Hunting Trip - 2007

Huh?

Hunting? Me? Yes, I know. Say it now. I'm no hunter. Well, you are right, I am not an avid hunter. In fact, I have VERY limited experience hunting. My biz partner Chris took me bird hunting for an afternoon last year. That was the first time. This trip is the second time. So why did I go? Well, how can you know if you like something unless you try?

Hey, I got an idea. Let's pitch a tent the middle of friggin nowhere.

So my Uncle Rick and Cousin Sid invite me out to a hunting trip this year up in the middle of nowhere with them, and I jump at the opportunity. Now when I say out in the middle of nowhere, I'm not kidding. Sid and Rick managed to find a 'spot' about 100 km southeast of Grand Prarie. We drove in about 80 km on a forestry trunk road, then about 25 km on a dirt (actually mud, more on that later) road further into the middle of nowhere. If I didn't have a GPS to get me there, I'm pretty sure I'd be sleeping with the moose right now, still trying to find them.

We are geared up.
Between Sid and Rick however, we've got a pretty nice setup. Like a 16 x 20 'tent' with a porch that you can stand in, pro tent furnace / stove to keep our extremeties toasty, a Polaris Ranger and another Polaris quad, about 15 lanterns, a 3 burner, industrial camp size stove, 3 propane tanks, bbq, and more. I mean, we were comfortable. It was raining outside, close to freezing, and we were in t-shirts in the 'tent'.

But the shower. Damn. Where was the shower? Uncle Rick, I thought with all the fancy gear you had, that you would have some sort of automatic push button, fold out shower stall. Nope. We had a bag of water. Lemme tell you, my boyz were chilly out there.

Oh well, I can't complain. I was just happy to have a shower. And even more happy that THEY could have a shower.

The first hunt....

The first day Rick and I went out and burned around looking for grouse. We managed to pick off 3 of them and brought them back. Rick demonstrated looney toon style skinning. Pretty small bird, but instead of just breasting them, he defeathered the whole thing. Damn cute little things. Hell with them. Let's eat! We cooked them up on the bbq, and they were quite tasty. Doesn't get much more fresh.

The second hunt....
So, what am I out there to hunt, exactly? Well, I really had no clue.... I was told to get my upland game bird, and a deer ticket. Rick had a license for everything under the sun, so he was shooting anything that moves. So I've got birds so far. Friday morning will be big game. So there is this crazy rule that you have to be off your quads in the AM in certain areas (including ours) a half hour before sunrise, until 12:00. So guess what time sunrise is? 7:30. And guess how much time it takes us to get there? 45 minutes. and guess what time we have to wake up to get ready and head out? 5:30. Yes, 5:30 in the friggin AM. Shit, there goes my 'holiday'.

So this is the most screwed up part of 'hunting' as far as I can tell.... See that picture to the right? That's bear shit. Yes, bear shit. Don't tell me how Rick and Sid know that (I certainly didn't take animal dung 101 in high school), but they somehow knew, and I'm wishing they didn't know, so that I didn't know.

Now its 6:30 AM, and we are just about to head out. It's PITCH BLACK, and we are heading out in a quad, up in some remote forest that no one but us knows about. With the bears. Now don't get me wrong. I have a gun. That's great. But hell, I've fired a gun maybe 3 times in my life. Do I know how to use one? Well I got my restricted and non-restricted FAC about 6 months ago, so in theory, I can use a gun. But put me in front of a bear, I'm not really sure what I'd end up shooting. Hopefully the bear.

So if you can imagine, we're driving up the side of a mountain in darkness, with two little dim rays of headlights piercing the dark void around us, and really no clue whats in the bush. At this point, I'm just hoping the sun decides to come up....eventually....

We find our spot, park the quad, gear up, and start walking the trails. The sun is coming up now, and all is good. It's quiet, peacefull really, and litterally 10 minutes into our hike along the cutline, a large animal quietly walks out in front of us about 150 yards away. Apparently it's an elk (all along I thought it was a deer. I was later corrected. I think I better put the gun away and stick to computers). It was looking right at us. We both had our sights on it, but it was looking at us and we couldn't count the points on it's antlers for us to tell how old it was and if we could take it down. It started walking straight toward us. We held up until it turned it's head. Then suddenly it just bolted into the trees. Rick took a shot, but it was too late. He missed and it was gone.

