One for the Books

    

One for the Books

At first glance, I thought it was a rock.  The light tan lump blended perfectly into the rolling hills of the ridge.  Upon further inspection I noticed the pulsing white puffs of breath.  “Aha!” I thought.  Each breath was its own cloud hanging momentarily in the sun-kissed morning.   He was motionless and was taking-in the sun on the highest of the mountain’s ridges.   

    I was close.  I dropped my pack and jacked a shell into the chamber.  I tippy toed over the ridge, dipping down and out of sight.  From here I would be able to get behind a few rolling hills that would get me even closer.  

     The sun had painted the valley brilliantly that morning and It was so bright that at times I had to cover my eyes from the glare.   I had seen three other caribou before sunrise and all of them were high on the mountain.  After several miles of hiking and glassing down in the valley I decided that I too would go up high.   

     My notoriously restless nature in the field has paid dividends in the past. Those in my tight hunting circle know me as a hiker-hunter.  More than anyone I know, I am less likely to sit on a hillside behind a pair of binocs.  Tree stand? Forget about it.  If I don’t see something, I move.  If I do see something, I move-in for a closer look. Often times on these forays I’ll spot another animal on the way. Pete and I are never afraid to put boots on the ground in pursuit of an animal. In fact we talked about the concept of boots on the ground in camp on this very trip. "It's our whole campaign." said Pete.

Since we hunt seven miles back in a non motorized hunting area we have our work cut out for us. With the good graces of solid health and fitness we are both equal to the task and with the sobering realization that we won't be able to do this forever we both have made these hunts a priority; Carpe Diem!

    Gaining the mountain-top on this day was a generous vertical gain and it was glorious and it made me happy.  What a surprise to know that-on this day, the mountain was coveting a jewel up high in its crown. I wouldn’t have guessed that I would be putting the final-sneaks on a nice caribou at the top of a mountain.  

     “The sneaks” is a uniquely Harrison term that means stalking an animal.  Final-sneaks is the conclusive ending to the sneaks and represents the definitive moment in a hunt.  It’s the moment that decides the fate of the whole thing.  It’s the moment when the hunter, through stealth and cunning manages to close the gap and gain position for a shot.  Success means meat-for-the-freezer.  Fuck-it-up and it’s back to the drawing board along with a healthy dose of self-doubt served up with a side of self-loathing.  

      Meanwhile, as I was riding this peculiar fence of hunting fate,  my brother Pete, located several miles from me had been patiently glassing from a lower hillside. His modus operandi differs from my own at least a little.  For one, he is more patient. Earlier with my binoculars I could see him lying on the tundra studying the opposite side of the valley with his spotting scope.  All I could hope for was that he was having as brilliant of a time as I was. As it turns out he was.

     Slowly and as quietly as I could I inched my way closer to the bull caribou in the troughs of the rolling hills. Closer and closer-still I moved.  I had to have been within 50 yards now.  Painfully slow, I raised up for a look.  No caribou.  I stood up all the way.  Nothing.  I looked over the ridge.  Nada..... Shit.  

     I peered over the edge of the mountain expecting to see him scurrying away.  Again...nothing.  Where did he go?

   I hiked up the ridge further all the while questioning my sanity until suddenly I caught a glimpse of four different caribou.  They were moving down from a pass into the valley below.  They were on-the-move and my only hope for them was that they would show up in camp later in the day.  Eventually I came to terms with the fact that my summit bull was gone.

    BOOM! The shot rang out across the valley and I knew that it must have been Pete.  I picked my way down the ridge occasionally glassing for him.  Finally I spotted him several miles across the valley.  He had draped a couple of game bags over the bushes and they stood out in contrast to the rusty colored benches.  I passed through camp to pick up a couple of beers to share as I made my way over to him.  I was excited to see him and to see what had transpired. I picked my way across the tundra benches. As I approached him it was his smile that I saw first before the rack or animal itself. As it turned out this would be one for the books.

Pete Harrison

Luckily after screwing-up the final sneaks yet again the very next day on a different caribou, I too was eventually smiled upon by the hunting gods with a non-screw up.

One Fine Saturday Morning

    One Fine Saturday

Corey at Fish camp

    It was the crack of 9:30 when I woke him.  “Good morning Bubba.”  My son Corey, curled into a ball on a Saturday morning was riding out a sweet sleeping-in session.  Enduring his first week of Junior High School at SuValley was none other than a big deal and lord knows the guy needs his rest.  Growing several inches in the last year puts him just above my hairline but since that too is raising each year I figure that I’m good for another few months or so.  

