Spear and I are headed to Fort Nelson for another shot at Stone's sheep. Morning dawns on the 15th with bright blue skies and lots of Sunshine. We meet with Kevin Willis of RiverJet Adventures and drive to the boat launch on the Muskwa River. Halfway up the river with the morning wind in our hair it feels to me like Kevin is taking us to our destiny. We have a 14 day trip planned in amazing country, what could be more perfect? We get off the boat, say our goodbyes and start hiking for two days. Day three dawns with us in a beautiful basin glassing some ewes and lambs, but no rams worth looking at.
Fast forward to day six the after we glassed a band of rams on a mountain a drainage away from us- we decided to move camp and have a closer look. We sneak up into the alpine and have two sentinel rams looking at us as the rest are feeding and bedding in the timber below. We move in nice and slow as there is a strong wind in our face. All I hear is Andy whisper "we are busted", the wind had just done a 180 and was now blowing hard at our backs and the band had caught our scent. A slow and disappointing walk back to spike camp that evening gave us alot to think about.
The next day we hope that the rams haven't left the country and are just on the other side of the mountain. We climb to get a good glassing view and see the band on the opposite side. Keeping yesterday in mind we sneak within 500 yards through the trees with the wind in our face and sun at our back to get a view at these sheep. The first thing we see is one heavy broomed ram (we nicknamed Hank)that's legal and another ram lamb tipped full curl. Not feeling like 500 is even within my spectrum of shooting distance, we close in to 200 yards slightly right of the bedded rams. We get set up and wait. The first ram walks out feeding....not legal. The second ram...not legal. Then Andy sees the lamb tipped one go left out of range when the rest are feeding right..........one legal ram left.
He comes out into the blazing grass soaking in sunshine looking down at us. I have my crosshairs on him and look back at Andy he gives me the nod. As this is only our second sheep hunt, I am cautious and I slide back to have a look. Hank is 8; my gun comes up, crosshairs on his front shoulder and I squeeze. Only one overriding thought crosses my mind. We have just found our destiny, as there is nothing quite like walking up onto a stone. I feel grateful to be able to make it, to have a hunting partner willing to suffer with me, and to have a family who puts up with it.
The following days we attempted to get Andy a ram, without success. The morning of day 10 rises with rain and snow on the mountains. The range around us being exhausted with no legal rams we make the call to head to base camp 25 km downstream and maybe take a crack at some elk. Around 1 pm after several rainy wet hours Andy is ahead of me and comes over a ridge to have a boar grizzly looking at him from 7 yards away. All I hear as I'm struggling to make it up the muddy slope is "Oh Sh*t bear !" Luckily for us both, the bear was more scared of seeing two wet smelly humans, and took off running.
It's now 9:30 PM and after walking in the dark for a few hours we finally make the Tuchodi and where we are meeting some people we have never met at their base camp. At this point in the story I would like to say I have never been welcomed as warmly as we were that night. Walking into the cook shack filled with warmth and smoke and having everyone jump up help us with our packs, give us their chairs by the stove and hand us a beer before even really saying hello is an amazing thing to be part of. A very special thank you to Jim, Trevor, Donny, Brad, Al and Keith you guys inspire me to be more welcoming and helpful in the bush.
The next morning they all headed out for Elk as we sat around and had coffee and nursed our wounds. The following few days were filled with fly fishing and wandering around the area with the hopes of an elk without any luck. The morning of the 28th comes and we start packing: hearing Kevin come up the river is a bittersweet sound. Special thank you to Kevin Willis for the safe trip there and back. And especially to Andy for putting up with me for two weeks, suffering with me, and for being an amazing hunting partner. Thank you for helping me fill a lifetime tag.
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