One Heck Of A Ride

18 to Lompoc with his family. We were in the same trade and worked together until he formed his own business. We became friends and he invited me to go fishing with him and then we started hunting locally, and that’s how I met his hunting buddy Eddie Castillo from Santa Barbara. Bill and Eddie had been friends and avid hunters since they were teenagers. My experience withthemwas learninghowseriousanddetermined the both were. I remember Eddie killing a nice four-point buck in a very deep canyon in the Santa Barbara Mountains the last day of the hunting season. We took turns hauling the buck up a saddle from the bottom of that canyon to the top. On the way up, we walked right over a nest of rattlesnakes! It was on a Sunday and we got home at 3:00 AM and went to work at 7:30 AM. Eddie later moved to Washington State. When I met Bud and Herman, it was through Bill. Bill had organized a hunt in Utah on a private ranch and we drove up in three vehicles. Bill and Bud were in Bill’s truck, Herman and his son were in Herman’s Jeep, and my brother-in-law and I were in my truck. During that hunt, Herman, Bud and I became close friends. From then on, it was Bill, Herman, Bud and I going out of state to hunt in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming or Canada. My favorite hunt was in British Columbia for moose, bear and caribou. Our guide was a little Frenchman and his wife was our cook. We ate moose meat every day. Our guide and his wife took us seven or eight hours up the Caribou River in two 16-foot aluminum riverboats to a log cabin perched on top of a knoll. From the knoll, we could glass the sloughs around a large open meadow where moose would appear from the dense forest and dunk their heads and feed on the vegetation. Our guide had us draw straws to determine who would shoot first. As I remember, Bud was first, Bill was second, Herman was third, and I was fourth. After our second day at the cabin, the moose came out. Our guides took Bud across the river in the aluminum boat and, by paddling as quietly as possible, got him within fifty yards of a big bull with antlers like a Christmas tree. From the cabin we could see Bud shoot and miss, and we watched that moose run back to the forest at full stride. To the this day, it amazes me how a moose can run through trees that are only about three feet apart. Bud had bought a new Winchester in .300 Savage and had someone else sight it in. I’ll never forget the disappointment in his face as he walked to the boat and crossed the river with his head down. I know he was crying. It was Bill’s turn the next day and when a nice My Introduction