In Wyoming with High Velocity Outdoors

So we just spent the week just north of Gillette, Wyoming hunting mule deer and antelope with High Velocity Outdoors. Now Derrick and I have already been through it all as far as outfitters go. We've had 2 terrible experiences this year and 2 great ones...and this one was by far the best. Hazer Bulkley runs the outfitter and he was actually one of our competitors on North American Safari Challenge last year. He has access to 30,000 acres and boy did he set us up for success. We harvested 4 beautiful representations of Wyoming wildlife in just 2.5 days. Wyoming hunting is very unique and good optics are the key! Thanks to Leupold, we were hooked up with 2 really clear and awesome pairs of binoculars! Basically, you drive around in a truck until you reach a high point overlooking miles of country. You then use spotting scopes and binoculars to scan and scan until you spot tiny white spots which indicates a mule deer face or rear. Then you pull out the higher powered optics to check out antler specs. If you decide the animal is worth it, you stalk....sometimes a mile or more in hard hard country. It was very unique for us, but pretty darn cool. Now Hazer also owns Bison Barrells, a custom gun manufacturer, and he has built us 2 custom 7 mags. They are both totally capable of shooting accurately up to 1000 yards as they are topped with the Leupold CDS turret system scopes. You just turn the dial to the appropriate yardage, adjust for wind, put your crosshairs on the target, and pull the trigger.

Derrick's mule deer was spotted on the neighbors the very first night. We watched him but of course couldn't shoot him. The next morning, we went to the same general area and woohoo, he had moved onto our side of the fence! He was settled into an area of brush and we went on the stalk. As we got close, a group of does spooked and took off over the hill, Derrick spotted a big buck with them and we thought we had lost our buck. Hazer wasn't convinced it was the same one and he would have to travel a good ways during our stalk, so we kept going and Hazer respotted our deer..thank goodness! you could barely barely seem him and he had settled down for a nap. We set up on him and Hazer used a coyote call to make him restless and he finally stood up. Derrick took the shot at 230 yards and he went about 20 yards and went down. He was the first animal of trip...and he is beautiful!

I wish I had taken a picture of the landscape when we spotted this guy, because weirdly, there was a shadow that was literally the shape of Texas...when you watch our show, you'll see, but it was crazy! We spotted 2 bucks, one on the east side of the Texas and one on the west side. Hazer was very excited about both of them and on the stalk we went. We got within 200 yards of him and fortunately, he was looking right into the sun when looking at us. He was suspicious of something going on so was kind of restless and finally he broke and took off about 100 yards. He finally squared back up, gave me a shot at 290 yards and I took it. See above for the results. :) I would like to point out that he's bigger than D's!

After the muleys came the antelope hunt. We were actually headed into lunch after my mule deer when we spotted a big group of antelope in the flatter country. Hazer spotted a buck he was very excited about and they decided to try to set up fairly long range on this one. The group was very comfortable, so we got away with a lot of movement, and Derrick was able to get comfy against a fence post at 400 yards. He took the shot and nailed him, but weirdly, the antelope froze on all 4's....he was the most well balanced dying animal ever! He stood there for over 7 minutes when D finally decided to go ahead and shoot him again. He took another 400 yard shot and dropped him. Derrick was THRILLED with this antelope. He is really tall, has great curls, and even ivory tips...and a weird 3rd horn starting to grow out of the middle of his forehead.

It was the last night of the last day of our hunt and we were trying hard to get Cherise an antelope. For some reason, the antelope were super spooky. The groups were running all over God's creation and we couldn't get set up on a buck even within 600 yards! Finally, a group took off for the top of a mountain and settled in around 650. They told me to shoot and I thought they were crazy. I trusted the gun, but I'd never shot that far. I got set up, and took the shot and was just barely barely over the top of him! Hazer realized he had dialed the scope to 650 for me, but we hadn't taken into account the uphill angle. But we didn't get another shot to correct as the group moved over the top of the mountain. A group that kept running from us all evening finally calmed down about 400 yards from us and I ended up taking a 400 yard shot at a mature buck in that group. Unfortunately, the shot wasn't perfect and I hit him fairly far back. He tumbled down the mountain which ended up breaking the tips off both of his horns and we had to end up finishing him off later. No hunter likes that situation, but it occasionally happens, which stinks.

