One Heck Of A Ride

40 More Antlered Game Chapter 4 O ur continent’s deer, which in addition to our mule deer and white-tailed deer includes our moose, elk, caribou and brocket deer, are the envy of hunters all over the world, and I was fortunate to have successfully hunted all of them during the course of my hunting career. A few of these hunts were neither especially noteworthy nor difficult, but all were enjoyable and I returned from each with some great memories. I met extraordinary people and visited places ordinary tourists will never see, and I still count many of the hunters, booking agents, outfitters and guides I met as my friends. I also became more aware and appreciative of the job North America’s state and provincial fish and game professionals have done to protect and enhance our continent’s wildlife resources. This chapter includes highlights from a few of these hunts. Sitka Blacktails And Death Over The Mountain When Bud Dyer was the high bidder for the Sitka blacktail hunt an Alaskan taxidermist had donated to SCI Arizona’s annual fund-raising auction in the summer of 1988, I arranged to join him. The twelve-day hunt would begin the first day of November just four months later. It was not a guided hunt. The taxidermist and one of his friends would provide only the camp and food. We would have to get to their remote camp on Kodiak Island, find our own deer and pack them out without their help. The limit was five deer, but I bought only four tags. To get there, Bud and I flew from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, changed planes and flew to Anchorage, and on to Kodiak City, where we spent the night in the Buckskin River Inn before boarding a floatplane that Bud and I, along with a husband and wife, had chartered. Our flight from Kodiak City to the camp on Red Man Lake was so rough that Bud had trouble keeping his breakfast down. It didn’t bother me until someone on our flight vomited. Until then, I had been watching the island below us, looking for the giant bears that have made the island famous (I saw several). Adding the smell of vomit and dead fish to the retching sounds that accompanied those awful odors made me start to feel green around the gills, too. I was glad when the plane finally landed on the lake and taxied to the shore below our camp. Ron Aldredge (the taxidermist) and his friend, a young man I knew only as Chuck, had arrived in another plane minutes before us. The six of us – the husband and wife, Bud and I, and Ron and Chuck – quickly erected a large tent for cooking and eating, and three smaller tents for sleeping. We furnished our own sleeping bags and pads. All six of us had deer tags, and the woman also had a bear tag. As can be expected on Kodiak Island in November, the weather was lousy. Someone repeated the old bromide about “if you don’t like the weather, just give it thirty minutes and it will change.” This was one time it didn’t happen, however. The fog didn’t lift until the day after our hunt was supposed to start, so the eight of The “airport” at Red Man Lake where author camped on Kodiak Island.