F-Troop Est. 1968

Saturday:
The gang (or whats left) assembles on the opener to once again lose weight, get in shape and chase mules across the lands! A push of Piney Knob from the Camp Creek Trail is performed, with little sign observed. Leaves are all down, so no complaining about views, underbrush, yada yada yada! A continued push to the first cable results in…..nothing!

Sunday: Over to the “western” starting grounds, the drivers are dispatched and a run of that portion of the woods confirms that no living creature wants to reveal itself….lots of scrapes noticed by Leaddog at the 360 watch, but the makers of such are not playing with the crew, yet!

WEEK TWO!
Friday:
Leaddog arrives to solo the woods and perform a recon of last week to verify conditions. Verification results in what was seen last week in the Piney Knob area. A scoot to the Duck Hole showed some sign but not much. They ARE here but still may be in summer mode? Another trek to the first cable has the same results.

Saturday: Now with the limited gang, a drive of No Name is performed. The watchers are sent down Billy’s Watch to prescribed watches, and the drive commences. Rubs and scrapes are now numerous everywhere, at least something is alive but where is it?! The drive is completed with no results, so now a return is in order on the “other” side. All converges to the Knolls and exits the woods muleless.

Sunday:
The Bunny Hill is hit, the usual Sunday hunt. Scrapes and rubs are seen, and hopes are high! Two does are pushed right under the nose of Lindy, on watch in the notch. Nothing follows as hoped. The second hill is attacked back to camp with nothing seen…again except for an interloper that came out of nowhere dressed in green. Hopefully Week Three will be better…….

A successful work weekend accomplished! Trails cleared, wood split and stacked, 100′ tall trees hung up and finally downed! Still missing the third guy who was supposed to go up top…..
Additional information to be added after photos are received.

Friday:

Leaddog arrives Thursday night to get an early start for the Friday recon. Heading up the Yellow trail spending time in the watches, a decision is made to hit the Duck Hole fringes to see if anything is present. Rain is forcasted to arrive after five, which arrived five minutes after reaching the Duck Hole. Jake gets in the woods late, but still in time to maintain membership in the FAMHC. Not one tail is seen, a scrape here and there is present, however as usual the makers of such are not. Rain pushes the two out of the woods….

Saturday:

With a crew of eight, the gang decides to push to the west to well placed watchers delivered by vehicles. Drivers drive to the watch line, with again no results. Tracks abound, a few scrapes in the usual places – they’re here but where? Probably the on the “shelf”…..

Sunday:

In order to confuse the mules, a reverse drive of one of the local Bunny Hills is performed. Polecat hunts to Lindy all by himself on watch in the notch, with the rest of the gang waiting low. During this event, Junior, the premier Bear and Coyote hunter – pushes a doe right to the now almost healed Toucher, which ended up in his lap! Where is the proverbial “trailing buck”? Probably on the shelf!!!

Next week – it looks as if a backcountry hunt may be in order to satisfy the yearning needs of the Polecat. Robba is crafting a stretcher/litter to carry out the Polecat as we speak! We could just bring a shovel……..

This is the time where the men assemble for a long week of hunting, which was once known as “Professionals Week”, but since this is the closest we’ll ever get to Alaska……

Wednesday:
Leaddog, Digger and Probie arrives to camp and ready themselves for the next day’s hunt. Upon awakening, the trio finds the first installment of “warmy-chnagy” well under way.

Thursday:
Snow, freezing rain and ice engulfs the area, limiting the crew to local haunts. Ice forming on the trees and the ground inhibits the three from any attempts to sneak up on any amorous mules. Leaddog mans the lower and later the upper watch on the Knolls trail, with Probie and Digger roaming about looking for anything other than ice. A few tracks here and probably there, are seen but most likely the mules are holding tight waiting it out for better weather. Polecat arrives and cleans up the road for the next wave of arriving dildos. All returns to camp, thoroughly soaked where Gore-Tex that was not in use. Let’s see what occurs the next day…

Friday:
Steven and Toucher arrives and now six are present for “normal” routine mountain abuse. Leaddog and Probie climbs into the clouds on Liz, with watchers are deployed throughout the area. Finally, Leaddog hunts through the top which was infested with mules and the Big Bad ‘ol Bear as observed by the presence of many tracks. Beechnuts abound, somewhat sporadically but when they do they feed like Spike….we’ll leave the rest of that to your imagination! Scrapes, and rubs are located with no makers of such seen. All returns to camp unscathed and muleless, two days left!

Saturday:
Now with a full compliment of eight Rangers, the crew heads in the general area where Junior ruined the aspirations of the rest of the gang last week….Digger and Lindy pushes the Meadows, Leaddog in Camp Valley, others down below and Robba and Junior ranging to the Hilton via Hooter Ridge. Food is everywhere once again up top, but now hindered by crunchy ice in the shady and high areas our presence is known to all creatures large and small. The two Up-Toppers turns back and out of “nowhere” a lone doe runs right by Leaddog, down towards the Meadows. All turns attention to the Toucher (temporary known as Hobbles) and performs a drive down below to the Cathedral Trees where the Toucher awaits. Upon converging on him, all notice that there are many scrapes all around the Toucher…..looks like the mules are playing “Ring Around the Toucher!”

Sunday: “Are you f@!*^G kidding me?!”
An exhausted but determined crew performs the usual local Sunday Bunny Hunt. Watchers consists of Digger, Leaddog and Steven and Hobbles in the Escape Route. Drivers performs their usual routes, but after the following scenario:

As Leaddog and Steven starts to their assigned watches Steven announces that he just ran into the “Park Pet Mule” which is a unique tall horned four pointer. Note that this mule has been declared off limits by Polecat, with a camera photo for all to see and compare if encountered. Steven declares that the mule is heading straight for Leaddog, which moments later seemed to have occurred. Now somewhat biased on the fact that a pet mules is approaching Leaddog’s guard is somewhat down….as the mule approaches a “point count” and “morphological recognition” is performed and something is not quite right!

This mule seems to have a wide spread, with dark antlers and brow tines, this is NOT the Park Pet! Still wary of shooting the Park Pet many nanoseconds go by with no shot being taken – the mule hears the Leaddog then snorts and applies afterburners. You can probably figure out the rest of the story!

It. was. not. the. Park. Pet! This looked to be big six or nice eight pointer!

All continues on, drives completed and the/that mule is safe once again!

Leaddog swears to kill the Park Pet by shooting it when leaving if seen, dragging it out to Rt 8 and running it over several time until flat as a pancake, then scraping its remains off the road with a rusty shovel and then tossing it in the ditch, possibly setting it on fire!

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!