Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Toughest Hunt You've Ever Had?

Yeah, you're aldi-raine-sphere, at best, Peter Puffer. We've got your number, lover boy. We already know all about you and your friend, "Ken", in Arizona.

lol, for what?

Ohhhh�this is good!

This is truly the best stuff since Lee 24!!


I think the toughest hunt ever would be one wading through Mav's posts, looking for a shred of honesty.

I didn't think it could get any better but it did. This guy is a comic genius, a cross between Larry Root and Rain Man.

It isn't quite as good as the infamous "Mall Ninja" yet. It is nostalgic though.

We?

page 3, Entering the schizophrenia stage....

Just as anticipated, and still on schedule.

The slope is slick.

Sheep hunting. 1975. 25 years old and as smart as I am now at 65. (I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but the body is showing a bit of wear and tear) But still..., with more time than in the past.... Only now there is a beaten down horse-packing trail and a good bit of competition back in there.. Taller brush too. Just not the same....

It was a solo sheep hunt, my first ever sheep hunt, cross-country hiking, game trails only, mostly above timber/brush-line ridge-top walking. 18 miles to the sheep mountain. A piece of visqueen, pad, sleeping bag, light weight (for then) .243 rifle (still weighs the same now!), 2 knives, pack saw, a lb. of cape salt, map and compass, 6 days food ( I was planning on eating sheep or going without the last two days coming out, if my pkg of Mt House and alcohol heat-can stashed half-way in got claimed by a bear), one change (2 pr) of socks, incidentals. First-aid kit was a tube of salve, a half dozen aspirin and Band-Aids each, a roll of adhesive tape.

2 days to hike in, taking it easy, looking the country over. Started and camped at either end at 3500 feet, with a 5300 foot mountain to cross over the top and some ups and downs in between. Side-hilling Big Ugly impossible. It has another name- we just call it "Big Ugly", tho it isn't as bad as it looks -assuming you don't try to side-hill. A guy could easily - and probably- die that way.

Killed a 29 1/2 inch tight full curl 2nd day hunting. There were 5 bigger ones in the band of 11, including a bruiser at least a curl and a quarter (but no where near 40" - maybe 36, but damned pretty!), but this guy was looking at me at 50 feet when I stuck my head over the rock I was laying behind, 50 yards from the whole group bedded down in the stream bed. He had seen previous bob-ups and came to investigate, apparently..... and itt just doesn't pay to surprise a man with a gun... The rest of them ran up on the slope 200 yards away and watched me butcher. ":Sacrificial lamb" comes to mind....

2- 14 hour days, single-packing (no relaying) out, 50 feet to 200 yards at a time between rests, depending on terrain. Didn't have a walking staff, so if I didn't have a hillside or rock, it was roll over on my knees and climb the rifle to get back to my feet. That fricken 5300 foot mountain was a pain...

The pack's (Kelty B-5 - near or at top of the line at the time ) back strap strips and shoulder straps had to be replaced. They barely made the road, all ripped out as they were. Basically, it was my back against that aluminum pack frame struts by the time I got to the road. I'd been packing 2-at a time 80 lb. feed sacks across the quarter of mile of swamp (no drive-way yet) all summer to my brother's homestead outside of Fairbanks. This coming out pack was at least as heavy. I am 6 foot tall and weighed 153 lbs at the time. I'm up to a 160 - 165, now - emergency rations around the waist. Thank you beer!

Some SOB had stolen the 5 gallons of gas out of the back of my truck, which I should have poured in before I left the road. I had 3 dollars in my wallet for gas once I got to Tok. No credit card, and they would not take a check. Bastids...

I drove that little Datsun all the way back to Fairbanks at 35-mph, coasting down the hills and up to stops, but made it and caught my brother on his way to work at Curry's Corner for gas money . Cheapest sheep he ever got. The tank, stuffed, took about 2 gallons more than it's book-rated capacity...I estimated there wasn't another mile left in it.

That was so much fun that I took my girlfriend and 100 lb. Lab on the same hunt the next year, the Lab being too young for a pack the previous year. I took another full curl, about 300 yards from the previous one, at about 50 yards up in the rim-rock, after a miscommunication/screw-up that had earlier spooked and scattered the rams.

