As I have said before, sheep hunting has been the passion of my hunting life. In spite of that focus, the only sheep I have been fortunate enough to hunt have been dall sheep (or Dahl’s sheep as some write it). By the time the events in this story occurred, I had been sheep hunting about 15 years. I’d shot a lot of nice sheep, but the elusive “40-incher” had evaded me. I’d gotten close – 39 on one side – but I just hadn’t been able to find a 40-incher at the ‘right’ time.

The Background…
In light of the above comments, I should probably point out that I’m not a “trophy” hunter per se. At the same time, it seems silly to me to shoot “small” animals on purpose. In defense of shooting small animals I often hear the likes of, “I’m a meat hunter”, and “You can’t eat horns”, or “The young ones taste better”. Far be it from me to question a fellow hunter’s veracity, but… I am not averse to challenging what I consider to be faulty logic.

The reason I always shoot the biggest animal I can find is because I’m a meat hunter. In my opinion, if you really are a “meat hunter”, you’ll have to acknowledge that the most meat comes from the biggest animals, and the biggest bodies usually have big antlers/horns attached to them. Also, unless the male is in full-blown rut, I really don’t find “big” bulls (or rams) that different in taste from “small” ones. I think the fact that in 15 years of hunting sheep I had yet to shoot a 40-incher illustrates what kind of “trophy hunter” I am. I simply always shoot the first, biggest ram/bull/buck I can find in the time I have to hunt.

However, as I said, I’d been at this ‘game’ for 15 years, and still didn’t have that "trophy 40-incher". It was getting a little embarrassing to call myself a “serious” sheep hunter and yet have no “40-incher” to show for it. Sheep aren’t difficult (stalking–wise) to take. Get above them and you’ve ‘won’. Since I was young and healthy, getting above your run-of-the-mill dall sheep ram wasn't that much of a challenge. If I didn’t have a 40-incher, it could be argued that it was because I really wasn’t that good of a sheep hunter. I set about to remedy what was clearly nothing more than a case of 15 years of "bad luck".

The Preparation…
Starting at the end of the then current sheep season – another one without a 40-incher – I decided it was time for me to quit ‘fooling around’ and get serious about finding a 'big' ram. The first thing I did, was study the state’s records on 1) where ‘big’ rams were taken, and 2) where access was ‘tough’. A record of big rams and tough access should increase the likelihood that a 40-inch ram was even present. That research revealed several places, but the one that was most available to me, and the toughest to get to, was the drainage of the Yanert glacier.

Next, I went to the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute to look at the U2 photo library. This was a library of photographs of every inch of Alaska taken from the former U2 “spy” planes. The images were actually 11” x 11” color films – essentially color slides. Being a library, I could check them out, and I did. I got all the slides of the Yanert glacier and of the surrounding areas with appropriate sheep habitat.

With some 20 of these ‘slides’ under my arm I proceeded to a local photo-lab where I printed blowups of each slide. I took the ‘slides’ back to the UofA, and the black-and-white prints home, where I covered a wall in my basement with an aerial view of where I was going to get my “40-incher”. (If you want to see where the Yanert glacier is, on google earth enter “Yanert glacier, Cantwell, Alaska”.)

In general, I was looking at an area of about 150 square miles from which to choose a place to hunt. After pouring over the “sheep wall” for about a month, even using a magnifying glass on occasion, I had several places chosen as potential hunting areas. Now the ‘problem’ was getting there.

I had a neighbor ‘down the street’ that had a Cessna 185 and was a professed ‘avid hunter’. He was an Air Force pilot, and I had flown with him a few times and trusted his piloting skills. He was from Montana and was in Alaska assigned to Eielson AFB. He was always admiring my sheep horns, and ‘hinting’ that he would like me to take him sheep hunting. I’m kind of particular about the folks I hunt with, and he, (I’ll call him “Dan”), wasn’t the ‘kind’ I would normally go hunting with. But this trip wasn’t “normal”. I was on a mission, and he had something I needed in order to complete that mission - a plane. A plane (or a week on horses) was the only way to access the Yanert glacier. Once again I found myself compromising my standards in trade for “transportation”. (Kinda suggests what profession I might have chosen had I been born a woman, doesn’t it?. ) I would come to seriously regret that compromise.

