I'll be curious to find out how the rut is going now, if its winding down or what.
Its pretty much done Brian, although we did manage to get a bull to glunk back at us Friday evening.
After WF70 showed up at my house and got all his gear packed in the truck we were off. I headed down to the Flying J for diesel and spent another $130.00, grabbed a couple bags of ice, a giant Ice-T and hit the highway. About 3 miles down I-5 I realized I had forgot my binos
so we got off the freeway and went back to pick them up. Finally back on the road we headed for Black Diamond. We picked up M-Ray about 7:30am and packed his gear as well, while WF70 was busy checking out the trophy room
Thats okay, I made him drive
By the time we hit Cle Ellum my bladder was about to burst so we stopped at Indian John Hill for a little relief
Back on the road again but now I'm getting hungry, I told WF70 to stop in Ellensburg at McCrakens for a couple more large Ice-T's and a breakfast burrito. M-Ray immediately starts
explaining to us that he worked his ass off the previous weekend and gained 7 pounds, saying its because of the 2 times he ate there
Wanting to talk to Outfitter we headed to his place again and arrived about 1:00pm. We were greated by a camo clad client with a big toothy grin. He introduced himself, although for the life of me I can't remember his name, and asked if we were "the moose hunters". We said we were and he told us Joe had ran to town and wasn't sure when he would be back. We told him we would be back Saturday and would talk to him then.
We headed to our adopted weekend home,(first pic) Thanks again Joe/Jody!!!, and were heading down the long driveway when M-Ray yells "COUGAR" I grab my riflle, open the door and try to bail out but the sling is caught on the seat
I get it undone and jack in a shell. I head down the road toward the cabin, M-Ray heads back and down in case it bails off over the edge. Slowly I worked toward the cabin but see nothing. Once there I hear a couple chipmunks start to go apesh#@ just over the other side so I quickly went around the cabin to look over the draw, nothing, it had vanished. I walked back to the truck where WF70 was waiting but M-Ray was still down in the thicket looking. We drove the rest of the way to the cabin and started to unload all our crap when "BANG"
We carefully went around the cabin and saw M-Ray standing on the side hill with his arms in the air like Rocky Balboa at the top of the stairs during his workout
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We get over to him and he says it was a bobcat and when he shot it did a backflip about 3 feet in the air and took off. We grabbed the bikes and headed down to where he had shot it. We found the ground all ripped up from the claws, looking like it did a burn out trying to get out of there. We looked all over but found no blood, M-Ray followed the tracks up into the hillside and disappeared. WF70 and I headed back to finish setting everything up and got dressed for the evening hunt.
At 5:00pm M-Ray still wasnt back so we turned on the radio and headed out on the bikes knowing he would catch up once he realized we had left. About half way up to where we were heading we ran into a guy that was hunting deer but only seen moose
HE told us where he had been sitting and watching a big bull for the last three hours so we headed up there. We got to the top of a ridge and I stopped to glass a big cut. I sent WF70 up the road about 100 yards to the next bench to glass the other side. When I was satisfied there wasn't anyhting in the cut I rode toward WF70, only to find him holding up the stop sign with his palm. I stopped and could see past him standing in the middle of the road was a cow with her two calves. Knowing he was bigger than me I was glad he was between the cow and me
thinking the chase may be on again
She bailed off over the ridge to our left and the calves followed close behind. So if I skip the bulls can I take 2 calves? talk about good eats, milk fed moose
It was getting dark fast so for chits and giggles I threw out a call, right away we got a couple glunks in return but could not find him on the thick hillside so we headed back to the cabin, hoping M-Ray had dinner ready
Once back we ate and M-Ray explained that he just had to check out the entire hillside to make sure the cat wasn't laying there somewhere, he never found it so we believe he missed the 175 yard offhand shot, thats a pretty small target at that distance.
Saturday saw us looking over the same areas with no luck so at lunch we decided to head to Outfitters to chat with Joe and check on Jody, who had been feeling a bit under the weather, and see if he was going to need any help with his clients. Jody was feeling better and Joe was out hunting so we headed out ourselves, checking out a different area. It ended pretty much the same way so back to the cabin we went. After a quick bowl of stew and rolls, a little Pendleton and Bud Lite we were sleeping hard.
Sunday morning we headed to the now familiar spots. (second, third pics) I'll tell you guys what, you all should be so lucky to have guys work this hard to help you notch your tag. Both of these guys burned their deer tags this year to come over to help me bag a moose, and never once gave it a second thought. This pic is what its all about.
We headed up and up and up again to where we had the bull glunking at us but again couldn't find him. After glassing and hiking down into a hell hole WF70 motions at me and M-Ray, he has spotted a bear, and wants one worse than I want a moose, so we headed back up the hill. I stopped to get some more pics. These pics are of them looking at a 350+ lb blackie.
Thats pretty much how this trip ended, we headed home beat as hell from all the bike riding and hiking again, as you can tell from the last pic
More to come I'm sure, will keep you all up to date.
