Let's see if I can cover everything.
It was the first week in September, 2007.
Northern Quebec.
We arrived in camp on a Friday afternoon. The camp caretaker took all of out on the front porch of the eating cabin, and pointed across the lake and said that they see a lot of caribou over off that point, and down around that inlet, and quite a few haven been taken over by that beach, and they have taken a few nice bulls over on that hill side. I said that it sounds like you have them just about everywhere. He answered, yep, pretty much.
So everybody started tossing bags into cabins and grabbing rifles and what ever else they might need and groups headed out in every direction.
My friend and I decided to take a canoe across to the beach and just walk a BIG circle to try and get a feel for the land and figure how we wanted to hunt it the next day.
We got to the top of the first big hill, and figured we would walk to the top of the next bigger hill, and that should give us good view of the landscape. Then we figured if we crossed over to the top of the next really big hill, we could circle back to the water and to canoe, then cross back to camp and be back in time for dinner.
We finally got to the top of the third hill, and at just about the same instant, we saw something move. (Now I should probably say that I have always been more impressed by wide racks then anything else.) I saw he had a decent rack, and tried not to look at it again. I got down on one knee, lowered the legs on the bi-pod, got situated, and he just stood there. Facing us with at ever so slightly an angle. The bull would look at me, then over at my buddy, then back at me, then over at my buddy. All this time I am trying not to look at the rack.
The bull just simply would not turn to offer a broadside shot. We were about 80-85 yards apart. I finally put the cross hairs on him where the neck and shoulder met. He turned his head, I saw the rack fill my scope, and thought OH MY GOD!!!!
I squeezed the trigger, the .280 roared, the bull twirled and trotted in about a 15 yard half circle, and just stood there. I popped out the casing and reloaded. Got the cross hairs on hi lungs and before I had a chance to cock the hammer, he dropped over backwards.
My buddy ran over to me, and we walked up the the bull, I put a last shot through his lungs to finish him off quickly.
When he went down, he went back onto his rack, so we couldn't it sticking up to see how wide it was, but when we got up him, the only thing I could say was HOLY S*!T, HOOOLY S*!T, OH MY GOD, HOLY S*!T....
So we decided I needed to go back to camp and get the caretaker, and my buddy would stay with my caribou. So we could find it again, and in case something else came along, maybe he could get a shot..
I got back to camp, told them I got one. They said they were hoping they would have the night off from packing anything out. I told them where I got him and that he was a nice one, and they asked, what were you doing that far back in?
Now, I am sure that when most flatlanders, so to speak, come up there and shoot anything, they will think it is a nice one, so they didn't get too excited.
When we got back up to where he was, the caretaker looked at him on the ground and said HOLY S*!T. Then I felt better. He said a bull like that was worth walking over another couple of hill tops.
It turned out to be the biggest bull taken in any of their camps that year. Outside spread was just over 53 inches. Everything else in our camp fit inside of it.
When we got back to base camp to spend the night before coming home, I was talking to another hunter from another camp, and commented that I had gotten a pretty nice one and told him how big it was, and said, oh that one is your's. That's the one everyone is looking at and talking about. They got it out of the freezer to show everybody.
Like THAT didn't make me smile from ear to ear.