Anyway, we were blessed with this trip. Got tons of great footage for Ranch Hand Horizons. Plus, we have a special treat to show as Derrick and Hazer recorded the process of custom gun making and we show a lot of that process in a "How its Made" format.

Ranch Hand Horizons will be airing on the Sportsman Channel the last week of December and running through June 2012. We will announce airtimes as soon as we know them!

Setting up for Success...

Ok so this week I am going to talk a little about my terrible elk hunt and more about how to pick a good trip for yourself in the future. Many of you that follow our Facebook page saw that my elk hunt was full of let downs, from the place being too small to hold elk, seeing more hunters than elk, having other hunters bust elk we were on, the outfitter storing weaned calves 100 yards from our tent, having his dog eat our food and on and on. I am not going to talk about all that or really my trip...I am going to focus on how to keep that from happening to you. 

            Because of the number of hunts we have to do for the TV show, I found a hunting consultant to help find hunts that meet our budget and timeline/geography criteria. This is a really good service but I don't think that they do all/any research about the outfitter for you, you have to do that yourself...trust no one. Their job is to just be overall knowledgable about the options available, book the hunt for you, and take about a 10% commission. This commission does not usually affect the cost of your hunt, but just know that if you find the hunt yourself you should at least try to get a 10% discount. Two consulting services that I have found and like are trailblazehuntingconsultants.com and the one I like best is outfitterpros.com. If you work with trailblaze, you will actually work with a person who will take all of your criteria and then find you some options. Outfitterpros is actually a website that works off a database to provide options that fit your criteria. 

After you find a couple you like ALWAYS ask for and call references. Trust me, I have made this mistake before. Also, don’t just ask about the animals they have, also ask about the person. Cherise and I learned the hard way that it is not enjoyable to spend 5 days with a guy that you cant stand to listen to...Trust me. Also be sure to ask for a web site address. Some will not have one, and that is fine...you can find some diamonds in the rough that do not have websites but most of them will. You want to check out their harvest photos and make sure they are recent and are actually from the place you are going to be hunting on - not the neighbors ranch or state land. 

I would next ask for game camera pictures/harvest pictures to be emailed to you. You want to make sure they have a lot of what you want and not just one deer that is a stud. Oh, and make sure they are recent. Also do not be afraid to ask them periodically for new pictures. If you are going to pay that kind of money they can at least keep you informed, right? One thing I am going to start doing and have not done in the past is ask for a map and/or a picture of the place. I think this is important because on my last elk hunt, I really wanted to be remote and be in the wilderness, but instead, we ended up camping basically in a field with all the outfitters' junk cars and pens of cattle and those situations aren't worth your time or money. Also, we thought we were hunting on a 5600 acre place when really it was 3 different small pieces of land divided up that totaled 5600 acres. The 1500-2000 acre pieces were just pass throughs for the elk. We may hear them, but you walk a little ways to get to them and find out they are on the other side of the fence on state land. That is a frustrating situation. The last thing I have learned and recommend is to be patient and wait. If you can wait for leftover or last min deals, I have seen hunts drop by more that 50% as you get close to the hunt and you can really save some cash that way if you can be flexible. 

We have been a part of really professional setups and really unprofessional setups already this year. Its VERY frustrating to spend thousands of dollars on every hunt and walk away empty handed or totally frustrated by the outfitter/guide or situation. Do your research. 

That’s all for now.

Gator Fest 2011!

