2003 Rifle Season Story!!!

I am a huge deer hunter. Actually I hunt every thing from Ducks to Deer and every thing inbetween. I have the privillege of hunting 900 acres of rolling wooded hills in Central Wisconsin. I have killed over 20 deer including 9 bucks with the largest being last rifle season. I was hunting Thanksgiving day by myself because the Packers were playing and it was windy and raining. I went out to my usual spot about 12:30 in the afternoon. As I sat in my blind I thought to myself how nice it would be to be at home not soaked and wathching the Game with my hunting partner (AKA my Dad). I was frozen soaked to the bone and saying to myself what a joke I should have listened and stayed home. I had sat there for about 2 hours when a small buck kind of galloped by me. Then doupled back and disappeared over the valley next to my blind. In the intrest of keeping warm and semi dry I decided to stay put for a while. Then all of a sudden a doe ran by me full tilt. That same small buck was chasing her Mercifully. Then all of a sudden I heard a deep grunt that stopped that little buck in it's tracks. The doe ran off and the little buck seemed frozen in time. What seemed like an eternity passed and then the buck trotted off into the valley again. I got down from my stand against my better judgement and started to work my way through the trees tward the valley. I got to the ridge and saw that little buck he was breathing heavy and looking nervous I thought for sure he spotted me so I froze behind a tree. Then all of a sudden comming from the next ridge over was the biggest buck I have seen in our neck of the woods. Looking right at the smaller buck with vengence in his eyes. I aimed my .270 placing the cross hairs in the middle of his huge neck and fired. He went down instantly. The little buck ran off and as my heart slowed down I walked the 80 yards to where he laid and saw he was the biggest buck I have ever shot. It turned out the buck was heavy at the bases 10 points 19 inches inside spread and 220 pounds feild dressed. I wont be hunting this year because of my surgery on Sept. 9, 2004. But next year I will have a new hunting parnter my oldest son will be joining the ranks of hunter. If any one else has stories of past hunts please share. Pj Manning

PJ, Great story! I'm a big time outdoorsman meself, as well as an outdoor sports writer (thought its kind of on hold while I'm finishing my novels right now). Here is one of my favorite true stories. Blessings, -Perry 376/335/260/195 75 Pounds Gone! Perry P. Perkins Christian Novelist Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One Read chapter one - (www) perryperkinsbooks.com OLD MEN & ATV'S By Perry P. Perkins It's been said of hunting that the fun is over once you pull the trigger. If I had ever had any doubts of this, the Old Man has laid them to rest. The Old Man, and I use that term with the utmost respect, is the father of my hunting and fishing partner, Doug. We've hunted elk together for the last three years and, so far, the score is Wapiti - 3, Great white hunters - 0. Given the fire dangers we had abandoned our usual hunting grounds in Southern Oregon and decided to hunt the Tillamook unit of the Northern Oregon Coast. This year we would be beating the brush with two other friends, Van and Keven, both experienced elk hunters. We set up camp at the end of an old logging road, and no sooner had we driven the last tent stake than the sky opened and the rain began to pour. This was to be the harbinger of things to come. The old man had towed his ATV behind the camper and quickly set about the long and weary (at least for the rest of us) process of "getting the truck level". I knew, from previous experience that this could take some time and wandered off before I found myself sucked into the process. Daryl (The Old Man) had spent his life in construction, and can probably build a three-bedroom townhouse with a chainsaw, a bucket of nails, and a couple of trees. The chainsaw, in fact, had been his preferred method of framing out windows in the thousands of apartments he had built in Southern California. He's a great respecter of the level and is seldom without one handy, lest anything in the mountains be found off plumb. I listened while he and Doug yelled instructions back and forth..."Two inches left.... I said left! No, your other left!" while running my hand lovingly over the shiny, black fender of the ATV, gazing at the machine through a green haze of envy. Had I know what the week held for us, I might have taken steps right then, steps involving important engine parts, and possibly a large rock. The Old Man is a joy to have in camp. He tells the funniest jokes, the best hunting stories, and if a question of wood-lore arises, he's a veritable encyclopedia of the outdoors. Bowlegged from years of hard