When I discussed the hunt with Dan, he liked the whole idea, and was of course enthused about it. I told him that the only task he had to perform in the next 11 months was do a little recon and find a place to land from among the several hunting sites I had selected. I would take care of everything else.

As the winter progressed, I continued my research, talking to people that knew the area and knew what guides hunted the area in general. It was pretty clear that the locale chosen was both “good” sheep country and “tough” country to access. My anticipation grew with each passing day. Periodically I would ask Dan if he had scouted for landing sites. Through the winter, he responded “No”.

It’s generally wise to have a back-up plan when it comes to planning a sheep hunt. This was certainly called for in this case. First, I had never been in this country before. Second, I didn’t even know if you could get a plane close enough to the areas I wanted to hunt. Third, weather can easily knock out your first plan. The back-up plan for this trip was an alternate site that I knew from previous scouting was both reachable by plane, and contained legal (full curl) rams. They weren’t 40-inchers, but they’d do for “back-up”.

As Spring rolled around my queries about the recon being accomplished got increasingly ‘pointed’. Finally, I was insistent, and finally Dan told me he had done the recon, and that he had found a place to land among the places I had chosen. Whew!

Normally I plan 10 days for a sheep hunt. The primary reason is that in the mountains it is very easy to have to spend 7 days in a tent due to weather. If you don’t plan on 10 days you could get completely weathered out. Furthermore, this was 'vacation'. I loved spending time in the mountains. If I shot a ram on the first day of a 10-day hunt, I loved it. I had 9 days left to explore and just 'laze about'.

Let me talk briefly about what I pack for a 10-day sheep hunt. First, you've got to carry everything you need on your back. I never went on any “gentleman’s” sheep hunts. There would be no guide providing sleeping tents, cook tents and packing horses. Second, you've got to get whatever you take into a small plane, AND you have to plan for what you’ll be bringing out, meaning sheep meat and the cape and horns. (By law you have to bring out the horns to have them “sealed”. “Sealed” just means checked by Fish and Game.) Traveling light isn't just the watchword, it's the "law".

My “sheep pack” with rifle and ammo weighed in right at 55 lbs. Included were:
1)   A 4-man tent - A “4-man” tent is the perfect size for two people, just as a “4-man” raft is the perfect size for two rafters,
2)   Sleeping bag and pad,
3)   Camping stove and pan,
4)   One cup,
5)   One spoon,
6)   Matches AND “fire kit” – it’s never wise to go into the Alaskan wilderness without a reliable fire kit, (I have another story about a caribou hunt, this same “Dan”, and the need for a fire kit.)
7)   Small battery-powered flash-light,
8)   A change of clothes (wool shirt and pants) in case you get soaked – most of the time you didn’t need the extra clothes.
9)   5 pair of socks and skivvies. (Those get changed every other day.)
10)   One pair of ‘long underwear’. This in case you had to bivouac over-night away from your tent or a snow-storm blows in.
11)   Ten dehydrated meals,
12)   20 Instant oatmeal packets,
13)   20 “granola” bars
14)   30 tea bags, and sugar to taste,
15)   “Hunting knife” – mine was a Case ***(triple x) Folding Hunter. (I just lost that knife this month in a boating “accident” floating down a remote river – but that’s another story.)
16)   Four game bags,
17)   5 lbs of salt for the cape,
18)   Camera,
19)   Toilet paper,
20)   Binos – mine are cheap - $25 - 10x25s
21)   Good, light weight, spotting scope – at least 25 power - and small tripod,
22)   Rifle and ammo - I always bring at least 20 rounds. Sometimes 40.