OK, So I am running a little late on this blog, but better late than never, so here it goes... 
A couple weeks ago I met up with my good friend, pro staffer, and editor of Bayou Bucks magazine Matthew Debnam. Matthew and I got to be good friends working together at Bowtech through all the good times and bad. After we both left Bowtech, we said we would try to do a hunting trip each year together to try to keep up. Last year, we conquered spot and stalk bow hunting antelope in Wyoming on public land and this year we were looking for a little something different. Each year Cherise’s Dad gets 4 alligator tags for his place in Tivoli, Texas, and that is where Gator Fest 2011 began. Matthew drove down to Texas and we were off to the swamp. The first day started off well with Matthew smoking a good 6 ft gator with his Bowtech but things quickly went down hill from there. The gators started getting slim so we decided to take a lunch break. While taking lunch (in the middle of nowhere) we sat in the truck for a little AC away from the mosquitoes and had all the gear behind the truck. About 10 min later we saw a truck drive up quickly (first person I have ever seen there) and we jumped out fast yelling stop but it was too late. The guy that works the property had ran over Matthew’s bow ruining the top cam. After all that we broke out the 7mm from Bison Barrels and decided since we were on private land and the gators were being really spooky we would shoot one. We got in the John boat and begin looking for a gator. After a while, we saw one about 150 yards away and I layed prone in the John boat and smoked the second gator of the trip. After that it got really slow and we decided to set some baits for the tags we had left and call it a day. We headed back into Rockport to stay at the in-laws house and after cleaning the gators we had all the good seafood restaurants were closed so we settled on a nice burger at Whataburger and then crashed for the night in some much appreciated air conditioner! The next moring we got out there early and did a little duck hunting (1 duck) before getting on the gators again. We saw we only had caught one gator on the bait lines, but we decided to take my bow and try to get one more before it got too hot. About 10 min later, I was on a gator and we had another one down with the Bowtech. He ended up being the smallest at about 5 ft. We then went back to our bait to see what we had caught. I knew right away that it had to be a good gator as I had set the bait about 20 inches above the water. And sure enough, we had the trophy of the trip with solid gator at about 8’2”...wrapping up the Gator Fest 2011. In Florida, 8' might not be much, but in Texas, that's not a bad size at all. We were excited to have a successful hunt and some great footage for the show! The conditions were pretty miserable as we didn't get any relief from the Texas summer heat (so Cherise ended up being pretty ok with the fact that she didn't make this trip :) Here are some pics from the weekend....

The stinky chicken bait at sunset. The higher the bait, the less likely you'll get a gator, but the more likely you'll get a BIG gator!

South Texas swamp

Our cheap looking rigging...but it works!

We had 4 tags so wanted to take the early opportunities no matter the size....chock one up for the Bowtech!

Matthew Debnam and his trophy of the weekend

Hmmmm....teeeeeeeth

Thank you Leupold & Bison Barrels!

Tatonka GINORMOUS!

So far this year, we have filmed for Ranch Hand Horizons in Henrietta Texas hunting turkey lurkeys and Alberta Canada hunting black bears. This week, we graced Bozeman, Montana with our presence J and had an incredibly unique hunting experience. This week, we were after the great Tatonka, commonly known as the North American Bison or Buffalo. I went into this trip tentatively as the longest driving vacation my family had ever taken was from Texas to New Mexico. Derrick’s family however are driving fools and driving to Montana wasn’t nuttin’! So, as I type this, the truck has registered 38 hours of driving time since we’ve left Shiner with 20 hours and 19 minutes left to drive to get home (according to iPhone’s google maps). Oh. My. Goodness! Our trip there was actually pretty darn good. We stopped in Colorado Springs at the Ranch Hand Truck Accessories store to check that out and boy is that an awesome store! It is one of seven we currently have (5 in Texas, 1 in OK, and 1 in COL). Beautiful store, lots of product choices, super awesome show room, and great location!

We spent the night in Wheatland, Wyoming at the stinkin’ awesome Motel 6  for $73.13 :) The next day, we visited the Battle of the Little Bighorn National Monument and learned about Custer’s Last Stand and we played Sporcle on the iPhone for hours. Also, the big stop of the day was a slight detour through Gilette, Wyoming to visit our gun sponsor, Bison Barrels. Hazer Burkley designed two custom 7 mags for me and Derrick and Derrick’s was done and ready to go. He shot it at 400 and 600 yards and boy howdy was it a shooter! He fell in love with it immediately and I think his confidence in shooting soared just for having such a sharp gun! It also helped to have our incredible new CDS reticle Leupold scopes mounted on there provided by our awesome sponsor, Leupold!

Derrick’s younger brother is ironically working on a project in Bozeman, MT for his company so we brought our sister-in-law Kelly with us so she could stay with Logan for the remainder of the week. Logan was housed at Homewood Suites, which is a BEAUTIFUL hotel and somehow or the other his co-workers heard we were all coming and sweet talked the hotel clerk into giving us a complimentary room so we wouldn’t all 4 have to share a room!!! Not sure how that happened, but boy are we grateful. The hotel was gorgeous and we had an awesome room. Such a blessing!

