BCHunterFSJ
06-09-2008, 11:01 AM
My son Sacha and his friend Ken Latreille both drew LEH grizzly tags for Region 7-38. My wife Florence and I joined them. We hunted the Mesilinka River / Aiken Lake / Lay Creek areas. Hunt was from May 29 to June 3, 2008.
We drove from Fort St. John to Mackenzie and took the Causeway across a narrow part of the south end of Williston Lake. We were 140 kilometers up the Finlay Forest Service Road when the transmission on my truck blew! Some 2 hours later Sacha and Ken showed up and towed us with their truck back to Mackenzie where we "camped" in a huge gravel pit.
The next morning we took the camper off and got hold of a tow truck in Mackenzie. I stayed behind with Magnum (my dog) to guard the camper while Florence went with the tow truck to Prince George and the "truck hospital". Sacha and Ken continued on to the hunting area.
May 31: Florence got back around 3:00 PM, with $3000 less in our bank account... We set off to rejoin our partners, almost 300 kilometers north of our location, all on forestry and mine roads. We saw 10 bears on the way up, one of them a small grizzly. However, we did not find Sacha and Ken that night.
The guys showed up next morning (they hunted the Osilinka area and had stayed there over night). In the morning we hunted the Lay Creek area between Aiken and Johansen Lakes. A lot of south facing slopes and avalanche chutes have greened up nicely, but the Johansen Lake area was still quite wintery. Florence and I saw 1 black bear, while the boys saw three. They then drove back to Osilinka to pick up their camp. So there I was, sitting in a lawn chair, occasionally doing some glassing, listening to a babbling brook, looking at snow capped mountains. My good wife and my faithful dog were at my side, and I was sipping on a long gin and tonic. Does life get any better than that?
We had spotted 2 black bears by the time the boys got back. I then joined them for an evening hunt in back of Aiken Lake (it doesn’t get dark here until at least 10:30). We hunted old cutblocks and glassed some wonderful mountain sides and finally Sacha spotted a grizzly on a snow slide. And then out came a second grizzly! Out came the spotting scopes, and we watched them frolicking, play-fighting, and sliding and tumbling down that steep snow slide. They were two mature bears, and it sure looked like "foreplay" prior to mating! But, alas, they were too far away and it was too late in the day. Florence prepared fabulous ribs over the campfire, and everyone got a little drunk...
Next morning we were up real early and heading off to grizzly mountain. We glassed the area until noon and finally gave up. No sign of those bears! Back at camp, Florence (The Northern Gourmet) made up a batch of pancakes served with smoked salmon and fried ham.
Delicious! The guys left for home, while Florence and I moved our camp to Uslika Lake and then departed for home next morning. We had seen a total of 20 black bears and 3 grizzlies.
Not bad at all, but I sure wish that the transmission hadn’t blown up...
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w130/BCHunter_photos/Grizzhunt032jpgA.jpg
My son and I in 7-38 grizz country!
We drove from Fort St. John to Mackenzie and took the Causeway across a narrow part of the south end of Williston Lake. We were 140 kilometers up the Finlay Forest Service Road when the transmission on my truck blew! Some 2 hours later Sacha and Ken showed up and towed us with their truck back to Mackenzie where we "camped" in a huge gravel pit.
The next morning we took the camper off and got hold of a tow truck in Mackenzie. I stayed behind with Magnum (my dog) to guard the camper while Florence went with the tow truck to Prince George and the "truck hospital". Sacha and Ken continued on to the hunting area.
May 31: Florence got back around 3:00 PM, with $3000 less in our bank account... We set off to rejoin our partners, almost 300 kilometers north of our location, all on forestry and mine roads. We saw 10 bears on the way up, one of them a small grizzly. However, we did not find Sacha and Ken that night.
The guys showed up next morning (they hunted the Osilinka area and had stayed there over night). In the morning we hunted the Lay Creek area between Aiken and Johansen Lakes. A lot of south facing slopes and avalanche chutes have greened up nicely, but the Johansen Lake area was still quite wintery. Florence and I saw 1 black bear, while the boys saw three. They then drove back to Osilinka to pick up their camp. So there I was, sitting in a lawn chair, occasionally doing some glassing, listening to a babbling brook, looking at snow capped mountains. My good wife and my faithful dog were at my side, and I was sipping on a long gin and tonic. Does life get any better than that?
We had spotted 2 black bears by the time the boys got back. I then joined them for an evening hunt in back of Aiken Lake (it doesn’t get dark here until at least 10:30). We hunted old cutblocks and glassed some wonderful mountain sides and finally Sacha spotted a grizzly on a snow slide. And then out came a second grizzly! Out came the spotting scopes, and we watched them frolicking, play-fighting, and sliding and tumbling down that steep snow slide. They were two mature bears, and it sure looked like "foreplay" prior to mating! But, alas, they were too far away and it was too late in the day. Florence prepared fabulous ribs over the campfire, and everyone got a little drunk...
Next morning we were up real early and heading off to grizzly mountain. We glassed the area until noon and finally gave up. No sign of those bears! Back at camp, Florence (The Northern Gourmet) made up a batch of pancakes served with smoked salmon and fried ham.
Delicious! The guys left for home, while Florence and I moved our camp to Uslika Lake and then departed for home next morning. We had seen a total of 20 black bears and 3 grizzlies.
Not bad at all, but I sure wish that the transmission hadn’t blown up...
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w130/BCHunter_photos/Grizzhunt032jpgA.jpg
My son and I in 7-38 grizz country!