Hello All,
I have moved from my beloved East Kootenays to Anahim Lake in BC's Cariboos, to accept a job teaching High school. It's a good thing I'm big and can shoot passible.
Anyways, I have never been to this area before... It sure is wild...and isolated!!!!! I went out about a half hour from town to an area where the locals said there were only cariboo and goats and I managed to shoot a decent three point (western count) whitetail. I started walking a trail above Poison Lake, about 2kms in I found a mound of grizzley scat that I can only describe as IMPRESSIVE!!! If the caliber of that turd is any indication of the size of the bear, I don't ever want to run into it!
I turned around then and there; I was almost back to the road and was sort of daydreaming when the buck jumped out on the trail 40 yards in front of me. It would be hard to say who was more surprized, me or that buck, because at the first sight of brown fur I had a flash back to the grizz turd.
The rifle came up awful quick!!!!!
That buck ran straight away from me down the trail, I whistled and me came to a stop and turned broadside for me. He was 110 yards from me (paced later) and at the shot he pulled up the front leg closest to me and tipped over. The first shot out of a clean barrel in my rifle is always about 4 inches higher than where I'm aiming so, I usually fire a fouling shot before I go out. I forgot to do that this time so I spined him. GOOD THING TOO because I tore up my ankle playing soccer the week before
(Doc said it was the worst tearing he'd seen in his career) so I didn't want to have to track him very far through the bush. That 160 grain grand slam smashed the top of both shoulder blades, the spine, and exited. Bone fragments messed up the lungs.
Loading him into the trunk of the car, alone, with a bad leg was a challenge! Shooting that buck, alone, and crippled, out here, has made me a bit of a local legend and has granted me a huge level of respect. I'm not just some city slicker "Nedo" (means white guy), from down south anymore. Some people doubted it was actually a white-tail, and some doubted that it was taken anywhere within 2 hours of here, but the butcher testified that he watched me skin it outside of his shop. Plus, the next day to satisfy his curiousity, I took him straight to what was left of the gut-pile. That has silenced the critics.
I can't recommend hunting alone, in a remote area (by Canadian standards!), a week after a terrible injury, but I love to hunt! That whitey rack will forever have a special place in the "man room" of my house.
Now, how about about your "Best, worst hunts ever"?
