Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting What happened to the backpack hunt stories?

The next morning the mountain behind us (where 1/2 the meat was still stashed) was socked in with fog. The mountains across the lake had patches of fog moving around. I told my brother - well we could go get the meat in that fog or glass the other side that we could possibly hunt. After about 30 minutes of glassing a fog patch moved reveling 6 goats and 1 lone goat a couple hundred meters from the group. Thinking that goat might be a billy we decided to close the distance.
Halfway around the lake, hiking through chest high scrub birch, I saw a bull looking at me from about 180 yards. I ducked down, whipping off my pack and whispered to my brother "big bull". After freeing my rifle I stood back up. The bull was looking head on and neither of us could get a point count. After what seamed like minutes, but was probably 30 seconds the bull turned and started trotting away. I counted 6 points plus the rear kicker - boom...smack. Just as I heard the bullet impact the bull disappeared behind a clump of balsams. I told my brother - stay with the packs and i sprinted in the direction of the bull with just my rifle. When I got over there he was not lying there as I had hoped, nor could I see him escaping on any of the rolling terrain covered in the chest high brush. I turned to my brother and motioned a shrug and turn around away from him not knowing where he went....then I saw him swimming across the lake. I laid down prone and removed my binoculars & harness to use as a front rest. As he neared the far bank at about 300 metres away he was moving slower and as he was wading out of the water he was wobbling and laboring to move. I hadn't led him enough and the shot had taken him in the paunch and clipped the liver. In my head I was cheering him on " keep going, you can make it to shore! only a few more meters". I wanted to wait until he got to dry land before firing as it would make field dressing easier. Then when he got to shore & turned broadside a fired a shot to behind his shoulder. He fell down, I reloaded and stayed on him as his head was still up. Then his head fell to the ground, I jumped up and cheered to my brother "caribou bull down!". I turned around to see the tough bull stagger to his feet, so again i laid prone and put a fired a finishing shot.