Friday:
Leaddog and Probie arrives Thursday night to roam the hills in search of mega-beasts on Friday. Probie maintains his membership in the FAMHC, and the two goes up top and out of bounds looking for targets of opportunity. Probie takes a right and descends to grounds not covered in some time, while Leaddog goes left and attempts to cover the tops of ridges where snoozing mules may be present, in an effort to push them down to Probie. Sign is now present, rubs and scrapes are observed, and it seems the back country is abound with mules! Leaddog hits the area where mules seem to congregate and display to each other who’s who, which once again has been visited by megamules…but we know this is nighttime activity! BUT we do know they’re present…but where?! Both exits the area through a “fun filled” descent to the flat lands, with increased activity by mules noted on the egress. There seems to be a lot going on….we need backup!
Saturday:
With a almost full compliment of Roaming Rangers, (Digger and Lindy are absent), the crew decides to perform a favorite and well known hunt. Up again the drivers go, which consists of Robba, Steven, Leaddog and Junior as drivers, with the Toucher, Probie and Polecat covering two miles of valley bottom. Yup – three watchers….two miles.
Junior is assigned to his route, below Camp Knob to push to the awaiting watchers in the area before the Meadows. Toucher hobbles to a good watch near the Cathedral Trees, and starts playing his grunt tube like a marching band tuba player. Polecat makes it all the way to the School Bus watch, and Probie is in between covering 1.5 miles….
The Plan Comes to Fruition!
Meanwhile, the three remaining drivers continue to the clouds, Steven takes the first route to the top, Robba splits and gets ready to do the north side with the Leaddog in Camp Valley heading toward the infamous 800 foot cliff of doom. Just minutes into the drive, Robba declares that he just found a dry bed and Leaddog just pushed a huge bear to him, which ran by Robba shaking the ground like Spike doing the Texas Two-Step with concrete shoes! Seconds later, SOMETHING runs right behind Leaddog just out of sight – presumably the big bad ‘ol bear? Thinking that it could be just that, the drive continues as planned with all reaching the point where all will fall off the mountain to the awaiting watchers. A few minutes into the descent, four shots are heard from the vicinity of Junior and Steven, “music” to our ears! Garbled radio transmissions are heard, due to a mountain full of granite hindering communications….Junior seems to have had a toe tapper with a mule! Eternity unfolds as all wait for whatever could happen next, and eventually the call “BROWN IS DOWN!” was heard! Junior initially said that he hit a buck with six or seven points….but what he didn’t say was that was only one antler! All converges on the grinning Junior and there lays before him an incredible Sixteen Pointer! Yup! Sixteen, with a rut weight of 181 pounds! See the photos!
(In the voice of the narrator of the show “The Curse of Oak Island”) –
Could it be, that efforts by Leaddog and Probie pushed this mule from the backcountry to Camp Knob on Friday, thus placing it in play?
Could it be, that the hobbling Tuba grunt playing Toucher, called him in to Junior?
Could it be, that he “Bear” that Leaddog heard was actually this beast, circling around the drivers to exactly to where Junior was starting his drive? It was said that the bear ran in the opposite direction of Leaddog’s encounter….
Could it be, that the grunting mule heard by Leaddog last Friday was this beast?
Could it be, that Scent Thief worked as usual, and the smell of Juniors Lunchable snack as consumed, combined with such attracted the big ‘ol bear and mega mule?
Sunday:
All goes to the opposite end of the happy hunting grounds, and performs a drive back to camp to awaiting watchers. No sign is seen at all, except for scrapes at the beginning of the drive. Apparently a “Mule Free Zone”….
Stay tuned for the next episode of “Nothing Under Sixteen Points”! The men will be back at Camp Wednesday for the next Great Alaskan Adventure week!
