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The last day before our group’s start date, we put several miles on foot and dozens more behind wheels trying to locate herds with obvious bulls. We located several areas where bison had crossed the highway and led on and off an area called Panoramic Fields and back onto private land on the other side of the road, but other than the couple of places we actually laid eyes on bison, there were lots of question marks.

As an added unexpected bonus, SD and I spotted several birds in our travels between searching for bison, and I was able to kill three spruce grouse with three shells. Boy are they beautiful birds. The last one I killed was a big, mature male who took a single #8 pellet from SD’s 870 that I used. That one is destined to become part of the honored mismatched flock of birds I’ve taken over the last couple of decades.





We also took a few minutes of our day on the far side of the Gerstle river to make sure I was OK shooting SD’s model 700 in .375AI. I set up my newly bought shooting sticks and SD ranged a spot with a backstop 100 yards off, then set up a medium sized coffee cup with a rock in it as a target. I got situated and picked a spot about two thirds up from the base and center punched the cup. All set there. Set up the way SD has it, it shoots like a pussycat. Mild push. No pain, no drama.



We spent more time searching for fresh sign and animals in other places, and finally left the herd of around 25 bison we’d been watching off and on all day--and hoped to take a bull from-- sometime near dark. After SD and I called it a day, Rost495 stomped more miles on bison trails snooping. He was determined to ‘put the herd to bed’ if he could, wanting to know exactly where the herd we were watching earlier bedded down for the evening. He called later to say that never did put eyes on them again, but not for lack of trying. The man out of south Texas takes his hunting very seriously.

There were two obvious bulls we spotted glassing the Wrigley land during the day and assumed that’s where they were when we left them. We’d met with and spoken to the landowner and I happily and gratefully paid a small trespass fee to be able to hunt his family land. Likewise, I’d secured permission to hunt a couple thousand acres of the land across the road owned by the Robinson family. The three of us (SD, Rost495 and I) had agreed to meet at Wrigley’s land at 5:30am; sunrise was at 8:30. VernAK said that he’d be on the move early looking for us too. The plan was for us to get back early enough to try to make sure that we were first to ‘drive a stake’ at that property, so to speak. Hopefully other bison hunters would honor that we were there first. Wishful thinking, but that was the plan.