottle]

our camp was robbed by a griz...in 2015

first day out we got a buck and a doe...hung them at our overflow meat pole closer to the river (cuz it was warm) and about 100feet away from camp...

because of the heavy rain and the noise of the river and the dog snuck into the tent the griz was able to snap the pole (bran new one put up that day) and drag off the doe...

when buddy went to go use the latrine in the morning he yelled out "the deer are gone" (as it was still dark he didn't see the one on the ground (they were both wrapped tight in game bags)..we grabbed the shotgun and a few lights and had a quick look....

saw a pile of green puke with chunks of fat down by the river and decided to lock the buck in the cargo trailer and head out for the morning hunt...

when we got back we did the CSI and found that the bear had come down from the hillside on the FSr side not from across the river..

it had taken the deer about 100 feet from camp, ate half and half buried the rest...we found where he had buried it but he had come back and moved it again (prolly while we were out on our morning hunt).....
when we got back, we had one more deer to hang/skin and after that we followed the bear tracks (with the dogs help) to where it had left the last remains.. We set a trail cam up there...

every night after that he came back to camp...the dog heard him and woke up (doing her job properly) the rest of the time but we put all our meat on the pole only 30 feet from the camp, placed the propane tree with a double mantle lantern burning all night (so we could see to shoot it if it got too close)...we also ran rope all around the area with cans attached and we also tied the step ladder to the hanging meat and put a 5 gal pail on top of the step ladder with cans and rocks in it. there was trail cam footage every night of the bear and then a few minutes into the vid we would hear the dog go off...buddy telling the dog to be quiet and a couple of shotgun blasts....

[wideopenthrottle]

elk in my avitar
me with my one and only elk...wasn't even hunting for elk but I always put a tag in my pocket if there is any chance at an animal (always a bear and cougar tag in my pocket as well) so I bought my first elk tag that year....I was set up looking for a possible fawn of a wet doe I took two days before... even though I saw no fawn with it, we noticed it's udder was full when skinning it..(thought I might as well take it rather than leaving it for the wolves if it hadn't already died....) he was at the end of the line of 8 elk and walked out and stopped broadside at 100 feet 4 shots later he was laying lifeless (150 gr bullets out of the '06)....First shot was double lung, he didn't even flinch....second to the mid section took out the spine and it dropped....when It started to get up again it was facing me so it got one more in the throat area but was still struggling to get up so a 4th shot just below the jaw put it down and dead-dead..

[dakoda62]

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showth...tory-and-pics)

[CheesyLimper]

Nice. I was skimming through the horse pics when I suddenly thought... one of them doesn't look the same.

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showth...tory-and-pics)