BISON HUNT 2009

BISON HUNT 2009

Drove to Roosevelt on Wednesday 11-11-2009 in the later part of the day. The journey was kind of an adventure in itself. Went to bed at 11:00 p.m. with a major league cold and cough. Hard and exciting night so sleep was a rare commodity. I was up at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday 11-12-2009 and on the road to Ft. Duchesne in time for a meeting with the Ute Indian Tribe guides at 7:00 a.m. The guides are all fellows in their early 20's and seem like real nice guys. They are Manny, Brandon, Jay and Coby. They drive two large heavy duty Ford pickup trucks. Manny and Brandon’s truck needs fuel and they go off for fuel. I drive my own truck following Jay and Coby in their truck for 2 ½ hours east on a fairly good dirt road out on the north slope Book Cliffs area of the reservation. We are hunting free ranging bison on the Ute Indian reservation. We end up on top of a mountain more or less at 9,000+ feet elevation. It is rather windy and cold. Real cold for a desert boy like me. I am sure the temperature was above zero but with the wind chill it seemed REAL COLD. We park the trucks and glass around. We spot some bison in a small valley to the west of the mountain peak we are on. Jay, Coby, my son and I start to stalk down through the quaking aspen and snow on the east side of the valley to get closer to the bison. The bison are laying in the sagebrush on the west side of the valley to rest and let the sagebrush break the wind storm some. As we get closer the bison see and/or wind us and start to stand up. They aren’t excessively disturbed for a few moments, just getting up and ready to move away.

NOTE: During this decent into the small valley I didn’t know if we were going to shoot or just look or scope the bison out or what. I didn’t bring my pack with extra clothes, food, water, knifes, rope, ammo., matches, camera and GPS. My son brought his camera and a hat for me and I am so glad.

When we get about 210 yards from the bison they start a meandering exit the valley to the north. The guide Jay, sets up some shooting sticks into a tripod configuration and tells me to shoot the most north of the bison. I verify with him which one and load up my .338 Win. Mag. I have one round in the chamber and three in the magazine. I turn the scope up to 9X and put the cross-hairs just behind the front shoulder of the bison now trotting to the north near the bottom of the little valley we are in. I constantly apply pressure to the trigger while keeping the cross-hairs on the vital spot. The rifle goes off and the distinct sound of a 225 grain Barnes triple shock bullet hitting hide, bone, and lungs is heard by all in the party. The bison just keeps jogging. I am told to shoot again. I do and we hear the slap of a hit again. I keep shooting and keep hitting the bison. My last shot is at the bison kind of hiding behind a larger sagebrush and I aim for the neck vertebrae just behind the head. The bison finally goes down.

I can’t believe how tough these big old beasts are. I am shooting a rather powerful rifle and have hit the bison in a definite mortal fashion but the animal didn’t go down. I have knocked elk over with one shot and large kudu and hartebeest also with one shot incorporating the exact same load in this very rifle. BISON ARE TOUGH. I reload my magazine with three rounds just in case.

There are handshakes from the guides and congratulations from my son. We are all happy about the size and prospect of the big beast finally harvested. We watch the bison for a few moments and pay our respects from a distance to a wonderful animal that has given us a hunting opportunity and now lots of excellent meat. As we ponder the magnitude of the animal at 210 yards the beast raises up on its front feet and starts to make way to the north again. Not able to use its hind feet it is slow and awkward but still moving. I take careful aim and fire again and again and again. Three more hits from a .338 Win. Mag. Am I shooting at a zombie bison? One more head shot and the cow with six lives goes down for good. I can’t believe it. I am usually a reasonable marksman. This rifle and these particular handloads have preformed well for me in the past on many animals. We walk down to the animal and I notice it has been shot 6 out of 7 times. One shot was a heart shot that hit too low having pierced the lower chest cavity but didn’t hit the heart. Other connecting shots were all reasonable for a serious injury or a kill but the bison didn’t think so. All projectiles completely passed through the bison.

We try to turn the animal for photos. NO WAY. It is so big and even with 5 men working on it we cannot move it. The guide guesses the animal weights around 1,000 to 1,100 pounds. It is sooooo large I can’t believe how massive it is. We take lots of photos as it lays. I am extra happy about how fine a bison it is. The best thing in my heart is that my son is here with me. We are both real grinny. He made it all possible. Thanks to him and his family for all they are to me and all they do for me.

Coby and Jay start the huge cleaning/gutting task. They each have about 4 knives and by the end of the ordeal all 8 or so of the knives are dull. Bison hide is tough and there is lots of it on this giant old beast. The gut pile is about the size of a Volkswagon beetle. As Jay removes the liver he tells me there is a Ute tradition that the successful hunter eats a piece of liver fresh from the animal. He cuts a small piece the size of a postage stamp and holds it out to me on his knife. YES, it is dripping blood and YES it is raw. I ask if he is tricking me and he just pokes the knife closer toward me. I take the liver and eat it. I doubt I would order this type of meat at a restaurant. My son asks me how it tasted and I said “kind of livery”.

It takes four men and about 2 hours to gut clean and quarter the bison. The guides are not wasting any time and they bring out a cordless saw-z-all to cut up the rib bones and quarter the animal up. We can’t carry the heavy quarters to the trucks so Jay drives one of the big old Fords down through the sagebrush over some real rough terrain to where we are. NO road – NO problem. It takes two men to lift a hind quarter into the truck. The hide and the head also take two men to lift into the truck. It is real cold now and the weather looks like some snow is going to blow in. We 4X4 hill climb out of the sagebrush and back to my truck. We load the meat, hide, and head and motate to a major fork in the road. Brandon and Manny are already there with the other big old Ford truck and we have some sodas, sandwiches, and chips on the tailgate for lunch at 2:30 p.m. Then my son and I start the 2 ½ hour drive back down the mountain off the reservation to the asphalt road and home. I can’t stop grinning. The pickup handles as if there is a moderate load in it, you know it’s just 500+ pounds of meat, a large hide and the head of a great beast in the bed of my truck.