We headed out to Gallatin Gateway, MT on Sunday night to meet with our guide and to head to the ranch to scout and learn how the whole buffalo hunting thing went. We were on the Flying D, which we learned was owned by Ted Turner, media tycoon/billionaire/2^nd largest private land owner in America. He owns 1.9 million acres of land in the US made up of 16 ranches…one of which being the Flying D which is ~125,000 acres. The largest free range bison herd lives here which is comprised of 2500 females plus calves and bulls. Boy, talk about a sight to see! We of course found the bison quickly as a herd that big is pretty hard to miss. We got to watch them for a long time and learn the difference between the mature bulls (can’t really miss the  2500+ pound tankers!) Except for the Canadian Rocky Mountains, I believe the Flying D Ranch was the most beautiful piece of property I have ever seen. The bison live in this 35,000 acre valley surrounded by rolling hills spotted with mule deer and elk and framed by snow capped mountain peaks.

The guide, Jim, was extremely informative and very pleasant to be with. We learned that the rut is just starting and that the bulls are coming out of the hills to join the cow/calf herd for breeding season. The bulls are either right in the middle of the group bellering and carrying on and sparring and such or they are resting around the perimeter several hundred yards away from the rest of the herd waiting on their opportunity to find a little love.  A dominant bison bull that is making ruckus sounds exactly like  a roaring lion. They take a deep breath, stick out their tongue, and make this crazy roaring noise.

We stayed til almost dark and then drove back through the beautiful ranch over beautiful streams and rivers and Jim dropped us back at our truck with instructions to be back at 6:30 AM the next morning.

The next morning, we were up early and made the 20 minute drive to our rendezvous point. Jim took us back to the ranch and we met up with our other guide, Mark, who was there to help once we shot one of the brutes. Again, we found the herd quickly, but unfortunately, there were very few bulls resting around the perimeters like they had been the night before. Now, interesting thing about  bison…when you shoot a mature bull, they obviously take  a little while to die since they’re so darn huge. Well as soon as any blood is exposed, the other bulls smell it in and come in to attack the dying bull (sad, I know…but important to the story). We were told it’s a dominance thing. The younger bulls try to kill the big bull to take his dominance and get rid of him. (Its possible that maybe the Native Americans of old taught bison to fight like cock fighting and maybe that trained habit stuck...? but I don’t think so J). So, based on that weird habit of bison, its important to find a bull that is by itself or at least on the perimeter of the herd or else by the time you get to it, the other bulls with have gored him and stomped him and torn up his cape and his meat and such…no bueno! Well we drove and drove and drove and there were no opportunities to hunt a good mature bull for several hours. We finally spotted one up on a hillside and we decided to go in for the stalk. Well, he saw us as we got closer and I guess he knew what we were up to because he immediately stood up and lumbered towards the herd at a good pace and we couldn’t get set up in time to get the shot off before he reached the cows & calves. We then spotted another bull that was kinda sorta in the herd, but he was the perfect bull we were looking for so our guide was willing to take the risk of shooting him close to the herd. Derrick wanted to shoot him at 300-400 yards with his new 7 mag, but the herd was crossing out in front of us and the bull we wanted was on the move to. By the time the bull was clear of any other bison, he was only 200 yards away. We didn’t want to risk shooting through him and hitting a cow or calf or immature bull, so Derrick had to wait and wait for the perfect shot. He finally shot and nailed him! The bull took the impact, took a couple of steps, and fell down….and in came the other bulls!! Ours was able to get his feet underneath him so Derrick shot again and again knocked him down. At this point, our other guide, Mark ran to his truck as fast as he could and drove to the frenzied bulls and drove them off as best he could. We then got over there as fast as we could. Bison are fairly comfortable with trucks as they go in and out of the ranch all the time, but they don’t like people so Jim jumped out with these crazy noise sticks things and ran around yelling at the mad bulls…crazy! Right?! Once the coast was clear, we got out to inspect our….MONSTER! Oh my goodness…we knew bison were big, but we had NO idea how BIG! There is no ground shrinkage when it comes to bison! Holy Schmoly that guy was overwhelmingly huge. Have I made it clear he was HUGE???! Bison are the largest animal in North America and Montana bison are significantly bigger than Nebraska or Colorado buffalo…and especially the Texas buffalo you see occasionally on game ranches or cutting horse training facilities. We walked up to this guy and gawked at his massiveness. We took lots of pictures and filmed everything we needed to for the show and then the hoist truck arrived.

