So it was back on the road. We park the trucks at mile 85 and drop the machines and ride another 48 miles to our camp site on the tundra.
This year it was his turn to shoot the moose so the only real criteria was it had to be a pretty rack. He's not too concerned about spread or points he just likes them to be fat and pretty.
We made it into our campsite by about 7pm and set up the tents and got squared away.
Our plan was to spend the next day looking over the countryside to see what kind of bulls we could find. This one was about 400 yards from camp the better part of the week. He was with 4 cows when we showed up and 5 days later had 7 and was pretty content. We guessed he was maybe 52 to 54 inches but didnt fit the description of what we were after so we avoided him as best we could.
We were able to locate 6 bulls the first day out and ended up killing one of them 3 days later after looking the country over pretty hard. We ended up putting on 280 miles over the weeks time. He rides a Yamaha 700 Grizzly and I ride a Polaris 600 Sportsman and we both pull Pac-Rat trailers. We both took in 40 gallons of gas and ended up with about 7 gallons left over.
I was hoping to kill a grizzly bear after we killed the bull but came up short on that. Saw a legal bear that was maybe 3 miles away and working some berries over but he was moving a little too quick to make any headway on him so we didn't bother.
We went back to to the area where we'd seen the largest bull from the first day and he had gained a smaller 55 or so inch bull for company along with 6 cows.
He was the 12th bull of the trip and fit the pretty definition.
The bull was not the largest body wise that we've killed but he was still quite chubby. The rut was just starting start and smelled all pissed up. I love the smell of pissed on moose almost as much as pissed on elk. Really nothing quite like that rutty smell. And don't ever let anybody tell you those horny old bulls taste bad. It's all in the first two hours after you kill him that determines how he is gonna taste. If the hair never touches the meat then there is no rut taste. Simple.
Anyway the bull was a fine specimen. 61 inches and a nice addition.
On the way out I had an added bonus of finding a nice Musk Ox skull. He is a genuine stud and I may have to get him measured. I may have a picked up trophy on my hands.
We saw a pile of ox on the trip and there seems to be some real nice bulls running around the hills.
Overall it was a fairly good trip with minimal need for aspirin. I did break the yoke off my transmission 14 miles from the trailhead on the way out so we hooked my winch cable to Joe's axle and we tugged it out the rest of the way. I had front wheel drive but it was like trying to ride a bull. One wheel wanted to pull left and the other wanted to pull right and I was Flex Armstrong by the time I got to the truck.
So there is a stop at ebay in my future to locate a yoke. Overall a pretty good trip.
