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Man, now I know how those guys addicted to cape buffalo feel!

I just got back to Egypt from two weeks in Utah, a week in the Yukon bush after Bison and another week and a half of fishing up there. All in all, after the last five weeks and having now returned to the Cairo haze and traffic, I think it is time for this old boy to retire to a life of leisurely sporting pursuits.

I arrived in Whitehorse on a weekend and immediately checked into my favorite youth hostel (YES, I am a cheap bastard so I can afford more hunting trips). There were lots of Asians looking for the northern lights, the occasional German musher, and the usual hippies on their way to Alaska staying there. It was all but guaranteed I was the only resident of the Beez Kneez Backpackers Hostel on his way to whack stuff. Anyway, the people are nice there, the coffee is hot and the beds are warm so it worked out fine. My outfitter, Tim Mervyn of Mervyn's Yukon Outfitters, and I had already spoken at the FNAWS conference in Utah about me coming up again and the logistics of making the necessary license arrangements. Once I got permission from "she who must be obeyed", Tim and I headed out into the bush two days after I hit Whitehorse.

On the way in we encountered a bunch of guys who had taken a young bull that very day and who had also apparently spooked the hell outta the herd we were going in there after. Consequently, this became a heck of a hunt with us getting little more than short looks at the ass end of bison for a few days. On day four we cut tracks from a completely separate group and hiked up to them a little more than half a kilometer off our current path.

There is no driving up to these things! This ain't no ranch hunt! Previous animals we had bumped either ran at the sound of the ski-doo or at the sound of the engine cutting out. We were spending probably 6-8 hours per day on the ski-doos or glassing valleys and mountainsides. I like to think of this trip as a winter elk hunt where the elk weigh 2400 pounds. In any case, having found a group of animals, we stalked in slowly and where I saw one bull, the taller Tim Mervyn made out three...no four....no five! We made our way slowly to a higher position to properly assess the animals and agreed that the middle of the five was the largest and lead animal. We were clearly correct as after a .416 diameter Barnes bullet knocked out both the beast's front shoulders, the other bulls had no idea what to do or where to go. They were looking for guidence where there was none to be had. The bull had taken little more than a step and just layed down on his chest.

Here's where things got interesting. Both Tim and I thought the bull was done for until we were about 60 yards away with four other bulls looking at us and their fallen friend. Those other bulls truly knew something we didn't though as their buddy then stood right up and tried to make a break for it! Fortunately, a flurry of shooting from both my .416 and Tim's .338 put him right down again. Honestly, it was not my best shooting performance this day and I learned a valuable lesson...always plan to take twice as much ammo as you think you need, and then double that amount actually in your pockets! While the mature bull may have been on his last legs from the first shot, or the volley of rounds when he stood, I put three more into the vitals just to be sure. Anyone else remember the trapper in the NWT who was killed by a wounded wood bison a few years ago? I do and consequently decided that ammo is cheap relative to medical evacuation and stitches. It was finally over when the mature bull slowly rolled onto his side and his friends, apparently acknowledging the end of the episode, sauntered off into the bush. It took us about four hours to skin and butcher the prehistoric looking creature and most of the next day to shuttle meat, gear, and hide back from the cabin and kill site to the vehicle.

In short, this was another absolutely amazing hunt with Tim Mervyn that I'll try to write about and publish in a more eloquent form at some point in the future. I figure a ranch hunt for bison in the lower 48 takes a maximum of four hours from start to finish. This hunt took us four days and was every bit of 24 times (if not 2400 times) the experience. I wholeheartedly recommend this hunt to anyone!

Best Regards,

John

Edited by JohnTheGreek (27/03/08 06:32 AM)

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