A day’s ‘rations’ went like this:
Breakfast was two packets of instant oatmeal. The cup is used as the bowl. When the oatmeal was finished, hot water for tea is poured in the cup and one tea bag used - sugar to taste. The tea cleans the cup of any residual oatmeal. The cup goes in the pocket of six-pocket pants for opportunistic drinking the rest of the day.

Lunch is two granola bars.

Supper is the dehydrated meal (always Mountain House stroganoff for me) eaten from its own container. Two tea bags for after supper.

For this hunt, I would be bringing a rifle I had made specifically to be my “sheep gun”. (At the time, I called it the “Ultimate Weapon”. After a later and ‘exciting’ coastal brown bear hunt, it is now referred to as the “Sissy Gun”.) It is a Remington Model 700 chambered in a cartridge with a 7mm bullet on a 300Weatherby case. I can, to this day, still shoot tiny little 3-shot, half-inch clover-leafs at 100 yds. And by the way, it also wasn’t a so-called “mountain rifle”. What a bunch of marketing hoohah. If you can’t carry an extra pound or two around the mountains all day, you shouldn’t be in the mountains in the first place. The "Sissy Gun", sporting a myrtle thumb-hole and a beaver-tail forearm, weighs over 9 lbs. It’s NEVER been a ‘burden’ to carry. My other "sheep gun" is another Remington Model 700 chambered in 7mm Mag and sporting another thumb-hole stock with beaver-tail forearm in ROSEWOOD. It weighs 10 lbs.

My preferred bullet – one proven repeatedly on game – was the 115-grain Speer HP. For this bullet on the 300 Weatherby case, I had my handloads doing about 3500 f/s at the muzzle. And “No”, it doesn’t “destroy meat”, but “Yes” it does “flatten” game "dead right there". How I came to appreciate this bullet and ALL HPS with large-meplats is yet another sheep story.

Now that everything was 'set', all that was left was the dreaded "wait” before the long-anticipated hunt. It was tough to sleep even though it was ‘sheep’ I was counting each night as I lay in bed.

Paul

"The Hunt" and pictures will follow after you've had a chance to masticate on this a for a few hours.

Quite a story so far Paul.

But, please keep going.......

Great,...  So I guess I won't get to sleep until we see the pictures and hear "the rest of the story." :D

Comin' atcha. Stand by...

Paul

Get yourself a cup of coffee. Get comfortable in front of the screen, and get your tissues out. It's gonna make you cry...

Or swear,

Or both.

The Hunt...

Opening Day – August 20th – finally arrived. Dan and I were 'in the air' fairly early, but not too much so. In Alaska, you cannot be "airborne" the same "day" you hunt. If you are airborne "today" you have to wait until after 0300 tomorrow before you can legally hunt. Dan had told me he couldn't get off the day before, so we'd have to 'waste' opening day. That was OK... I wasn't worried. We were headed into a very remote spot. Being there "Opening Day" wasn't a big deal.

On our way to "the spot", we had to fly over the location of the "back-up plan". As we were flying over it, I saw some hunters, AND they had a sheep down. I remarked to Dan that that was kind of 'odd' because this was not a "typical" place anyone would select to hunt sheep. It was an isolated out-cropping of mountains that no "self-respecting" sheep would be caught dead on. The only reason I knew about it was because I had happened on it during a caribou hunt. Dan replied, "I flew them in there yesterday"...

I was slack-jawed.

Not only had he compromised the back-up plan, he had violated a sacred, un-written trust among hunters. You don't reveal "secret" hunting (or fishing for that matter), places. Honestly, there are few social faux pas that are more heinous. In some places I know, that kinda behavior would get you killed.

I told him that was his sheep they had on the ground.

Sadly, it was going to get worse... Much worse.

On we flew. It was a little quieter the cabin from there on.