Lighter trip out this time, split 3 ways. She got most of the camp, the dog and I got the sheep, plus personal stuff, rifle and a few things. 20 for the dog, 40 for the girlfriend, about 100 for me. After coming up on 38 years of marriage, she is still pissed at me for walking off and leaving her a quarter mile from the truck. I wanted out of that pack, and she was so slow..., and the truck was right there in plain sight, on easy down-grade ground.

She smoked for another 8 years.... Served her right IMO. which may be why she is still pissed....

The next year, I took my week- since-married new bride (and the Lab) back there on our honeymoon. Some people are such suckers! (she trapped me!) And she took a full curl larger than my two, of course. All under 32", but full.

5 or 6 years ago I posted the story of our attempt to recreate this magic hunt with our youngest 20-something son, current Lab, an aging now dead Dachshund ( "the Weasel") who was convinced he was a caribou hunter and disappeared for hours at a time tracking , only to rejoin us with accusing looks- he'd had some experience at this in previous years... Our only worry with him was eagles. He was an excellent tracker downer...

We busted on the sheep hunt, having curtailed time, then getting fog-bound (only a mile off-track) the first night, and then an obscuring snow storm about 4 miles short of the mountain the second night on the way in. We abandoned the sheep hunt and took a caribou on the way back to the road. We all had tags, and would have taken 2 more of the hundreds we passed thru on the way in, but an emergency closure cancelled further hunting the night we hit the road with the single caribou, after a mere 3 days of season.

As hunts from hell go, this one is my all time favorite.

^^^^That's what I'm talking about!

Mine was a Dall Sheep hunt also...a fine animal to have a wonderful adventure hunting!

Toughest hunt I ever had took in Sonora Mexico with a dear friend Doug Rodgers from Whitesboro Texas and may have been the most rewarding. It took place over 2 seasons and the first year we hunted 6 straight days from sunup to sundown and we missed a big 185-190" typical about 20 minutes before dark on the last day. There was a small limb with no leaves on it that neither of us saw in the fading light and his bullet center punched it and we looked forward to the next year. Opening morning of the second year we saw a giant. First buck we saw about 30 minutes from camp. We were unable to kill him but stayed on it. Again, we hunted every day sunup to sundown and we hunted about 3 different places. I held Doug off of a 195" typical on the last night because he was missing an entire G2 and G3 on his right side. I should say it would have been a 195" deer had the deer been all there. We ended up back at camp on the last night of his hunt with no deer. It was a terrible feeling. 12 days of non stop hunting and no deer. I told Doug that I would get him up early and we would go hunt before we had to go to the airport. We left camp as the sky was pinking in the east and we went to where we saw the giant buck opening morning. As luck would have it we found him and killed him and the deer was better than I thought.

Doug ended up missing his flight that day and the deer ended up on the cover of Eastmans Journal with the title "Mexico Monster". It was a fitting end to a tough damn 12 1/2 days in the desert.

Here is footage from the morning we killed it�.

Nice buck Drum!

An old, scanned print picture from the hunt. Notice the ancient backpack equipment and wood stocked rifles...how did we ever get by with that stuff?.....grin!

Above the South Nahanni River, in the Ragged Range of the Northwest Territories.

My pard, Al Klassen back at Glacier Lake. Behind him is Mount Harrison Smith, in the, "Cirque of the Unclimbables." It took us two days of bushwack through heavy forage, and 6,000 verticle feet, before we got above timberline. A Japenese climber died while attempting to climb the headwall on Smith, while we were on our hunt. We could hear a helicopter way off in the distance, trying to recover him.

Thats pretty damn cool! You and Al are two guys I would love to hunt with before I die

Al, with a Mountain Goat I shot on the hunt. This billy was 10 1/2 years old, but only measured 8 1/4". The meat was tough, but good.

Below lies the South Nahanni River.....I believe all of this country now is a National Park, and closed to huntng forever.

If you're young and have dreams of hunting adventure, do it now. Don't put it on hold.

Good stuff.

Pats is always good stuff!


Wonder where Mav's pics are?

Not hard to separate fact from fiction ya know?

I get it now, you live in Pinedale.

Man, talk about federal charges just due to internet conversations...

My suggestion, get some thicker skin and get a life.

Careful! He might sue you too

Maybe that can be Mavs new nickname, "Sue"

My first deer hunt after my dad died was the toughest in my life. I could hear him walking, crushing the dry leaves that were piled across the ridges and kept waiting to hear his ancient 8mm Mauser bark.


Terry