     Juggling two new lockers with tricky combos along with seven different classes was exciting to him but also draining.  On top of it all one of his crazy new teachers had him run a whole mile and do a bunch of strange exercises too.  

    Smack-dab in midst of the foggy existence of pubescence, he is a textbook case:   Argue, eat, sleep, argue, eat, argue, sleep.  The wife and I having endured our own such period so long ago, have also spent considerable time shepherding hundreds of other adolescents through their-own fog as well.  Despite all of this valuable experience it seems to have added only dubious wisdom to the rearing of our own.

       To his credit and our own, Corey is a sensitive, sweet boy with a golden heart. He wears his heart on his sleeve, is quick to laugh and is visibly uncomfortable when his sister or the new puppy is scolded or disciplined.  

He loves to hunt and fish and on this morning it was easy to get him out of bed.  “Corey there are a bunch of grouse in the driveway.”  Suddenly, as if he was only feigning sleep he jumped out of bed and with excitement in his eyes and wild bed-hair he responded “Where?”

     “Come on, I put your rifle on the bed.”  We made our way down the stairs.  Corey grabbed the rifle.  I handed him a box of .22 shells and together we made our way out the front door to face the unknown barrage of winged interlopers.  One of us was fully dressed.

     Without burden of shirt, or socks, donning only sweats and crocks. Corey led the attack down the driveway.   

Corey Harrison

Waffles, Come-alongs and Middle Earth

      Waffles, Come-alongs and Middle Earth

"I'm making Waffles!"-Donkey

      They were both looking at me.  I turned off the motor.  The cow and calf moose saw me as soon as I crested the final hill on the four wheeler.  Slowly they made their way up the cut across from me as I unpacked the wheeler and loaded my pack.  

    I don’t consider myself much of a four wheeler guy, but this year I drew a Talkeetna Mountains caribou tag and I was limited on time and therefore- options.  My plan was to ride-out the local four wheeler trail that leads above treeline. After I had gone as far as the trail could take me I would go on foot from there to scout for caribou.    

    I love to hunt caribou but I have finite leave-time, and hunting for moose, considered by many to be the grand-prize of Alaskan big game hunting, always takes precedent.  Moose are the largest of the deer family and of the eight surviving moose subspecies on the planet the Alaskan Moose, along with the Chukotka moose of Eastern Siberia stand out as the largest of them all.  What an amazing place we live in where healthy numbers of them still flourish and it is quite possible to fill a freezer with a whole year’s worth of lean healthy protein with one well placed shot.   

     The ten mile four wheeler ride-in could easily have been featured in Four Wheeling Mud-Bogger magazine (if there is such a thing.)  Never before have I ridden my four wheeler in such adverse trail conditions.  After I’d surpassed several nasty, swampy mud bogs I realized that the trail seemed to be getting worse. I knew that returning wouldn’t be any easier but I pressed on until I passed the point of no return.  The mud bogs continued their downward spiral and I felt much like Froto Baggins crossing the Dead Marshes of Middle Earth...except I was on a four wheeler.  Instead of seeing pasty dead faces and zombies in the swamps, I would spy any occasional beer can as I passed by that had been discarded from the redneck regulars who may or may not be blood related to the Orc.

     It’s a good thing that I threw in a come-along at the last minute.   Without it I’d still be out there wallowing in mud up to the wheel wells with my hands on my hips.  I had to use it four times on the trip in alone.   Mud of every conceivable consistency and depth kept me guessing. It was especially soupy as I neared the treeline.  It took me almost six hours to reach the end of the trail.  By then I was glad to be done riding.

   I loaded up my backpack and left the four wheeler on the hill.  From there I took off on foot picking my way over the hill and then up into the same cut the moose had been in.  I made my way around a thick bushel of willows that would lead me to a nearby ridge.  

  Holy Berries!  Berries everywhere.  With my pack still on I bent over and scooped my hand through one particularly thick patch of blueberries and came up with 40 or 50 plump blueberries.  It was almost too much to fit in my mouth but I persevered and found a way to stuff them all in as I hiked along. They were superb.  These wild blueberries are nothing like the big ones you can buy in those square plastic containers in the supermarket.  Visually those ones look okay, but are essentially flavorless.  For me, it’s exactly like the difference between a store bought tomato and a good locally grown hot house tomato.  The slightly tart, sweetness of the blueberry is a gift on a long fall’s hike.  I can recall many times sitting in a patch and eating until completely sated.

     Adjacent to the blueberries and tightly hugging the tundra were an equally thick patch of crow berries.  I grabbed a handful of those too.  They aren’t as great as blueberries but still good.  I made my way up and over the top of the knoll until I found a suitable camping spot.  At a casual glance, I noticed that the cow and calf that I’d startled earlier were settled into a nearby hillside.  Also I saw three more moose in the expanse of the valley below.  No caribou.