When we got over the last ridge and dropped into the Yanert valley, it was spectacular. This was true Alaskan wilderness. There wasn't hide nor hair of a human (other than a primitive airstrip way downstream) for a long way. We turned left and started up the glacier. As we were approaching the site I had selected and Dan had told me he had determined was suitable for landing his plane, he now revealed that he hadn't "actually" done the recon. Of course, the site was not suitable for landing.

I was steaming.

A year's planning. Completely destroyed by this jackass' lies.

There was one last hope for hunting the Yanert. Downstream - WAY downstream - there was a primitive landing strip. We could land there and walk the 10 miles or so up the valley to the glacier then another 5 miles up the glacier to where I wanted to hunt. We had no choice... We headed down the valley.

When we got to the strip, we found that it already had a plane on it. That's not uncommon in Alaska. For the most part, it's a big place and there is room for more than one set of hunters in a valley. HOWEVER, this son of a bachelor (a local "professional guide"), had set up 55-gallon barrels on the mid-line of the strip so no one else could land. I seriously considered landing somewhere, picking up a handful of grapefruit-sized rocks, flying back to the Yanert airstrip and "bombing" the SOB's airplane. But I didn't.

We headed back to the "back-up" location.

Upon landing on the mountain, we were greeted by Dan's friends. They were two Army buddies barely in Alaska long enough to qualify as "residents". Neither were experienced hunters, and one of them had bloody feet because he had brought brand new boots on a sheep hunt! Idiots! The bunch of them. It was very difficult to be civil.

The sheep they had shot was not even technically "legal". To be a "full curl", the tip of at least one of a ram's horns have to come up to the base of that same horn, thereby making a full circle or, both horns must be broomed or broken off, or it must be at least 8 years old. Neither horn was broomed, and while this one was "close" to a full curl, it definitely wouldn't have passed muster by a cop. Nor was it old enough.

I spent the rest of the day by myself scouting the mountain for sheep. 'The boys' hung around camp. It wasn't a particularly cold in the mountains that night, but it was pretty **** "chilly" in the tent nonetheless.

Here's camp at the backup site early the next morning:


The next morning, Dan informed me that the one with bloody feet "needed" to be flown out. While that was just another lie, I told him that was fine with me, but he should understand that as soon as he was aloft, he would be "same day airborne" again and would not be able to hunt until tomorrow. He acknowledged that and flew them off. I spent the rest of the day looking for a legal ram. There were none left on this outcropping. It was beginning to get downright depressing.

Here's one of the "little boys" that was left on the mountain:


Dan came back later, somewhat contrite and was beginning to see the 'error of his ways'. The only thing left to us was to go looking for sheep and try to find a place within a few miles of them to land. A whole year of planning, and more importantly anticipation of a great hunt, completely destroyed by a lying son of a bachelor.

We broke camp and got back in the air early that afternoon.

We headed back to the Yanert valley and across it, scanning the mountainsides for rams. We covered a lot of ground, and saw no sheep, not even any ewes and lambs. Finally, in the waning light, we spotted a small band of about 6 rams high up a very 'pointy' mountain. It looked like there might be a legal ram among them. We started looking for a place to land.

Fortunately, we were at the head of a small valley, and the "fan" of the headwaters looked like it was 'landable'. We circled a few times, each time closer to the ground, looking for "bad things" like rocks and holes. We dropped a full pop can out to see if the vegetation was too high – it wasn't - we could still see the can on the ground. We also dropped a strip of TP out the window to check the wind direction - essentially no wind. We headed in for the landing.

All off-strip landings are at least a little interesting. Some more than others. This was a genuine "puckerer", no doubt about it. Part of the reason was that if we crashed, no one would know where to look for us. I had given my wife detailed instructions on where we would be in the Yanert, and where the back-up location was. Trouble was, we were neither of those places, and in fact a long way from either one of them. We'd be tough to find if we crashed. Furthermore, nobody would be looking for us for nine more days. (Most of the time in Alaska, they don't start looking for you until you're a day late from a hunt.) For all Dan's stupidity, he was a skilled pilot. We landed without 'incident'.  (By the way, for those of you worrying about it, the pop can got picked up after we landed, but we didn't bother to get the TP.)

