It is amazing how things can go sometimes. Earlier this fall, I posted a short story about a wonderfull sheep hunt I had. Well like it or not, here is a story about one of the worst hunts I have had and will close the season on.

IT starts out with a friend of mine, Kaleb, wanting to go goat and caribou hunting in the worst way. Although I only had 2 weeks at home with family before I was to leave for 6 months to take a coarse in Red Deer, Kaleb was able to twist my arm into going. Everyone that knows me, knows how hard this is to do. I figured we had atleast a good week to hunt.
The first thing we had going against us is that hunting this late in the year, the days get short. Such is life this far north. We had 9 hours of travel time before we would hit our destination at the trail head. We had hoped to get there before dark so we could set up camp in daylight. 10 hours later, we are happy to see our destination and we had about15 minutes of day light left. I quess I was a little to excited, for I failed to check how deep the creek was that had washed the road out. Other wash outs were fine, why wouldn't this one be, right? Wrong! My truck made it through but the gooseneck horse trailer didn't. It got hung up on the bank. Matter of fact, it came unhooked and tore off my tailgate and the plug for the trailers wiring. You know for all the good stuff like BRAKES.
I was so happy to be at the trailhead that, amazingly, not one curse flew out of my mouth when this happened. The tailgate was a write-off, nothing I could do about that. I left it as a souvenier beside the bent up culverts that were supposed to be under the road that had once existed. I was concerned, though, about getting the horse trailer back across the wash out and the brakes that we do not have now. The brakes are important. The last 150 miles we travelled were pretty much.... up-hill. I can not stress enough how important those brakes are going to be on the way out. "Oh well", I said. "We are here now, we can worry about this stuff later. At least now we can go hunting." This is now my second..? or third mistake.(Do I need to keep pointing these mistakes out.} We unloaded the horses and re-hooked up and got the trailer out. How did the trailer come unhooked anyways?, I thought to my self. A secondary latch had broke. Not a problem, I can fix that. Coming out of the creek, the sliding portion of the rear door on the trailer fell off from the jarring and fell into the creek. Kaleb caught it before it went down stream. All is well, even though we lost our day light, we can look after the horses, make camp and eat.
Had a good sleep that night. Wasn't to cold. We did not have to set up the stove. Kaleb did use a horse blanket over his bag. Immediately I got up and glassed around the country. Kaleb cooked up some bacon and eggs and we ate. Kakeb is pretty handy in the bush. He grew up in the Yukon. He has been working for hunting outfitters since he was 14. First as a packer and then as a guide for Artic Red River Outfitters. Kaleb is a back pack hunter. He knows nothing about horses other than they are rather large and they eat hay. Kaleb, who ussually does not say much, mentioned that those rolled oats I was feeding the horses taste pretty good. I just looked at him with a puzzled expression. Kaleb was good around the horses. He was calm and deliberate.
Kaleb and I spent the next couple of hours glassing the country while the horses ate thier breakfast. I spotted two large caribou bulls going over the top of a mountian some distance away. From the looks of the tracks in the snow, it looked like a good sized herd went over the top. It did not matter what size the herd was, those two bulls will do just fine. We decided to saddle up and ride around to the other side of the mountain that the caribou were on. It would be a long day and we will have to see what we can get ourselves into. Never know what a guy will run into.
I let Kaleb ride my best horse and I decided to ride my "up and coming best horse" who was broke to ride just this summer. This horse was a little green and I wanted to get more time on him before the end of the season. Plus I won't be around this winter and it will be May before I will have the chance again. Mistake.
My horse seemed a bit tense so I talked to him and rubbed him. I said to him, "You are not going to try to buck me off again today are you." Of coarse he said no. The last hunt before this I had ridden him, he was great, he did not give me to much trouble. When I went to saddle up, I noticed that my stirrups were far to short. I had adjusted them for someone else. I decided, to heck with it, I am in a hurry to get going and I can ride with my feet out of the stirrups if I have to. Stuppid mistake.
I jump up in the saddle and I motioned for my horse that it is time to go and go he did! He was being a little stubborn at first and I said to him again, "come on, lets go!" He went for all he was worth. With my feet up so high in the stirrups, I know I was had. I remember saying to him, "you f--ker!" just before he launched me. Alot of things can go through your mind when this happens, one of which is where are you doing to land. Also on my mind was the day pack I was carrying on my back with my Leupold spotting scope, camera, tripod, etc. Not so much as how much money this stuff costs but how much it is going to hurt if I land on it. I got some good air. My feet free of the stirrups and feeling much like a bird, I was making good on my landing when a kicking leg from the horse caught me in the calf. This changed my coarse and I slammed into the ground with my head and shoulder. I recall while I was rolling around in pain that I was glad I never landed on my pack or got a foot caught in one of the stirrups. I was in lots of hurt. I could feel broken bones in my shoulder. My head still hurts. Just the empty shell of it, anyways. Kaleb ended about a hundred yards away in the comotion that started with the bucking horse. He jumped off his horse and came running. I told him that I was O.K and that I just needed to lay here awhile till I figured out what all is broke.
Kaleb had let go of his horse. A mistake, but how can you blame him, he did not know any better.
The saddle horses in the lead and the pack horses following, they all took off. Guns and all. Kaleb, worried about me said he better go catch the horses. I told him that he should and I will be fine. He was gone a good while and I got worried about Kaleb. Only with the horses issue, otherwise I was in good hands. Kaleb did good. It hurt to sit and wait so I figured I will hurt and walk. There is always a chance a gun might come loose and being laying off the trail and Kaleb would need help with the horses. So off I went. Tracking them was not to hard and I could see that Kalib was on thier trail. About 3 miles later I caught up with Kaleb and the horses. He had them pretty much under control. Guns were still there. While gunless, I was not worried about bears. I was too pissed off about the situation. We got back to camp.
Kaleb had to pack camp himself. Then we had the wiring problem on the trailer to deal with. We screwed with that for about an hour and half. We could not get it right. We managed to get the horse trailer across the wash out. Barely. We loaded up the horses and we were off. No, actually we run over a pack box that fell out of the truck now that I don't have a tailgate. We tied everything in the back of the truck and were off down that bumpy road. It didn't seem that bumpy coming in. Half way out, I commented to Kaleb, that I was glad I took a squat behind the bushes 'to give birth to a baby taliban' just before the rodeo. Otherwise, I would be in one heck of a situation.{ By this time I could not move much}. Kaleb nearly pissed himself, laughing. He also agreed. Kaleb said,"What if we see two billies crossing the road?" I said you will be shoot'n mine!(We had a better chance at winning an american lottery.)
The brake thing we solved by going slow. Any steep hill we put the truck in 4Low. For insurance we put the break away switch cable in through the back window of the truck. In case we needed to pull on it. We arrived at the Watson lake Hospital a 4:00 AM. Woke up a docter. I was relieved to find that it was only a broken collar bone. They fixed me up. Kaleb and I got a few Z's in a hotel. We then continued on our way home.
This effectively puts and end to my hunting season this year. I am O.K. with that. If I heal fast enough and I use my 410, I may be able to hunt pheasants in Alberta when I am there. None the less, I am looking forward to giving it a go next year.

