One Heck Of A Ride

19 moose came out, our guide took him as close to the animal as he could. Bill was using his trusty .30-06 with 180-grain ammunition, and as usual, he did not miss. When we saw the bull go down, we all got in the other boat and went across the river to help quarter the moose. The guide had stretchers that were like army cots without legs that we used to carry the quarters to the boat and up to the cabin. He also had trimmed the trees to make hauling moose out easier. When it was Herm’s turn, for some reason the guide asked me to go with Herman. We had seen a bull with two or three cows move out of sight behind a knoll away from the sloughs, so we crossed the river and started stalking whatever was behind that knoll. The guide had told Herman to go to the left and me to go to the right when the bull suddenly appeared with two cows behind him. They were headed for the forest. The guide told Herman to shoot, but instead Herman said, “I don’t have a shot. You take him Abe. Shoot!” I was relaxed because it was Herman’s turn and I had expected him to shoot, but I took aim while standing. The scope on my .270 Winchester was sighted in for exactly 200 yards with 130-grain ammunition, and I aimed at the bull’s lower neck and fired when he stopped to let the cows go into the forest first. It was like slow motion. The bull lay down and that was it. Our guide shouted, “Nice shot, Abe!” Herman came over and was overjoyed for me. After gutting, quartering and carrying Bill’s moose and mine on stretchers to the canoe and up the knoll and hanging them, the guide decided we should take the rest of the day off to regroup and reorganize. Late that afternoon, we were in the cabin eating a dinner of moose meat when we saw a caribou nonchalantly walking and grazing along our side of the river. Herman grabbed his Remington .270 and rushed out the door as the guide yelled, “Make sure it’s a male.” Herman already had his scope on the caribou and yelled “It’s a male,” and shot. His caribou was a magnificent bull, and he’d taken it from camp. The next day was our last day to hunt, and lo and behold a moose popped out of the forest within 200 yards of the cabin. When our guide told Bud to shoot it, Bud lay down and fired five or six shots at the moose as it stood there. When it finally lay down, we found all of those rounds had gone through the bull. What an adventure it was to hunt the wilderness of British Columbia! We returned home with three moose and a caribou. Our first Colorado hunt was on the western slope of the Rockies between Montrose and Grand Junction on a private ranch that was owned by someone Herman knew. The deer and elk tags we bought included one for taking a cow elk. The seasons were split with the deer hunt starting two days after the elk season closed. On the last day of our elk hunt, we all were spread out along the side of a knoll. I was on the right side in an aspen thicket above an open meadow when I spotted four or five does in the meadow. Then, lo and behold, the largest whitetail buck I have ever seen walked out of the aspens with three or four more does. I couldn’t begin to count the points on his rack. He was only 75 to 100 yards from me when he headed to the other does in the meadow. When he stopped and stared at me, I slowly raised my .270 and put the scope on him. He was so beautiful. Even if it had been deer season, I don’t think I would have shot him. After we got back to camp, I told the rancher and the boys what I had seen. The rancher said I should have shot that buck. I don’t know if the boys believed me, but even if they didn’t, the memory of seeing that buck has always been with me. The next year, the day before we planned to return to Colorado, Herman was killed in a car accident between Santa Barbara and Arroyo Grande, California. His girlfriend’s brother called me at midnight to tell me about it, and I called My Introduction