It was near dark by then, so we found a reasonable place near the stream and set up camp.  Some time in the middle of the night, we were awakened by a serious racket. Looking out of the tent, we found our camp surrounded by a small herd (probably 25 or so) caribou. I do mean surrounded. Several were literally just feet from the tent. I think that in the dark they didn't realize the camp was there, but when they got close enough to smell us they 'panicked' and made all the commotion. I'm surprised they didn't trample the tent. Still, it was very cool! As I recall, there weren't any bulls of note in the bunch.

Among the many aspects of sheep hunting that I like is not having to get up at "0-dark-thirty" to get after them. It's perfectly reasonable to wake at a reasonable hour, have a reasonable breakfast, and trundle off looking for sheep at a reasonable pace. You're going to spend most of the day 'glassing' anyway, and there is no need to hurry to the top of the mountain. Still...

I was itchin' to get after this band of rams before they found out we were around and headed off to some other drainage. I knew where we had "left them" right before we landed, and I wanted to get up there and above them as soon as possible. We 'saddled up' and headed straight up the mountain.

Here's what we looked like as we got to the first saddle.


If you look closely, you can see Dan's plane way down there almost exactly between us and about a quarter inch from the bottom of the picture. The wings are a small horizontal line.

Looking the other way (the view from where we landed)...


We were climbing up this side of the ridge you see on the right. The sheep were on the other side of that ridge. We thought...

When we got up to the first saddle you see, we peeked over to have a look around. Here's what we saw:


We were essentially trapped on our side of the ridge, and couldn't see around the folds in the mountain-side. These two sub-legal rams had us pinned. I decided we should probably watch them for a while, but after about half an hour, I was concerned that the other bigger rams were wandering off out of sight so I took a rock and bounced it off the one on the right. (They were only about 20 yards away.) They then did what sheep do when something is above them, they stared at us like "What are you doing there?" I had to actually start down toward them before they hustled off. I was hoping they would spook the bigger rams, and we'd get a look and a shot, but no such luck.

We walked 'around the corner' a ways, but nothing. Dang! Clearly the big boys had moved over the top. I turned down-hill, and started down the mountain. And there they were, a hundred yards below, staring up at us. I was standing on a rock about the size of a small house, and immediately sat down and put my 'scope on them. Dan, just off to my right sat down and 'scoped them as well. There was one 'good' legal ram and one that was 'close'. The others were clearly sub-legal. Since I was after a 'big' ram, I wasn't interested in any of these. Dan however wanted any legal sheep. I identified the biggest one and told him to "shoot that one".

Now the sheep had seen us before we saw them. And we had been 'looking them over' for at least 30 seconds. As any experienced hunter knows, 30 seconds is a LONG time to have your quarry looking at you. Dan had never hunted sheep in his life. I had been hunting sheep for at least 15 years. Dan responded to "Shoot that one" with "Are you sure?"

Resisting the temptation to turn my rifle on him, I responded through clenched teeth, "Yes, I'm sure. Shoot."

He responded, "I just don't want to shoot an illegal ram."

I said, "Shoot. NOW."

Too late. They ran through a small saddle into the basin from which we had come.

I jumped to my feet and told Dan to get after them through that saddle, and I would run up to the next saddle and cut them off. This time he didn't ask "Are you sure?"

As I came through the upper saddle, I saw Dan about a hundred yards to my left and down-hill, the sheep were doing 'the sheep walk' right straight up the basin moving parallel to Dan. He was in a sitting position and 'locked on'. I located the biggest ram and told him to "Shoot that one". It was about a 150-yd shot. This time there was no "back talk". I heard his rifle crack and saw rock fly up from beneath the ram.

At the shot, the rams turned 90 degrees and started "moving out", now right straight UP the peak you see in the picture. The rams had changed order, and now the big one was in the lead. I told Dan where he was and again said "Shoot". Again he missed.