work, he can hike all day long over the roughest terrain and never break a sweat. It was Daryl that taught me that any civilized camper requires milk and cookies each night before turning in. I had found him to be the hunting/fishing/camping Grandfather I'd never had. Despite all of these admirable qualities, at time his judgment could be... questionable, as I was soon to find out. We spent the first day unloading our gear and rigging tarps, then settling in to pour over our maps and strategize. Two days later it was still raining and we had yet to hang an animal in camp. Van and I had seen some cows and, just before dawn on opening morning, the whistling bugle of a nearby bull had raised the hair on our necks, but that was it. We had stuck close to camp and to the river below, while the Old Man and his son bushwhacked up and down the surrounding mountains, making their own trails where God or the Forest Service had provided none. Sunset found us on the far side of the river, Doug and Keven circling a densely wooded bluff while I stood sentry on the edge of a clearing in case an animal spooked. As darkness encroached, a shot rang out and several of my internal organs traded positions as I dropped behind a bush and leveled my rifle. Another shot echoed through the woods and, after a few minutes of silence, my radio squawked with the report that Keven had an elk on the ground. He and Doug remained to dress out the big spike bull, while I made my way back across the moonlit river and up the bluff to camp. Midnight. We stood under the camper's awning, the fire spitting and sputtering in the drizzle. Doug and Keven were still washing elk blood from his hands and arms as we planned the retrieval for the next morning. Doug had to return home that night and wouldn't be bac****il late the next evening. It was agreed the four of us remaining would quarter out the elk and pack it back to camp. Had Doug stayed, all might have gone smoothly, his absence, however, left the Old Man in charge and I wondered how long our the plan would stay chiseled in stone. Not long. As we ate bowls of rainy oatmeal the next morning, the Old Man busied himself by unloading the ATV and making sure it was fueled. When questioned, he explained that it would be a lot easier to drive the quad as far as possible, hike the elk quarters back to it, and then drive them out. This sounded like a good idea to each of us pack mules, and though I felt the first uneasy stirrings of a good plan gone awry, I knew that Daryl had forgotten more about hunting that I was ever likely to know. All went smoothly...at first. It's been my experience that nearly everything that eventually gets completely screwed goes smoothly at first. This is nature's way of creating a false sense of security for those puny mortals who trespass in her domain. After a long, steep bushwhack down the side of the canyon, widening the trail for the Old Man and his quad, we reached the river. It was generally assumed that we would park it there and strap on our pack frames. My stirrings grew to a faint, disquieting buzzing in my ears, as the vehicle plunged past us and into the river. In all fairness, the river in question ran about two feet deep through the shallows, but the far bank was a high undercut of slick clay. I smiled to myself as I waited for the Old Man to turn around and come back. Half an hour later we had dug a serviceable ramp, with our bare hands, as the Old man watched from the seat of his idling throne. The ATV slowly slipped and slid its way up the bank, its driver helpfully gunning the engine and covering the mules in a thick layer mud and pine needles. Luckily it was raining hard enough to wash off most of the muck. We spent a tense hour trying to find the fallen elk, cutting a multitude of ATV paths, mostly in the wrong direction. By the time we spotted the animal, it looked at though a miniature army had been on maneuvers in the area, perhaps and small and inebriated army at that. The volume of my unease rose a notch as I remembered Doug cautioning us to be as quiet as possible while hiking to the bluff. He was hoping to hunt the area the next morning for a big branch bull that Keven had spotted after shooting the spike. At this point I would had laid considerable odds that any elk, deer, raccoon, squirrel, or legged insect that may have been present prior to our arrival would be crossing the border into Canada by the time that Doug returned. I briefly wondered how the Old Man's one-fifth of that spike elk would be divided once his son found out that we had busted through his sweet spot like a panzer tank offensive. The worst was yet to come. We found the elk, which Doug and Keven had done a fine job of cleaning, lying on the steep side of the bluff, having spent the cold night in a thick layer of ferns. As I drew my skinning knife, I