And that was it for the weekend big game experience. We spent the rest of our morning trudgine along, looking for more action, but turned up nothing.

More Birds....
Well, if you can't land a deer or elk, you just go out and shoot the poor, helpless little birds with the big gun. (Did I mention they are tastey little bastards?). So we did. I think we got 8 that afternoon. Sid and I roamed around in his ranger shooting them with .22's and shotguns. Was a blast.

Dirty, dirty little grouse....
Time to clean them. This time, I partook in the festivities. I have a video below demonstrating the first step. The first couple were a bit disturbing, but after a few, it became quite simple, and didn't really bother me. In fact, I began to enjoy it. Trying to perfect the debreasting, being carefull not to wreck the meat. Call me crazy.



The night of the bear incident...
ok, I'm going to clear the air right now. Friday night, I awoke at 3 AM. SOMETHING was out there. Hell If know what it was, but it was BIG. I know it was. It had claws. It snorted. It grunted. It brushed up against the tent. It was on our porch looking around. And dammit, I wasn't gonna let it get my favorite cousin sid (he hadn't had a shower in 3 days, so I knew the animal was going to eat him first). I poked Ricky, and grabbed my rifle in preparation. I was ready. Alert. I was taking him down.

Well Ricky brushed it off as nothing. Ladies and gentlmen, boys and girls. I'm smarter than that. I knew there was something there. Ricky turned on his flashlight, and that probably scared our 600 lb grizzly away. He was there. End of story. I saved both of your lives by waking up. We'd all be breakfast right now if it wasn't for me. Thank me later gents.

We are back...again....you stupid little birds.

So Saturday, we get up, have a liesurly breakfast, clean up, and head out later in the morning for more birds. And we drive down the same roads as we did the previous days. And they are still hanging around there. You think they'd clue in and notice that their pals are dropping like flies every time the quad goes by. Nope, they are back. I guess they have really small little brains. You can't blame them. BLAM-BLAM. More bird to eat. I love this.

Saturday night...more big game hunting...
This time, Ricky and I separate at dusk, and man two posts. I was manning a field, while he was manning another behind me. We waited for about an hour and a half. No action. Too bad. Damn deer. or elk. Or whatever the hell I was supposed to shoot.

Fireball....Don't touch the stuff
So we head back to camp, clean up, have dinner, and have a few drinks. Ricky brings out 'Fireball'. Cinnamon flavoured whiskey. "Here, try it. It warms you up.". Warms you up? Shit man, after only one glass, I had a headache, and was developing a case of the runs. No thanks. I stuck to my Crown Royal and was happy with that.

Sunday was an adventure....
Time to go back. Packing was painless. The hunting tent is the shit. Unfortunately, Sid has come up with flu like symptoms. I blame the fireball.

The drive home, however....not so painless. Sid takes the standard forestry trunk road and another safe route back to GP as he is pulling a trailer (Plus he drives a hummer with huge wheels, which helps). Ricky and I however, decide to 'cut an hour' out of our drive, and take a forestry road that goes direct east. Oh ya, this will save us an hour. Well, about a quarter ways in, this road turns to complete shit, and was a ridiculous mess. I wish I had video of Ricky's truck. It was sliding all over the place with the weight in the back. I thought for sure we were setting up camp again, and waiting for the helicopters to come fly us out.

Well this route took us probably an extra hour and a half to get thru. Oh well, live and learn. Adventure it was. We're lucky to have made it out. It was a complete mess. Over the couple hours we travelled that road, I think we saw 3 vehicles. There was a reason.

All in all, a great trip.

Besides almost getting eaten alive Friday night, it was a great trip. Would I do it again? You bet. Rick and Sid were great to camp with. (After all, they have all the cool hunting and camping shit). I realized that half the fun of this hunting trip was, well, hunting, but more importantly, they other half is hanging around the fire with uncle Rick and cousin Sid with a coffee and Baileys (and god forbid...Fireball) and just shooting the shit. Cousin David often attends these trips and is an avid hunter, but couldn't make it this year. Hope to see you next time I'm out! (p.s. Bring a fold up shower stall)

Check the photo album here, as well as the video below. Sorry, not too much editing on this video. Who has time for that? :-)