This time I didn't see where the bullet had gone, but the sheep didn't have another 'gear' and kept their pace. I said, "He's still in the lead", and I heard him shoot again. And I saw blood and hair blow out the far side of the chest OF THE WRONG SHEEP!

I didn't bother to tell him then that he'd shot the wrong sheep for fear he would shoot another one. Instead, figuring that his .300 Win Mag had hit behind the on-side shoulder and blown out the other side, I said, "Don't shoot. He's dead on his feet." I really didn't want him to shoot another sheep that I would have to tag. I followed the wounded sheep in my 'scope for a good hundred yards, and it didn't even miss a step let alone slow down. I figured he better shoot it again, and told him so.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

He replied, "I'm out of bullets."

Three shots. He'd brought THREE CARTRIDGES up the mountain on a dall sheep hunt. The sum of his stupidity was positively stunning.

By this point I had been following the wounded sheep in my scope and was prepared to shoot it if he missed again. By the time my brain registered the "s" in the word "bullets" of "I'm out of bullets", I touched one off and rolled the ram.

The initial wound inflicted by Dan was one of the most bazaar wounds I had ever seen on any big game animal. There was neither entrance nor exit wound. Simply a piece of skin about the size of a small dinner plate was missing from the left side of the ram's chest. There wasn't even a "flesh wound". If he hadn't gotten an infection, he most certainly would have survived. The only thing I can figure is that Dan had lead too far and literally just scraped the skin on the ram's chest just as it threw its left leg forward. You'll notice in the picture below that the left side of the chest is carefully concealed. As you can also see, the terrain was so steep that we had to put some rocks below his belly to keep him from rolling any farther down the mountain.



Upon checking him out, we found that while he was about a quarter inch shy of a full curl, he was also 8 years old. An 8-year-old ram is legal. I congratulated Dan on his sheep. Lest you think that magnanimous of me, let me assure you that it wasn't. I didn't want that 'little' thing. (It went 36 x 36.) If I tagged it, I would be done for the year. I still had a at least a chance at a 40-incher.

As it turned out, by the time the ram quit rolling down hill, he was only about half a mile from camp. For only the second instance in all of my sheep hunting years, we were close enough to camp that I could bring the liver out to eat. I don't think there's anything in the world better than fresh sheep liver. I literally almost ate myself sick on "liver on a stick" that night. And it was good.

Upon reflection, I realized that the band of rams had come down to the stream at the bottom of the mountain during the night to get water. If that was the case, they were probably less than 100 yds from our tent, as we were camped on the stream on "this side" of the ridge. We had climbed above them early, and caught them returning to their daytime perches.

Well, things were beginning to look "up" I thought. We still had 7 days left of the original 10-day hunt. The weather looked good, and while it was a definite 'long shot', it was entirely possible that I could still find that elusive 40-incher. Of course that was failing to appreciate what a complete and TOTAL jerk Dan actually was.

Immediately the next morning, he started whining about how he was "using up leave", and really "couldn't stay for 7 more days",  and wah wah wah. That was it for me. The thought of another 7 days with this jerk was nauseating. I'd had all I could stand. As Popeye says, "That's all I can stands. I can't stands n'more." All I wanted now was away from this cretin. I told him going back was fine with me, and we broke camp and loaded the plane.

What we hadn't been able to see from the air before we landed was a fairly large depression right in the middle of the "runway". It was about 10 feet across and maybe 18" deep. That was not "good". It shortened the runway by half. At the landing, we were at about 5,000 feet above sea level. At that altitude, according to the 185's specs, it needed more runway than "the hole" allowed. We decided that we would load everything but me and my survival gear in the plane and Dan would fly it out to the McKinley Park strip. If he didn't crash on take-off, but never wanted to risk it again, he would fly back and drop a rock with a note on it basically telling me "Good luck. You  gotta walk out." I was fine with that actually. The walk out to the highway was about 26 miles, and it was essentially all downhill. I could do that in an easy day. I'd rather do that a hundred times than risk crashing on take-off. I watched him take off without incident and fully expected that the next time I saw him it would be watching a rock come out of the pilot-side window. I laid down on the alpine tundra and took a snooze.

