after a 16 hr drive from kelowna with a stop in fsj for my buddy to pick up his tag,{wasn't sure he was gonna be able to go} we make the turn off to sikinni river ranch @mile 171.
we dont even get 5 km up the road when a truck comes around the corner.they proceed to tell us about all the quads and how they didnt see a thing then in the same angry breath tells us about the possible new world record bull some guy got and should be comming out behind them.
in no way did this quad info hit us in a negative way,hell nothing was going to bring us down,after all my buddy had been dreaming of making his way into the muskwa since the mid 90's.
we got to the gate and omg was that guy ever right about that BIG bull.{pics are on another thread}
anyways we proceed to load the quad and head to the sikinni river ranch where we were met by dixie and the crew.
after getting settled into our cabin we didnt hesitate getting out for a little scouting before sundown.
when we came back in for diner we met alot of other hunters that were not having any luck and all there spirts were starting to get low,they even commented about our positive enthusiasm and how it too would be low in a cpl days.[ya like that was gonna happen]
first full day out and not knowing the lay of the land we mostly just got to know the area and did a cpl mile hikes with hardly any sign that was fresh other then quad tracks and a few foot prints.
day 2 we head up the valley to the road closure and see another machine parked at the end of the trail.seeing as we got a fresh dump of snow the night before we can tell the direction they went so we opted to head up towards the lake.
after huking for 1 1/2 hrs i pull out my gps and see that we had gone almost 2 miles from the quad and buddy says to me "i'm ok if you wanna turn back"
smiling i said "dude ,we arn't here to just enjoy the scenery,lets at least head up to the lake which is still a cpl miles then we can check out some of the back vally's on the way back"
45 minute later as we were comming around a corner we spot an animal standing up feeding and the eyes on my buddy were as big as pie plates.
we backed up and i calmed him down bye say we had to climb up for a better look as we also spotted a few more bedded down.
well we carefully do our stalk and get into position to observe and we estimate the herd to be around 20 animals at this time and a couple good bulls stood out.
just as we get it narrowed down to 2 different animals the one i had picked out stands up and stretchs then slowly starts walking our way.with the main body of the herd being about 150 yrds away he is heading right at us to get a drink from the mostly frozen river ecept for right bellow us.
it was as this bull was being driven right to be placed into our lap.
after just a few minutes the bull comes to a stop right behind a tree not 25 yrds away and he starts looking at our foot prints as we climbed up to our vantage point.after what seamed forever he finally stepped out along the narrow trail and soaks up 200 grains from a hotloaded 30-06 like a bee had just stung him.
he spun and ran back towards the herd,buddy fired two more times hitting him in the front shoulder then the lower back of the spine and reacted to both shots yet kept on running for another 50 yrds.man can they ever suck up the lead.
anyways as it turned out the first one had taken out both lungs and took off the top of its heart and never exited from a 20 yrd shot.
well now we realized what we were infor and didnt slow down after a few pics and quarting and skinning we spread everything out in the snow and headed back to camp.
the next day we were able to get help from one of the staff at the ranch as well as a trailer and aluminum skimmer.
well along pack shortened we got it all out in 1 load with us pulling and pushing 100 yards at a time all the way back to the quad and we got back to it right at dark.
ya it was a ton of work[no pun intended]but i'd do it all again in a heartbeat
bhb
pics to follow and i will work on the video
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