While glassing in the darkness under clouds and little moonlight on opening day for us, the third group of bison hunters for 2022, I spotted a number of them, perhaps 30, a few hundred yards from the trucks. They were lumbering across the Wrigley land at around 6:30 am. It was still far too dark to sex any of them, and we watched their massive shapes wander across our flank and into the property. They were not acting alarmed but were soon out of sight. We were pretty excited, as we knew then that there were indeed bison where we planned hunting them.
About 20 minutes before sunrise, as we formulated a plan of attack, the first of the mechanized army arrived on scene. The first three trucks each pulled trailers, with each truck hauling either a four or six- wheeler; the lead vehicle had *both*. As we idly chatted with the three guys in the lead truck, SD’s phone rang. It was VernAK. He said something like this: “I’m a mile from you and I’m looking at around 50 bison 75 yards away from the nose of my truck around Circle field. Some of them are dancing around, not spooky at all. Killing a bull out of this bunch should be easy. Come kill yours. About couple minutes later, as we wondered if the guys who just passed us would see that bunch, VernAK called again. The same three truckloads who’d passed us at our perceived stake had driven by where VernAk had the herd in front of him and promptly stopped and parked.
Rather than quietly sliding out of their vehicles, hiking off through the wood a bit and picking off at least one bull, they got out of their trucks and proceeded to slam doors and fire up their noisy four and six wheelers, with the herd in plain sight. Needless to say, with all the racket, the herd headed away quickly, frightened. No shots were to be had.
We now had a quandary. Do we sit tight and hope the herd we’d seen cross onto the Wrigley land a couple hours earlier emerged, then try to put a stalk on a bull we’d ID as such and hoped to kill? The Wrigley landowner had explained that the herd we’d watched at length had been coming out to feed on the radishes and turnips that were planted there for several days and the herd was obviously fond of that food source. Alternately, do we make a move and head out on foot to try to track the ones we saw? Or do we give up our claim and see about trying to find another herd?
Following VernAK’s interaction with the mechanized army, he decided to hedge our bets and took off to see if he could locate the herd that we were pretty sure were still on Wrigley land, but nowhere in sight. He suggested we stay put and keep our eyes peeled and said that he’d sneak in on the back road and see if he could figure out where they were on the property. Sounded like a plan.
I was leaning hard towards staying our course and waiting them out. We knew they hadn’t been hunted in a week and that they didn’t want to leave those radish and turnip fields. We saw VernAK soon after, as he pulled up to us. He explained that he’d snuck in the back road, got out on foot and after some stomping about with his binocs, ultimately spotted the tops of a few brown humps in a swale in the distance in the snow. The herd was bedded down near the back side of the Wrigley place. We decided to leave our spot and retrace VernAK’s tracks and try to get on them...