There is no way in the world to budge this guy. Like Derrick, Jim, and Mark couldn’t even push him over with all three pushing as hard as they could. They had a 12,000 lb Warn winch and 15 foot tall hoist that they used to lift him up enough to gut him…..wow, talk about guts! They then used the hoist to lift him high enough to lay him on the back of a flat bed truck. Mark then left with the bison to head to the processor. We followed soon after and showed up at Amsterdam Custom Meats to see how the heck an animal that big is processed. Those fellas made quick work of it, but unbeknownst to us, there is so much heat in the meat because of its size that it has to be in a cooler at least overnight…they wanted to keep it until Friday! We told them we couldn’t stay til Friday as we hand’t budgetd that much time for this trip so we told them to just hunk it up into pieces and we’d come by in the morning for it.

Since we had an extra night we didn’t expect, we had the chance to eat dinner with Logan and Kelly and then we went into Four Corners for some real style go-Kart racing! We then turned in relatively early and showed up at the meat market around 8:15AM. We now have 850 pounds of meat in 6 coolers and 3 meat boxes in the truck! Because we didn’t have time for them to process it, they just hunked it up, vacuum sealed it, and now we have a HUGE project ahead of us. We still had to pay full price as though they had fully processed it all :( but that’s what they charged for handling it. We now have to either process it ourselves or pay someone else again to actually process it in sausage or ground meat or steaks. Bummer…but we couldn’t wait several more days til it was ready. We also dropped off the hide (which is 300 pounds by itself) at a taxidermist to have it tanned….so some day we will have a giant, beautiful bison head to hang on our floor to ceiling rock fireplace (which we don’t have!) :)

We are now on our way home and look forward to one day seeing a shoulder mount of Clark (as in Lewis & Clark) or Tonka (as in the Sioux name for Bison)….not sure what we’re going to name him yet.

Ya know, no one has ever claimed bison hunting as the hardest hunting in the world. I mean, there are thousands of them, so they’re kind of hard to miss. Some people say they’re dumb and easy, but as the guide pointed out…its kind of like Mike Tyson walking into a bar. They have nothing to be afraid of…they’re the biggest and baddest around. Besides wolves which are just now infiltrating that area, they have no enemies. So, they come across dumb and defenseless, but really they’re just nonchalant about danger. However, this hunt was different that most as the appreciation of the beauty of the country, the majesty of the animal, and the nostalgia of the history of the bison in North American history made it an emotional experience….an unforgettable experience…a hunt of a lifetime. 

Black Bear Catastrophes & Success!

5.15.2011

So we shouldn't have internet access right now because we are supposed to be in the backwoods of Alberta...however, as it seems our situations have gone lately, we are now stuck in a po-dunk motel in Whitescourt, Alberta because Continental never got our bow case from Houston to Canada. We flew out of San Antonio to Houston to Calgary to Edmonton. When we arrived, our outfitter got a call that his bear camp was being threatened by a wildfire and everyone must evacuate. We made the decision to go to the largest city nearest bear camp...about 2.5 hours north of the airport and stay in a hotel there and have the airport deliver our bows when they arrived (there is about $4K worth of equipment in that case...2 pairs of binoculars, 2 bows, broadheads, archery releases, etc etc). We landed at 2PM and the case was rerouted and would not arrive until 9PM. Well we drove the 2.5 hours north only to be stopped by a roadblock because forest fires were encroaching on that town. Sure enough, the fires jumped the road and began burning the city down...hospital, police station, homes, car dealerships, and on and on. As of the next morning it was reported that about 40% of the town had been burned…40%! Winds were gusting up to 90mph! They said they have NEVER seen winds like this. We were in the roadblock for over 2 hours til we decided to turn around and go back to our outfitter's hometown, about 2.5 hours another direction...so after 21 hours of traveling, (we started the day at 4AM) we checked into a po-dunk motel with the biggest jacuzzi tub with carpeted steps into it & giant wall sized mirrors you have ever seen. :-/ (ick!!) Oh, and I forgot to mention that this guy we were stuck in the same car with for 7+ hours uses more profanity in every sentence than in any R rated movie you have ever seen. It seems to be the normal thing up there, but it is beyond belief. 

I'm sure things will get better as long as his bear camp wasn't burned down...that's yet to be determined...oh and if our livelihood ever shows up in Edmonton. 

