Invisible moose and unobscured motives
A sparrow flew into my house the afternoon before we embarked on our hunting trip. She went upstairs where I captured her in my left hand at the windowsill by the turning fan. She remained calm in my hand until we went outside where the sprinklers flushed against us. Once, beyond the sprinklers, I tossed her gently into the air, where she lost three feathers in the excitement, before continuing her winged journey.
Mark’s flight into Hailey showed up that evening on time. His old hunting rifle appeared intact on the luggage rack. When he later sighted it in on a makeshift range, we determined that it had not been jostled in freight during its flight.
The next morning we arose at 5 am, encountering little traffic on the way over to Island Park, Idaho. We almost hit a buck crossing Craters, but besides that and a porcupine, saw little else that daybreak in the way of wildlife. We were thoroughly entertained by early conversations at Pickles Place; old timers discussing young gals in slinky fur clothing, which helped distract from the run of the mill quality of our breakfast fare.
When we arrived in Island Park, the first thing noticeable was that there were six Fish & Game officer’s vehicles parked together on the side of the road. Turned out that morning a Grizzly had attacked a hunter near Big Springs, where he had been dressing the Elk he shot. This was the second local bear- hunter confrontation in recent weeks; the previous one gathering national attention, due to speculation over large gut piles shallowly buried in the ground outside a nearby Elk private hunting preserve.
With a wounded Griz limping around the neighborhood, there was now concern that Fish & Game would deem hunting unsafe and shut it down for the area. Although this clampdown did not occur, the actual witnessing of a Grizzly bear later that evening, awakened Mark and I to the severity of the situation, about what could happen once he shot a bull moose.
Most of the good information about recent bear activity came from chatting with the locals. At the General Store, pepper spray was selling like hotcakes. We were reminded that in Alaska, bears learned to approach hunting areas once they hear gunshot, knowing it as signal for fresh meat. Bears can smell moose meat for miles, depending on the wind. Sometimes, after swatting away hunters from their downed game, Ursa Horribilas will sit upon large mammal carcasses, perched in order to speed up the tendering process of the meat.
On that first day, we felt fortunate to have three young but experienced and enthusiastic hunters helping us search for moose. Dalin, his sister Daiquiri, and her boyfriend, Brock. However, even with ten sets of eyes, we did not spot much game, until the grizzly that evening. We wondered if the bears known presence were making the moose overly skittish. That combined with our midday search timing and perhaps driving too fast for efficient wildlife spotting, may have contributed to our being skunked by the moose.
The funniest part of this segment was when Mark called behind to Dalin and I on the two-way radios and said, "Hey Jim if you guys get bored back there, tell Dalin about your days as an Elvis Impersonator." While Dalin was turning to me, Brock simultaneously inquired with Mark with the same question about if I had really been an Elvis Impersonator.
Everyone should know that although my father much resembled Elvis growing up, I look a lot more like Hank Hill.
Rain poured in the first night, continuing intermittently through days two and three. As we sent off our eager young hunter friends with a meal before they returned to school, another experienced hunter, Jon, called to say that he would be heading up with his longtime hunting companion Gary. It was nice to know that more qualified help was on the way, considering Mark’s recent knee surgery and my green hunting aptitude.
Hunting ran thick through Jon’s blood. He was a Special Forces marksman back in Vietnam and recently had been to Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the Blackwater private army in our current world confrontations. I must have looked laughable to any passerby seeing me donning my laidback Ketchum threads, seemingly imbedded with these camouflaged hunting pros.
Professionalism notwithstanding, we were soon reminded that hunting as with fishing (or girlfriends or jobs), does require a certain amount of luck. The only moose we spied in 400 miles of deliberate driving were on a high hill above private land. It seemed that everyone we encountered in Island Park had seen an antlered moose, yet not us. Our confident joke about this hunt being as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, soon wore thin.
One evening, as our hunting camp gathered around some warm drinks, the conversation centered on some other hunts. Gary had been on a safari in Africa a few years back, when one of the villagers was spotted running off from the camp with a stolen rifle. Mr. Seagraves, his companion took aim with another rifle at the fleeing thief in question and proceeded to kill him from a hundred yards away, in broad daylight in the middle of the street. Gary figured that they were goners, as the villagers would extract immediate revenge upon their group. But Seagraves was shrewd to the situation, sauntered over and purchased a cow, and then gave it to the village chieftain.
As I slept on this story that fitful night, I began to wonder about this unsettled group. The majority of the conversations were focused on killing...
...what large mammals or birds they had shot over the years and what sprees they might like to join together for in the future. I began to wonder what rugged individuals like these must think when they take up and read some of my candified fluffy dog stories from my well-insulated corner of Idaho.
But, while they were hunting for large mammals, at least I was trying to broaden my horizons by pursuing stories about hunting. I headed home for a week leaving Mark with my truck. After battening down the hatches of the cabin for the winter, he headed over to Ririe for a few days, and then shot an antelope in a herd he had heard about from Brock over by Atomic City. It sounded like this was a struggle; due to the fact he was alone coupled with the recent knee surgery, so he decided to hunt with other people for the remainder of his journey. He headed over to the confluence of H.C. and "Classified" cricks, where his friends Al and Ken had set up a comfortable wall tent at Sue’s camp.
I could tell from the valley below that they were encountering some snow, but it was difficult to gauge how much. Steve and I headed over on Saturday; to a pleasant surprise of seeing Trail Creek road in the best shape we had ever seen it. No more rattled washboards. Well, at least ‘til we got to the Custer side, just over the top.
We found the camp with some challenge of traversing through deep mud.
Few hunters were out in the upland.On the road, we unexpectedly encountered a covey of about eight chuckers. We speculated that the mild climate of the last year and a half, combined with the recent fires might have lead to their migration here. Or they might have hopped over the hill from the nearby East Fork of the Salmon River country with its lower elevation.
When we got to the camp we found that Benny and his friend Kim had just pulled in with their horse trailer. We started a campfire and saw they had about eight inches of new snow. Mark had shot an Elk and we took a gander at it over in the branches. It was a five by five point and pretty looking. As tradition has it, I scribbled a stick-em note, thanking the hunter for ending a beautiful life up on the hill. Al returned on his horse with Ken and Mark not far behind. Mark had closely encountered an alpha wolf that morning and had the wolf not turned tail and run, he might have turned up mincemeat on the mountain.
Benny and Kim were going to stay at the camp for a week, while Ken and Al headed over to Ririe for a few days. We took a few photos and some nippers, and then helped them pack up the camp. Ken had ruined a tire on his trailer and then got a lug nut stuck tight in his wrench. Fortunately I carried an extra for such occasions and handed it over to him. They were taking the Elk to the butcher and wanted to tuck it down in the truck bed a bit lower on account of their California tags. It was all legit and everything, there’s just this stigma attached when you ride around in some Idaho small towns with flashy California plates.
During the course of our packing up, I sensed a deep empathic feeling towards these hunter friends. It’s amazing how much some people love hunting. Some people live for hunting and their enthusiasm is contagious. Standing there in the snow, a warm feeling came over me as I began remembering similar experiences in the same camp from bygone years. Once, dad had even come out here with me to this camp to receive a wild taste of the real west.
As we drove back down Trail Creek road, Mark said that he had swung over to
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