Bou2006
01-23-2014, 12:37 AM
As this is my first real post I will fulfill my joke requirements. It is a little corny but it seems fitting as it was the first thing our 5 year old son said to us when we returned home from our hunt.
“What did the daddy bison say to his son when the boy bison went away to college….Bye son”
The story truly starts at the time I was filling out LEH applications for my wife and I. I had completed all the cards for the usual species, moose, elk, goat, deer, sheep and bison (for myself). I had one LEH card left and thought.......I’d love for her to experience a bison hunt. As I was looking at the draws, thinking teachers get a couple weeks off over Christmas so that seems like the perfect time to apply and besides it’s her first time putting in there is no way she will get drawn. So the card got filled out and sent in.
Fast forward to the draw results being posted online. I text her from work asking her if she had checked her draw status. I get a reply of just “yes”. I reply back and??????..... Finally all I see flash up is “Bison”. Then the wheels start turning, how are we going to make this work, she isn’t finished teaching until the 20th and that doesn’t leave us enough time before Christmas. So maybe we leave the puddle on the 27th which would give us 4 full days of hunting. The only hang up was that our boy’s birthday is on the 27th. He would be turning five. So over the next few months there were many conversations over the timing of the hunt. Not once did she waiver. She had her mind set on experiencing the northern Rockies in the dead of winter (or proving everyone wrong who said she couldn’t or wouldn’t do it). So while other couples were planning winter getaways to warm tropical places, we were booking accommodations in Pink Mtn where the temperatures could easily be in the -30’s or even -40’s.
The offers did come pouring in....”if you need someone to go with you I’m in” or “I’d love to tag along on a hunt like that”. The decision was easy for me as a great friend had asked me to accompany him on a late January hunt two years previous. I wanted to give him the first opportunity to join us on this epic adventure. Being Christmas time and having a young family, I was more than willing to accept a thanks but no thanks response. This would have been more than acceptable. But the old Potlicker pulled through and with the support of his wife, was committed to head north with us from the day we asked him.
So on boxing day, after a quick trip to Kelowna to celebrate Christmas with both of our families, we said goodbye to the kids(they stayed with grandparents and would probably hardly know we were gone) and made our way back to the Cariboo to put the last few things together for the trip. On the morning of December 27th, with our boy celebrating his 5th birthday in Kelowna, we loaded up the final gear and began the trip north. After 13.5hrs of travelling on less than ideal roads, we pulled into our destination, the Pink Mtn Ranch. We checked in, found our cabin, got the fire going, unloaded gear and got settled in. After a quick night cap/good luck drink we hit the hay with visions of Bison dancing in our heads. We were all quite tired from the long drive but for me it was a restless sleep in anticipation of what tomorrow might bring.
The first day brought clear blue skies and a high level of anticipation. A small skiff of snow and fallen overnight making conditions perfect. But by the end of day one we had seen one track which we estimated to be at least a day old. Day two was fairly uneventful, other than a partial swim by our hunting companion in Two Bit Creek as we tried to determine if it was safe to cross. We decided it wasn’t worth it and headed back up the Halfway Valley for the evening hunt. By the end of day three the high level of anticipation that had embraced us on day one subsided considerably. As we left the cabin on the 31st of December the skies were clear and 1-2 inches of fresh snow blanketed the trail. However, in the fresh snow were fresh wolf tracks....for approximately 15km. These tracks did not help the morale of the group. Then as we crested a rise in the trail there was something out of place that wasn’t there the previous 3 days. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Either these wolves had taken something down on or near the trail, or the bison were trying to fertilize the trail. The snowmobile hadn’t even come to a stop as I jumped off to check the “freshness” of the evidence. The first pile was not frozen and as I looked around steam rose from a couple of the other piles. As I looked back down the trail to “Potlicker” he raised his hand in an excited fist pump. We had stumbled upon the perfect situation in which we had travelled so far for. As Melinda and I peeled off our outer “noisy” layer, our tracker determined which way the animals were moving.