5.16.2011

So this morning started off with good news. Derrick’s cell phone rang at about 8AM and Edmonton airport has our bow case! Woohoo! However, the plot thickens again as we were told that because our bow case was locked, they would not clear it through customs and we had to come back to Edmonton to claim it with our case keys and passports. It is an SKB case, and all SKB cases have TSA approved & accessible locks meaning they are made to be transported in airports! Security is supposed to be able to get into them! So Derrick made 5-6 more phone calls and we actually got some helpful people on the other line, but final word came from customs, and they said we had to come. SO…we had our outfitter pick us up at the Western Budget motel and take us back 2 hours to Edmonton. Derrick got taken back after a few minutes and security/customs had Derrick pick it up, put it on the table, unlock it, open it, and handle everything…apparently, our Octane stabilizers looked like pipe bombs and they were legitimately concerned!! So, after a few minutes, they were convinced it was all ok and Derrick came out of the sliding glass doors victorious. We then loaded back up and started north again. We ended up back in Whitescourt (where we had just come from), met up with the other guides who had had to evacuate from the camp the night before because of the fires and we kept on going. However, the normal route was closed, so we had to take a HUGE detour around (several hours)….what should have been a 3 hour journey yesterday, has turned into another 12 hour travel day today because of many stops along the way to get needed supplies and more delays. We stopped at a gas station to get our hunting licenses and I have nothing at all against foreigners, but for heavens sake, if you are going to run a business in a country that speaks English, you’re going to have to learn to speak it better! This poor little Chinese man tried to process our licenses but somehow accidentally processed us as residents versus non-residents and the system would not allow a bear tag to be purchased. Fortunately, our guide caught this and told him to void them all & start over. Unfortunately, he couldn’t figure out how to void them…turns out our guide figured out that he had stapled my wildlife certificate number to Derrick’s wildlife identification number so he had the information crossed. Finally our guide asked if he could come behind the counter and do it himself. Thank goodness the little Asian man agreed! Finally, we got them all voided out and started over. What should have taken 15 minutes took 1.5 hours!! So, we then took off again until we reached the last town of civilization before bear camp. We pulled over to get gas and when we took off again, the other guide who was pulling the trailer full of everything forgot he had the trailer on the back and slammed the tire against a curb. It bent the rim and blew out the tire!! Seriously, could anything else go wrong?? Oh wait, the answer is yes…the gas station we were at had had the end of the air machine stolen so we couldn’t fill the tire up after the rim had been hammered back in place. So we went to another gas station….theirs had been stolen too….so we went to another gas station, and fortunately, they were good to go. So, we are off again and I type as we drive. Supposedly, we are less than an hour from camp….hopefully, that is true, eh?

5.17.2011

Well we did end up making it to bear camp last night. For a while, we thought we were lost on some oilfield & logger backroads, but Blair took the correct roads and we finally made it! It was about 11pm but we got to see 5 bears on the way in!! One big ol guy and 2 babies climbing a tree which made it really fun. Then, all of a sudden, Blair slammed on the brakes, threw it in reverse, and yelled that he had just seen a black timberwolf! Derrick had bought the wolf tag and boy howdy would a wolf have made his day. The wolf disappeared, but we grabbed a gun and ran up the logger trail after it. Derrick spotted it again and slammed himself up against a tree to try to get stable and pulled off a shot. The wolf was running, Derrick was breathing hard, adrenaline was pumping, and unfortunately, he missed it. I somehow got the moments on camera so we verified later that he shot right over the top of it…DARN! Having a black wolf mount would have been pretty darn cool. Derrick of course was sick about it, but his chances were slim to none in the first place.