I woke to the sound of him returning, and to my mild surprise, he landed. I jumped in and while the take-off was "interesting" – we 'bounced' into the air on the far side of "the hole" – the flight was uneventful.

To this day I'm still looking for that elusive 40-incher...

Paul

I would be willing to bet that to this day, if he even thinks on it, he is still puzzled by your irritation.
 
Also, for him, it is very fortunate you were not a pilot.

Geeezzzzz Paul, ya had me on the edge of my seat!! I too was afraid the story might end earlier. I`d hazard a guess that you never saw the guy again..........or cared to. What a dufous. Thanks for sharing your story. I`m guessing it must be raining out side and you decided to curl up next to the computer. We`re all the richer for it. I`m betting you`ll get that 40" er.
 
Me......... I`ll just be tickled to get my first elk........ for the freezer. 8-)

Great story.

Even if you didn't get a 40 incher and you wanted to do bodily harm to "Dan".

 To bad I ain't a pilot. But I does have a hoss and a mule!!!

RJ

Quote from: recoil junky;108113Great story.

Ditto!!!!!

Quote from: recoil junky;108113Even if you didn't get a 40 incher and you wanted to do bodily harm to "Dan".

 To bad I ain't a pilot. But I does have a hoss and a mule!!!
RJ

Ya know,...
I'd rather do the 26 miles in and out on a horse than go through that.
Too bad hindsight is the only view we get that's 100% spot on.

Sorry for the bum deal Paul.
But the experience...  I know you are wiser for it!  And you know where the limits of your tolerance for idiocy are too!

Have you though about getting your pilot's license and then inviting "Dan" on another remote hunt?

Just an after thought:


 "Dan" has to have a brother named "Rusty",

Kuz I know him. (Rusty that is)

If'n Paul gits one 'o them pilots licences, me 'n Hunterbug gets first dibs!!!

RJ

excellent story!!!! to bad you did not have better company though! you will get that big fella someday. God bless.

I actually have a hunting "buddy" or two that might top that, but I'll refrain from commenting further.
 
Great story, Paul.  Wish it had a better ending for you.
 
You're alive though, so that's good.
 

 
Daryl

QuoteI actually have a hunting "buddy" or two that might top that,

I'd be impressed. I didn't think anybody could be worse than this guy. To tell the truth, he had a wonderful wife and beautiful baby daughter at the time, and treated them both like garbage. (I've seen that a lot in the Montana men I've met.) She finally shed herself of him. So did I, but just like a 'bad penny', he showed up on Facebook here a few months back wanting to be friends. I "friended" him so I could find his ex-wife an daughter and check on how they're doing. They're fine.

Some day you'll hafta tell us about your "huntin' buddies".

Paul

Thanks for all the kind words folks.

I DID get cross-ways with this jackass another time, and he almost screwed up another hunt for me and another friend. Sheesh!

The truth is, a huntin' story is a huntin' story regardless of the outcome. Don't get me wrong, I'd surely rather have a 40-incher on the wall instead of this "good story", but it is this sort of 'adventure' that makes our mettle. In the end, the meat is eaten, the horns are hung, the hide rots and the only thing left is "The Story". It neither rots nor rusts, and is not consumed by fire or flood. And The Story can - and should - get told again, and again, and again some more. It is the the one truly "immortal" element of a hunt.

Paul

Great story, Paul....
As I've had similar experiences with" hunt'n buddies", I find this story waken's
a characteristic  within myself  I've thought little, as it has become common
knowledge to share interest levels with others "not" of the same page, generally
turns to frustrations....I prefer to hunt alone as a result...
..............Again a great story, I really enjoyed it and the images...You really sent
me there for a bit..........thanks....................................................................BH51..