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r667/mylesandmelinda/bison%2013/cLittleBisonSign_zps63bcfb39.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/mylesandmelinda/media/bison%2013/cLittleBisonSign_zps63bcfb39.jpg.html)
“What did the daddy bison say to his son when the boy bison went away to college….Bye son”
The story truly starts at the time I was filling out LEH applications for my wife and I. I had completed all the cards for the usual species, moose, elk, goat, deer, sheep and bison (for myself). I had one LEH card left and thought.......I’d love for her to experience a bison hunt. As I was looking at the draws, thinking teachers get a couple weeks off over Christmas so that seems like the perfect time to apply and besides it’s her first time putting in there is no way she will get drawn. So the card got filled out and sent in.
Fast forward to the draw results being posted online. I text her from work asking her if she had checked her draw status. I get a reply of just “yes”. I reply back and??????..... Finally all I see flash up is “Bison”. Then the wheels start turning, how are we going to make this work, she isn’t finished teaching until the 20th and that doesn’t leave us enough time before Christmas. So maybe we leave the puddle on the 27th which would give us 4 full days of hunting. The only hang up was that our boy’s birthday is on the 27th. He would be turning five. So over the next few months there were many conversations over the timing of the hunt. Not once did she waiver. She had her mind set on experiencing the northern Rockies in the dead of winter (or proving everyone wrong who said she couldn’t or wouldn’t do it). So while other couples were planning winter getaways to warm tropical places, we were booking accommodations in Pink Mtn where the temperatures could easily be in the -30’s or even -40’s.
The offers did come pouring in....”if you need someone to go with you I’m in” or “I’d love to tag along on a hunt like that”. The decision was easy for me as a great friend had asked me to accompany him on a late January hunt two years previous. I wanted to give him the first opportunity to join us on this epic adventure. Being Christmas time and having a young family, I was more than willing to accept a thanks but no thanks response. This would have been more than acceptable. But the old Potlicker pulled through and with the support of his wife, was committed to head north with us from the day we asked him.
So on boxing day, after a quick trip to Kelowna to celebrate Christmas with both of our families, we said goodbye to the kids(they stayed with grandparents and would probably hardly know we were gone) and made our way back to the Cariboo to put the last few things together for the trip. On the morning of December 27th, with our boy celebrating his 5th birthday in Kelowna, we loaded up the final gear and began the trip north. After 13.5hrs of travelling on less than ideal roads, we pulled into our destination, the Pink Mtn Ranch. We checked in, found our cabin, got the fire going, unloaded gear and got settled in. After a quick night cap/good luck drink we hit the hay with visions of Bison dancing in our heads. We were all quite tired from the long drive but for me it was a restless sleep in anticipation of what tomorrow might bring.
The first day brought clear blue skies and a high level of anticipation. A small skiff of snow and fallen overnight making conditions perfect. But by the end of day one we had seen one track which we estimated to be at least a day old. Day two was fairly uneventful, other than a partial swim by our hunting companion in Two Bit Creek as we tried to determine if it was safe to cross. We decided it wasn’t worth it and headed back up the Halfway Valley for the evening hunt. By the end of day three the high level of anticipation that had embraced us on day one subsided considerably. As we left the cabin on the 31st of December the skies were clear and 1-2 inches of fresh snow blanketed the trail. However, in the fresh snow were fresh wolf tracks....for approximately 15km. These tracks did not help the morale of the group. Then as we crested a rise in the trail there was something out of place that wasn’t there the previous 3 days. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Either these wolves had taken something down on or near the trail, or the bison were trying to fertilize the trail. The snowmobile hadn’t even come to a stop as I jumped off to check the “freshness” of the evidence. The first pile was not frozen and as I looked around steam rose from a couple of the other piles. As I looked back down the trail to “Potlicker” he raised his hand in an excited fist pump. We had stumbled upon the perfect situation in which we had travelled so far for. As Melinda and I peeled off our outer “noisy” layer, our tracker determined which way the animals were moving.
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r667/mylesandmelinda/bison%2013/cLittleBisonSign_zps63bcfb39.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/mylesandmelinda/media/bison%2013/cLittleBisonSign_zps63bcfb39.jpg.html)