Anyway, we made it in and set up the necessities.  Because the whole place had been evacuated just the night before, EVERYTHING except the structures were piled in a trailer. We pulled out cots and sleeping bags, unloaded our stuff, and went to bed to the smell of smoke and the sound of tent walls flapping in the wind. This morning, we slept in a bit as bear hunting doesn’t start until late afternoon. Froggy had cooked us a yummy warm breakfast which got our day going. We pretty much hung out the whole day…napped, talked, learned about bears and Canda. We went out at about 3PM to a treestand set up that had been built for us and Billy Jack and Blair set up the bait. They sprayed vanilla all over trees, threw the rotten stinky beaver carcass into the bait bucket along with oats, chocolate syrup , and every other random concoction of calories. We got a Gorilla treestand set up above the perma-treestand and I settled in as hunter and Derrick as cameraman. 2-3 long hours went by and Derrick was listening to the iPod when I heard heavy footsteps coming up behind us. I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, a pretty black bear was coming in! She got pretty close to our stand sniffing and snorting and such and then took a big wide circle around to the bait bucket. I was ready and standing with my bow, but we were having such a good time watching her, I wasn’t quite ready to shoot…plus we wanted some good footage. Well unbeknownst to us, beavers were her favorite and she grabbed that beaver right out of the barrel and took off with it. My heart sunk because I was afraid that I should have shot the bear and we had lost it. Fortunately, she only went about 20 yards behind some brush and chowed down on it for a while and fortunately again, she came back for dessert! We didn’t give her too much time this time as we didn’t want to risk losing her again. She had stuck her head in and out of the barrel once or twice and as soon as she gave me a good shot, I took it. I hit her a bit far back but she was quartered away from me a little so we were hoping that the arrow went through the vitals. She took off running and we were both shaking. We viewed and reviewed the video and got more and more nervous until quite a while later we heard the “death moan” a pretty good ways off. I was honestly saddened by the sound as the actual death of an animal brings me no joy. However, we were glad to know she was down and ready to be tracked. We climbed down with the camera and bows and started looking for blood. Took us a while to find any, but once she started to bleed, she had left us a good trail. We tracked her for several hundred yards and then Derrick finally spotted her. At that point, we knew where she was and so we headed back to the stand to sit for the remainder of the evening. About an hour or more later, the most eerie change of conditions occurred. The sky turned dark with an orangey/yellowy tint. It got so dark, we lost camera light. We started getting nervous that we were going to lose our lives to ravaging forest fires. We decided to crawl down and head back to camp to make sure we weren’t missing an evacuation or some important memo. We got in, but they weren’t too worried so we headed back out for another hour or so. We had no more activity until the guides came in with 4 wheelers to pick up my bear. We got her loaded up and back on the road, when I spotted a black blob way down the road. We got the binocs out and Blair said that we had a big bear coming in so we took off down the road towards it and got into the woods to wait. Unfortunately, he decided to detour and must not have liked what he saw because he disappeared. We then took off again only to go several hundred yards when Blair and Billy Jack blew to a stop and signaled for us to get out of the truck and run. Sure enough, ANOTHER huge bear was coming down the road, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with us either. So…we didn’t have a chance at the big guys, but tomorrow is another day and we know where they’re hanging out. The camp cook, Froggy, had a wonderful sirloin/potatoes/vegetable dinner waiting for us and here in a minute we’re hittin’ the hay. Check out my black beauty!

5.18.2011

I slept like a baby last night! Blair got me another sleeping back and a foam cushion and good golly I just melted into bed and slept through the night. We got up to another warm breakfast compliments of Froggy and then lounged around for a while until Derrick and I decided to try our hand to pike fishing. We took out the little motored jon boat and both caught our first pike ever. We caught about 8, got 5 in the boat, and kept 2. I caught the BIGGEST, but Derrick accidentally let him go right before he got in the boat! (seriously, I’m not just sayin that!).

