Dad and son
12-26-2006, 08:13 PM
Well, thanks to many of you for your best wishes and advice on my recent Bison hunt with my son. It took 3 days in the cold but he got himself a Bison. The local outfitter at Sikanni River (the Hammet's) and the local butcher at 101 Meats have never heard of a 10 or 11 year old getting a wild bison, so if one of you knows of someone who did I would like to hear about it. Here is the story. We flew from Vancouver to Ft St John and rented a truck and skidoo there. We then drove on the Alaska Highway for a couple of hours. Then it was 25 km on a gravel road. We then came to the gate. If you are not familiar, Bison hunting takes place in the Muskwa-Kechika Access Management area. That means you can only access the area by horse or quad in the summer or by snowmobile in the winter. We loaded our suitcases into the skimmer behind the snowmobile and drove another 10 km to the Lodge. In the first 10 minutes of driving I spot 4 bison on the open side of a mountain at about 300 yards. I have the gun resting against a tree ready for my son to shoot but he was not ready pschologically plus cold as he is not use to minus 25. I am not sure I also wanted to shoot a bison in the first 10 minutes of a hunt about 15 minutes before dark in a hunt that I had planned for months. We let the huge bull, a cow and 2 calves walk away. The next morning we drove to the same spot and there were 4-5 bison on the mountain. We parked the skidoo and began a 30 minute hike through knee deep snow up the side of a mountain. Shortly after we began, the bison slipped into a knoll so we could not see them and they could not see us. As we approached the ridge which hid the bison from our view, I made sure my son was well rested from the climb so he could shoot well. To our surprise when we looked over the ridge we were shocked the bison were 50-75 yards away and there was a large herd of around 20. I was overwelmed, never mind my son. He did not know which one to shoot. I helped him pick out one on the edge of the herd as the government guidelines we received told us to. I held the front of the gun he shouldered his brothers 300 win (as he usually shoots a .243) and fired. I saw the snow fly above the bison. Fortunatly for us, Bison are not naturally scared as we had now been staring at them and a few of them at us for at least 1-2 minutes. I told him aim carefully and he chambered another bullet, again the snow flew above his target. His Bison then ran about 20-30 yards and stopped. I told him aim carefully again. I held the front of the gun and this time snow flew behind the bison and the herd ran away. I did not express my frustration or disappointment at his accuracy as I knew this was a life memory. We then walked down the hill to our skidoo. When we got there I said, lets take some practice shots so we do not miss the next one. I set up a target at 75 yards and he emptied an entire box firing 3 quick rounds each time. All his groupings were within 8 inches so I knew it was not the gun that made him miss earlier, just his familiarity with it and as he later admitted being close to the big animals. We hunted for the next 2 days and saw animals each day but they were too far for a stalk or walked into heavy timber. The 3 rd day I saw a trail that had only one skidoo track on it. I started driving on it and quickly realized I had made a good choice as there were lots of Bison tracks on the trail. After a while I started to see droppings on the trail so I stopped and told my son to keep his eyes open as they are in this area. I drove another 200 yards and looked behind me and to my surprise I saw 2 skidoos. We were truly in the middle on no where and had seen no other hunters in the past 3 days so I stopped to see what was happening. They told me that they were going fishing and that if we were Bison hunting there was a herd 200 yards behind us, just where I had stopped. I pulled the skidoo off the trail and let them pass. My son and I then walked 200 yards back on the skidoo trail and sure enough standing 30-50 yards off the trail were 2-3 Bison. How we had missed them earlier I do not know. My son took one quick shot and his Bison took off. We walked into the forest a short distance and saw his Bison lying there, it had run about 50 yards. We also saw it was part of larger herd of about 15 animals as they stood around and did not run away. We walked closer and he took one last shot at the neck at 5 yards so it would die right away. I then had a big job of gutting a bison in the snow and hauling it back to camp in the skimmer all by myself. It was fun, but a lot of work. In the attached picture you will see he shot the Bison directly in the heart, so he made up for his earlier miss. If any of you get the Bison draw I recomend staying at Sikanni River lodge as the Hammets have a great operation, very friendly, helpful and great food and accomodation. In my earlier post several of you wondered about which bullet to use and if my son could shoot a Tika 300 win . Well I bought the gun from a fellow on CGN. He sold it because the kick was too big for him. I took it too the range and it did hurt to shoot. I took it to my local gunsmith and had them put on the best limbsaver they had. That was 2 years ago, it is now comfortable to shoot, my 13 year old got his spring bear with it, his first mulie and whitetail and now my youngest son his first Bison. The Bison was shot with Federal Nosler Partition Premium Safari 180 grain not that it matters when you hit the heart.
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