Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Riley's 25-06 Goes Missing

Riley has been using a stainless 700 in 25-06 intended as an ultralight custom mountain rifle in a super fancy piece of bigleaf maple. It has a Pac-Nor super match grade SS barrel, 1:10 twist, Hunter contour (the lightest they will use on a 25-06) at 20�. He selected a Vortex Viper 3-9x40 with the dead-hold BDC reticle in Talley Lightweights and has center-punched a caribou heart at over 300 yards off-hand with it, as well as a Sitka deer buck from a bobbing boat at over 200 yards. He has grown comfortable with it.

But perhaps his greatest victory with the rifle started before it was even �his�. I had told him he could have it if he restocked it. The action had come from Raghorn through the Classifieds as a 270� an obvious donor.

Riley explained to CWH2 how much he was not looking forward to building the stock. Or rather how much he was going to hate sanding it.

So Chris said �No problem, here is a perfectly good Ti take-off stock you can have!� When next I saw the barreled action Riley had bedded it, mounted a test scope, loaded a whole battery of test rounds, and tuned the trigger. It is almost ridiculously light, though reasonably balanced.

Oh yeah, he also smirked a great deal�

There has not been a bullet the rifle dislikes, but the 80gr TTSX really shot well. From an earlier test run it had shot ridiculously well with the 107gr SMK just to prove it was a shooter. The 90grain Pro-Hunter also shot extremely well. It gave up nothing in accuracy in going to the TTSX. Let�s just say a true bench rest guy might not be happy with how it shoots, but anyone else sure would be.

A Prince William Sound Sitka blacktail buck was the first critter to decide he did not like the rifle. At over 200 yards from a boat bobbing in the surf Riley had to shoot offhand while drawing ever-smaller circles on the target until he felt comfortable enough to start squeezing, ever so slowly. That buck caught the first Barnes bullet any rifle I have ever owned stopped. It went diagonally through the whole deer and came to rest in a shattered femur, just south of the ball. Incredible penetration for just 80grains of copper.

He then stood back-up on a number of black bears using the rifle, though things never rolled over to his turn to shoot a black bear first with the little rifle.

A Nelchina caribou bull was next in line to find itself in a bad place. That story can easily be found here in the Alaska Forum and involves an almost offhand stilled heart at over 300 yards.

Then there was a big bull moose on a nasty day in blowing snow, bore tides, bad bogs, and around big bears. Riley told me I was turning him into a duck hunter.

Paul and Seamus at Vortex sent Riley a bunch of hats and stckers to ensure he was stylish enough to shoot Vortex scopes� Riley also shot his Kodiak bear this spring with a Vortex Viper and they liked his track record.

So Riley�s next day off was supposed to be a blueberry black bear hunt. The weather was not looking good for looking high and Plan B became a duck hunt on Trail Lake at the inlet stream in the Northeast corner. Almost immediately, from the boat launch, friend Jeff spotted what looked to be a good black bear above the hatchery.

Riley and Jeff decided to go after the bear while I took Jeff�s young son and Riley�s girlfriend duck chasing. Our efforts quickly proved futile as the channel proved too skinny to risk with my limited help. Maybe something was learned the previous week about running out of water�

We spent most of the day watching two bears on the hillside and wondering where Riley and Jeff were. Very late that afternoon I got a text from Riley asking if we could see him.
AK law is pretty clear about electronic communication while hunting and he knew that message meant he was done hunting for the day.

We could see Jeff plainly in mostly black clothing. Though Riley explained he was directly below Jeff there was no way we could see him in his all-camo gear. Have I mentioned how idiotic camo is for hunting in AK? I never could see him though I knew almost exactly where he was. I could offer no help. Jeff was above him and could not go up or back down. Riley had stopped when he felt he would not be able to get back down.

Jeff is 52 and �stout� but at least 80% goat! They managed to figure out how to get headed back down the mountain without my help. While close to the bears, they were still much too far to even consider any attempt, even if it had been legal.

A couple hours later Riley texted the devil�s club was horrible and he was suffering.

In the late �60s my father had taken me up into the marsh at the head of the lake and set up a tripod with a spotting scope pointed at a mountain goat. He paddled across the lake and climbed up to the goats and killed a very good goat. I had signaled him into the goat with signals via Mae Wests on long poles. As he moved I adjusted the orange life jackets to reflect his relative progress.

When he killed a goat I went fishing.

Many years later he insisted that hunt was the single toughest hunt of his entire lifetime.

It was a gorgeous (read hot) August day and while I got tunnel-vision chasing a steelhead I suddenly found myself scant feet from a sleeping boar brown bear. The bear probably never woke up as I back-pedaled out of there at a very high rate of speed. I was packing a custom 35Whelen 760 but I doubt I even considered the option. I had likely forgotten I even had it on my shoulder.

So eventually I texted Riley to ask when they would need a pickup and he said �Maybe by 7:00� and I could accept that, options being what they were and all.

At 7:00 I was waiting in the boat at the drop-off point and gave a couple goose calls. I heard nothing in return. Texts went unanswered. I waited as darkness descended.

Finally Riley responded with a simple text �Bad situation here.�
�How so? Is anyone hurt?�
�I lost your rifle and now I am lost in the woods.�

Old growth temperate rainforest spruces create an amazing and very compressed reality. They are so huge and the view is seldom more than mere yards. I have had a bunch of experiences in them that flavor my expectations of a recent inductee to the club.

�Screw the rifle! Do not do anything that jeopardizes your security for the gun!� My guts heaved.

Sadly, one of my first thoughts was the fact Riley was carrying a Barney�s pack borrowed from OlBlue. In the �70s I had a great Barney�s pack and guided with the guy that partnered with Barney to produce the packs. Bob had purchased Barney�s and found a need for serious production and cut out the original designer.