I would have liked to have titled this, "Lessons learned" or maybe," What a dipshit I was" or something like that. Feel free to add your own.

I like to talk about the good ones so I decided to share a real shitty one.

Daryl

Woow, man, what a mess. And I thought my hunts this year had started off bad, not finding trail heads, river crossings and such. That teaches me, things can always get worse. Good healing buddy, hope Alberta makes up for a bit of your sorrows, once you get here.

Frans

Terra Incognita North America
www.terrahunt.com

If I could have the chance to hunt ANY big game animal in the world it would be the Mountain Goat,and after reading a few posts here and there on the matter, it only confirms this. No matter if you get anything or not it WILL be a hunt you will never forget.

Hope you make a fast recovery.
Tony

Dude, I feel for you. I used to ride every weekend for about 5 years at Huddert Park in San Mateo County when I was in my 30's and the mangy crossbred Appy/Quarter/Arab would toss my ass every chance. He once tried to rub me off against a bunch trees about 7' in diameter. Good luck the next time.

Daryl

OUCH Plus!!!

At least the hunt was so short you didn't have time to get frost bite on your toes

Got to love them goat hunts.

Sorry to hear of your injury.

GLUE!!

Horses make good glue!

I hate those things!

Sorry about the hurts.

Jamie

Daryl
Not a bald faced horse with one blue eye,one brown
by any chance???

I hate that free bird feeling...all the while you
know its gonna hurt,just don't know how bad til
you land.

Heal up quick.

Jeff

You must learn to accept the fact that murphy's Laws is always along on every trip in the great and wonderful outdoors. He will test your skills far more often than any shot you might take on any game animal. Murphy has one goal mind when the trip begins, and that is test your preperations for the trip to the fullest. Over look nothing that may go wrong since Murphy is then in controll of your trip and you are just along for the ride. Murphy did exactly that to me during last years deer season. In my tree house with the wind perfect, two does and one fine 12 point buck ambled along the dear trail only 50 yards from my stand. With the cross hairs following the huge buck I blew my grunt call to stop him. He stopped stock still and tested the air giving me aperfect braodside shot. With my crosshairs behind his massive shoulder I touched the trigger and the only sound me and that monster buck heard was click. That buck bolted away instantly never to be seen again the rest of the week. I opened the bolt and the cartrdge jumped out landed on the floor of the tree house. Ipicked it up and not one single sign the primer had been struck by the firing pin. I was in awe and since the buck was gone, I jacked another shell into the chamber, picked out a knot on a tree about 60 yards from my stand. When my cross hairs were perfectly centered on that knot I touched the trigger. My slug gun barked it's reply and that knot had a nice dicernable hole dead center. I stripped that bolt in the field and found absolutely nothing wrong with my slug gun. Put the bolt back together, back in the rifle and fired that cartridge into the same knot on the same tree, bingo, dead center hit. Never have found a logical reason why that firing pin did not fall on that primer that morning, costing me one of the finest bucks I have ever seen in that patch of woods. The answer is simple to me now, Murphy's law, anything that can go wrong will, when you least expect it.

Someone posted a saying on this site once. Being way too familiar with horses, I believe it was a truthful statement.

It is not if you will get hurt with a hores, it is when and how bad.

So true ... so darn true.

Sorry to hear about your accident. Glad it wasn't any worse. Get well soon.

[ 10-21-2003, 17:05: Message edited by: Wendell Reich ]

Had a friend of mine tell me the almost exact story this weekend.

They lost a pack box too, and it had all their cooking and eating utensils in it. So they cooked and ate with their hunting knives for a week.

Well, if hunting was easy, everybody be'd doing it. Heal up quick, my friend!!