I made a new friend and hunting partner last year when I was invited on an Alaskan Black Bear hunt. I met my friend through this forum after purchasing some hand loading supplies off of him. We talked a little bit about his trips to Alaska and my dreams of hunting there some day. After all his normal hunting partners backed out on the 2007 hunting trip for black bear he did a bold move and sent me a PM asking if I wanted to go along with him for a week long bear hunt. I jumped at the opportunity to go on this bear hunt not knowing when I’d ever get a chance like this again.

I had never met this person before we got to Seattle on the way to Petersburg AK, as he lives in Western NY, and I live in CO. He made no promise of a bear, but said he had everything worked out pretty much logistically and all I had to do was show up. So I purchased some new gear, got my rifle zeroed and went bear hunting. To make a long story short on my first bear hunt I got a black bear with a skull measuring 19.25†on the first day of the hunt, and he tagged out with a slightly smaller bear the second day.





I couldn’t believe that I was given such a great opportunity out of the blue, so what do you do for a guy who gave you that chance? I’d been thinking of it for a while now and I don’t know if it is as great as going to Alaska, but I gave him a landowner voucher for a Pronghorn buck on the Eastern plains of CO. I set everything up so all he had to do was show up as well, just like he did for me. I made no promises of a record book buck but told him I could put him on a nice representation of the species.

Our hunt started last Saturday, and we saw several pronghorn and quite a few nice bucks, but he found one that he really wanted. So we tried to put a stalk on this buck and got busted and lost him, the next day we tried again and it was a dismal failure as there wasn’t really any cover to sneak up within comfortable shooting range of his .30-30AI G2 Contender Pistol. So we knew roughly where he would be everyday because he was hanging out with his herd on one of my Father’s wheat fields and bedding in his pasture.

The next morning we snuck in before daylight to set up our ambush, well daylight came and the pronghorn were not where we had planned on them to be. So we formulated another plan for me to try and get them to move towards my friends shooting position. So I walked the half mile back to where we had parked the truck and then drove to the other end of the section and got out and started to bump the pronghorn having to back off and come at them from several different directions to get them to move within shooting range of my friend.

Finally after several bumps the buck crossed a fence about 250 yards from my friends ambush position and he got a shot off. He dropped the buck, but it wasn’t ready to die yet as he got back up and crossed into a neighbor’s pasture where we didn’t have permission to hunt. A quick phone call to the neighbor and the chase was back on, we got back on him and the second shot finished him off. After we got the buck back to the farm house and dressed out, our unofficial score on him was in the mid to high 70’s with him being over 14" on the horns. Like I said no record book buck but a good representation and my friend was one happy hunter.

You say thank you and remember him in your prayers. There is no material way to repay something like that. A good friend is like a faithful wife- their value is greater than jewells. Maybe someday in the future you will be able to preform some small service to him, but I would think that a well ment Thank You will be enough.
Judg Sharpe

I think there was a sincere display of generosity on both parts. I hope you and your friend get to trade many more hunting excursions.

Trading hunting and fishing trips is a great way to experience hunts and fishing you could never afford or want to do on your own. I have traded many trips and made a lot of good friends!
Good hunting

great story, taylorce - and a happy ending all-around.

in answer to your question, the best way to repay a friend is to be a friend, and it looks as if you have done that well!