When I showed him what I had he railed at the quality and compromises made to streamline the production. He took my pack home for a brief while and gave me back a custom pack with a rifle carrier built in behind the right hand side pockets. A series of straps held the rifle absolutely and protected most of a high-end custom, for what that is worth to a serious hunting situation.

The pack had moved literal mountains of meat over the decades. The Wizard behind the pack died of pancreatic cancer and I remembered him every time those straps were cinched.
Anyway, Riley and CWH2 were headed up 20-Mile River early one morning and tossed my Barney�s pack in the boat. They stopped in Girdwood for coffee at 0dark:thirty and when they returned to the boat my pack was missing. Maybe it blew out on the road, maybe an azzhole stole it while they were parked in Girdwood. In any event I am out one incredible pack. And it would NEVER have released a rifle entrusted to it.

Jeff had lost a rifle while hunting Kodiak many years ago and understood immediately how Riley felt. His hunting partners found his rifle ultimately though.

So I bobbed about in the jet boat waiting for Riley and Jeff to reach the beach as nightfall descended.

Jeff had texted I needed to move way to the left to pick them up but from where I sat offshore I could see in both directions for hundreds of yards. They finally showed well to the right of my position.

Riley looked gutshot.

His knuckles were swollen and most could not be bent with devil�s club thorns and swelling limiting mobility seriously.
His next day off was a week away on Sunday and he planned a return on the way home. He started making calls to line up help on the drive home.

The next morning Riley awoke and immediately said �I think I know where the rifle is!� They had marked GPS coordinates when they discovered the rifle missing. About 500 yards up the hill they had run into a particularly tough spot and had to crawl under a huge log and almost immediately had to climb over the next. Riley guessed the rifle had to be close to the second log as he remembered giving it up to Jeff at that point and figured it was a transition problem.

He talked to many friends and found two to run back to the Hellhole with him the next day. One was Eben, an obvious slow-learner from the moose fiasco.

Two hours of searching for the GPS coordinate for the last log crossing after reaching the beach where I had picked them up frustrated Riley and he was having his doubts. Finally they found the log crossing and almost immediately Riley found the rifle leaning against a log right where Jeff had left it, likely with plenty of notice that he needed to pick it up.
He immediately sent me a text and all I could see was the relief that had to be erasing the gutshot look of the night two days previous.

The Phoenix has risen from the ashes to spit 80grain lightning bolts at unsuspecting critters again.

Wow- 4 am and you wrote this! Must have really been weighing on your mind. Glad Riley found the rifle.

Art;
That's quite the read on several levels and I'm glad the eventual outcome was overall positive.

As a fellow father I'm of course most relieved that Riley is OK. I've danced in Devil's Club a time or two on the banks of the Stikine and there's nothing positive I took from that experience other than I survived it.

I'm sorry to read about the pack going missing, happy to read that the rifle is found and happier to read that all is well with your family.

All the best to you and yours Art and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall too.

Dwayne

Dang, now that was a character building exercise. Good on the young man for persevering and presumably also learning something more about those things which are really important in life.

Great that you are a great enough dad to realize the rifle is nothing compared to the kids. One is replaceable, the other never replaceable.

But dang glad it worked out.

I lost a 45 once in a big hay patch.. following the dog after coons... I didn't have a holster handy and had stuck it in my waste band.

The next day following the trail in 6 foot tall haygrazer, it was located none the worse for wear and I still have it some 35 years later...

Great story Art - glad the kid found his rifle.

I always carry a pair of $5 leather-palmed work gloves with me - just for dealing with that nasty plant!

That was worthy of an outdoor magazine. Great story, glad for the outcome.

Great read for a Saturday morning Art, thanks!

Friggin' devil's club..........

Great read. Glad he was able to find the rifle.

I figured some thieving bastard that goes by the handle Sitka Deer probably stole it.

I honestly cannot understand how anyone can lose a rifle while hunting or anything else for that matter, except for theft. That would be like losing your pants, or shirt, or left leg.

Good story though.

After missing some opportunities as a kid because I had a rifle strapped to my body instead of in my hands I vowed I'd always carry them henceforth. Near 50 years later now, and I still adhere to that practice.

Glad they found it. Work or not, I would have been on task the next morning.

Pretty easy to tell who's "been there".

Just saying...

I never lost one by sitting on the couch either.

Also in reply to 358Norma Fan

This implies you both know a great deal about me, without knowing anything. Just sayin'.

If you guys have lost rifles while out hunting, all I can say is you may want to stay home and read a book.

"A great deal", I can't say, but you were the one who compared it to losing one's own clothing or even body parts. Sounds like you haven't "been there" when you make those comparisons. I don't think I know anyone who's worth a hoot in the outdoors who hasn't lost a rifle, shotgun, or something similarly significant.

Again, how is it possible? That's the reason you're out there, with the firearm, to do some hunting. Like losing a backpack when out on a backpacking trip. I have taken my pack off for a break before, but I retrieve it when ready to go again. Same with the rifle and shotgun. I don't hunt with a sidearm so have nothing to say regarding them.

Now if one is out picking berries that is a different story. The focus is not on hunting (for which a firearm is necessary if firearm hunting), but on picking berries. This situation I can understand.

Just keep in mind that a lot of the rest of us lack a lot when it comes to perfection. You are very fortunate.

AT least he (you) didn't lose my pack! Seriously nice write up Art. Of course I've never lost anything in the woods. --- Mel

Exhaustion with a shot of dehydration - add in some frustation and a slight bit of panic, generous helping of devils club sting pain and top it all off with the mosquitos..........I can see where it is easy to misplace something