noticed the Old Man was backing the quad up to the animal's spiked head. "Daryl," I asked as calmly as possible, "Whatcha doing?" "Why cut it up here and get the meat all dirty when we can tow the whole thing back to camp, up onto the quad trailer and skin it there?" He replied, lashing a rope around the animal's neck and cinching it tight. "Are you sure that's not going to hurt the meat?" I asked, picturing of the wide, rocky shoreline on the far side of the river. My question was lost in the roar of the throttle and a cloud of exhaust. Our job as mules suddenly became that of jogging along in a crouch, beside the bouncing carcass, trying frantically to free if of any woodsy obstacles. Panting and sweating, we finally reached the river. About halfway across I became concerned that perhaps the Old Man had not adequately considered the mathematics of the situation. Specifically the pull of the river in relation to the weight of the animal. It was briefly up in the air as to whether the quad was dragging a dead elk up the river or the dead elk was dragging a quad down. Eventually the tires found traction on the slippery rocks and the freshly washed carcass was hauled up onto the bank. Keven and I briefly discuss the possible merits of meat tenderization, on a large scale, as the elk rattled across the rocky shore at a fair clip. At least, I thought, with a sigh of relief, the rough part was over, now we just follow the riverbank back up to the trail and follow that up to camp. I'd even started to think that maybe the Old Man had saved me some sweat, as well as a tricky river crossing with a quarter of elk strapped to my back. My burgeoning gratitude was interrupted as I noticed that quad, elk, and driver were headed straight into the woods and toward the steepest section of the cliff. The new plan, as it was quickly revealed to me, was to save some time and effort by bypassing the trail further upriver and taking the elk straight of the bluff wall to camp. When I voiced my concerns, predominately based on the laws of physics and gravity, I was assured the ATV could handle the slope. By progressing from one tree trunk to the next, bracing itself against the aforementioned trunk, and winching the elk up the intervening distance. At that point the elk would be tied off to a tree, the quad would move up to the next trunk and the process would be repeated, until we had inch wormed our way to the top. The question of why this method was easier than the trail we had already cut was never answered to my satisfaction, but that may have been caused, in part, by the increasing wail of uneasiness filling my ears. I turned to my fellow mules in hopes that a collaborative argument might save the day, I might have known better. Van, a former army ranger, loved nothing more than pitting his own strength and will against the nearest unstoppable force or immovable object, and was already climbing the near vertical slope to find the "best path". This is where I parted company with them. Let it be know to all here that I am, admittedly, a deserter. Though I must admit that I felt nary the twinge of guilt as I made my way back upriver and took the easy trail to the top. Once atop the bluff, I started to worry about the dangers the guys had exposed themselves too. I imagined the quad flipping backwards and both it and the elk avalanching down on my friends who, even now, could be lying beneath a pile of crushed machinery and elk parts at the bottom of the cliff. A little less than an hour after my desertion, I reached the spot where I estimated they would emerge, but there was no sign of them. I edged back through the forest and began calling their names and, finally, my shouts were heard and answered. I toed up to the edge of the cliff and carefully peered over. What I saw was unusual, to say the least. From a heavy tree trunk, just a few short yards from the top of the cliff, hung the ATV, all attempts to get more juice out of the now dead battery having been exhausted. The Old Man still clung tenaciously to the handlebars. From the dead ATV dangled the elk, spinning slowly like some enormous, hairy piñata at the end of the winch cable. Soaking wet, coated in mud and clinging to the nearest branches were the Van and Keven, looking back up at me with ill disguised hatred. Just about then the trail behind me was washed with headlights, as Doug, having returned early, pulled alongside to see it I needed a ride back to camp. "So," he asked, leaning out the window, "Did you guys get the meat back okay?" Five minutes later Doug was backing his pickup to the crumbling edge of the bluff, rolling down the passenger window he yelled something to me through the rain. I couldn't hear a word over the roaring in my ears.

Great story Perry, One of the best I have read in a long time, thanks for the laughs. Lance