It was beautiful on the lake with lots of ducks, loons, and sunshine. Around 5 oclock, we headed back out to the bear stand to sit and sit and sit…around 9PM or so (it stays light until 11ish), I heard a rustle of leaves way behind me. Derrick was listening to his iPod so I had to get his attention. I wasn’t quite sure if it was a squirrel scratching around but finally I was convinced that it was a steady pattern of footsteps. I turned slowly and I finally caught a glimpse of him behind me and he was coming straight in. When he got a little behind our tree stand, he made a big loop around to the left and came out right in front of us then turned towards us. We had thrown a little bit of sandwich crust out on the ground in front of us so we both thought it was funny that he was headed to the sandwich rather than the bucket full of yummy bear stuff. However, he wasn’t interested in the sandwich….he was interested in US! He came straight up to the steps on the treestand and looked right at us with his beady little eyes. He then proceeded to put a foot up on the ladder…then 2…then 3. Derrick finally freaked out and “pssshhed” him back down. He retreated but stepped behind our stand for a little while huffin and puffin and again considered climbing the tree up to us. He then made his way back around to the front of the stand and looked back up at us. At that point I had disconnected the camera from the camera arm because he was so close I couldn’t get the right angles on him. The bear was about 5 feet in front of the stand and Derrick drew and let one fly. The bear dropped immediately and let out a terribly sad sounding moan. Derrick thought he KO’ed him right there! But unfortunately, he didn’t. The bear got his senses back and started fighting and twisting and turning. Derrick grabbed another arrow and shot at him, but he was flippin and kickin’ and didn’t get a fatal wound on him. The bear dragged himself away and we were freakin’ out!! Seriously, we were both shaking involuntarily. I couldn’t hold the camera straight. We waited a while but wasn’t sure what to do as we never heard the “death moan.” We knew we were running out of daylight though so finally we climbed down and started following his trail. Fortunately, the wound was bleeding a lot so we made it about 75 yards or so and decided we Texas kids had no idea what we were getting into and Derrick only had one arrow left with no gun. We decided retreating was the wise decision and we headed back to camp to get Blair. In most circumstances, we would have waited until morning to track him, but Blair was concerned we were having fires move in on us and might not have a chance to track him in the morning. So…we got flashlights and rifles and headed back out. We tracked him on and on through “the bush.” We kept finding blood so we stayed optimistic and kept on going until we got to a pretty dense area and Blair became uncomfortable with the situation. He said the bruin could be anywhere within reach and he could easily be mad and well enough to charge without notice. So, again, we made the wise decision and decided to retreat with the hope of coming back in the morning.

So, we ate dinner around 12:30 (our first taste of moose…yum yum roast) and went right to bed. While sleeping well, we heard a loud entrance to our tent and a loud voice saying “this is RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and you guys gotta get up and start breaking down camp now. Fires are coming and y’all have to leave.” WOW!!! 2:30 in the morning! We flew out of bed and started piling our stuff in our suitcases and stuffing everything wherever in might go. A few minutes later, Blair came in relatively unconcerned and said we would be waiting until morning and would then pack up and head out…then he left. (little more information please!)…Derrick, being the natural protector/worrier that he is (totally legit in this situation) was VERY concerned and could not go back to sleep. He went ahead and finished packing up and then decided to take all of our stuff up to the trucks so it’d be completely packed up in case we needed to leave in a heartbeat. He kept coming and going checking the skyline for fires…there was definitely smoke, but there had been smoke the whole time so that wasn’t anything too new. Finally he settled back in bed for a little bit of sleep. The alarm went off at about 6:30 and we were up and at ‘em packing the camp up. Now when we say packing the camp up, we’re talking about 5 HUGE perma military tents, the kitchen tent with stove and appliances and woodstove and food and frig, etc etc. They had a boat and shower and 2 outhouses and gear to last 2 months. Finally, Blair mentioned Derrick’s bear and asked if we wanted to give it another go. I could just feel Derrick’s heart explode. He was SO sick that he would have to leave his bear out there to burn. SICK SICK SICK. Blair, Derrick, and I loaded back up and went back to the blood trail. We went another 500 yards or so…tracking blood the whole way. We finally came up against a big lake with an old beaver run. We turned the corner and Blair said “there he is” as he was bringing up his gun and sure enough, there was the big ol black bear! He was quite alive and was trying to make his getaway so Blair had to shoot him…3 times! That guy was resilient! Blair didn’t want to risk him getting up and running as we wouldn’t have time to track him any longer. We got him out with the 4 wheeler and back to camp. He was skinned just in time and we loaded up and headed out of camp. As we were leaving, we could hear the roars of the fire approaching! We got about 20-25 miles down the road and ran into a police barricade and we asked them if they had any news. They said the fire had jumped the road at mile marker 17....right where the camp was and we had just left! Glad we got out of there. Check out Derrick's black brute!!

At this point, we were done with the hunt. We had two tags left to fill and only got 2 out of our 7 days, but we were ready to be done. There had been so much stress associated with the whole experience. However, flying home early would cost hundreds of dollars of change fees and price upgrades so we decided to explore Alberta! We found out that the Canadian Rockies were just a few hours to our west and if anyone has ever been to Bamff, Jasper National Park, and Lake Louise, they can't say enough about it...so we rented a car and away we went! We spent two days driving and found a cute little hotel along the way. Spent way more money than we had budgeted for the trip, but really had no other choice. Rather than type any more, I'm just going to use pictures to say the words....thanking the Lord for his BEAUTIFUL creation and creativity! WOW...ever get a chance to see the Canadian Rockies....don't pass it up!!