   After setting up the tent and otherwise organizing camp,  I grabbed a beer from the pack along with my binocs.   I glassed the hillside behind me where I thought the cow and calf were. Low-and-behold, the cow and calf had somehow morphed into a giant sow grizzly and her one year old cub!  I think there’s a lesson here:  Apparently one should perform more than a cursory glancing-around of their surroundings before settling-into a camping spot. Oops.  

    They were about 300 yards away from me working the hillside.  I sat there mesmerized watching them hoover up thousands upon thousands of berries.  First they worked their way up the hill.  I hoped they would keep going up and over.  Then they started working their way back down.  Down towards me.  Oh boy.

      It was late.  The day had been a long one for me.  I was beat.  I really didn’t want to pack up camp and relocate.  I decided to stay put for the night.  Here was my thinking/plan:  1) The bears obviously have plenty to eat, so as long as I didn’t provoke them or get in between sow and cub I should be good.  It would be hard to do either from inside the tent.  2) Preventative defense is the best offense ( I just made that up.)  Like Charles Martin Smith in Farley Mowat’s  Never Cry Wolf I set about the task of marking my territory.   I downed my beer and began peeing at several strategic locations around my immediate perimeter.  I must have looked ridiculous hustling around pissing everywhere with my pants falling down.  Okay. 3)  Part three of my plan included hanging all of my perishable food from the branch of a bush away from the tent.  I tied an empty can of beer to a branch higher up.   My thinking was that if the bears came into camp I would surely be awakened by such a clatter at the food bush.  4)  Contingency plan B:  Winchester model 70 30.06 locked, loaded and within reach.  Hell yeah!

     Yeah I slept like shit.  My brain kept trying to turn every little noise into a big bear.   On top of it there were three constant noises that served as confusing background to all others;  The variable wind’s flapping the tent’s fabric,  A light drizzling rain hissing over the tent, and the ubiquitous swarm of buzzing, circling mosquitoes hovering just outside in the lee of the tent.

      What may be otherwise obvious to the gentle reader I will have you know that I made it through the night unscathed if not wholly refreshed.

    Much earlier than I normally would have, I boiled up for coffee and eased into my morning.  I grabbed the binocs and gun and without looming bears (nor lions nor tigers.), I took a gentle stroll over to the next vantage point.   It was from this very knoll that I spotted a brilliant 50 inch bull moose in full velvet browsing just over the hill.  The early archery season for moose wouldn’t be open until the next morning but alas I’m not an archery guy so I was out of luck on both counts but my heart raced nonetheless.

    Sitting on a big rock watching this bull, I pondered my situation. Considering the fact that I would have to attack this caribou hunt on weekends only, I realized that this particular spot wasn't an ideal location for me to be hunting. The considerable travel time of mud bogging doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for hunting.  

I decided to pick berries.  I mentally prepared myself for the return trip through the Dead Marshes and beyond.  

 I knew that I would have to transform myself from a mild-mannered, berry picking, conservationist into a redneck four wheeling wild man if I wanted to make it back home to the waffle maker.  

Freezing blueberries on a cookie sheet first
prevents smushing during vacu-sealing.

   

     

     

Wildlife and Fish at Susitna's mouth

                                       Wildlife and Fish

View from the outhouse

      I pulled back on the throttle carefully.  With Mom, Corey, and Larry on board I didn’t want to throw them forward with a sudden stop.  “Hey look, there’s a bear!”  The lanky two-year-old grizzly was as startled as we were.  He was in the water up to his chest and when we skipped around the corner he pulled himself up the muddy cut bank dripping wet.  Just then his brother poked his head up from behind a pile of drift logs.  We had disrupted their activities.  They were fishing.   They bolted up and over the high tide line disappearing into the grass just as Dad and Mike came around the bend in the other skiff.   I wondered if we would be able to see them from the cabin.  More importantly, I wondered if they would be back fishing during the next morning’s fishing period.  They were very close to our set net sites.

    Slowly we made our way down the beach.  We had arrived at the mouth of the Susitna River an hour and a half past high tide.  The water was rushing out and wasn’t very deep.  An occasional grinding-of-the-prop in the mud reminded me how shallow we were.  Up ahead I saw a pod of belugas breaching in a neat line.  I headed towards them knowing that they were in the channel of Ivan River and it would be deeper.  As we made our way into the river a gaggle of fifteen White fronted Geese waddled up the mud bank into the tall grass where we could see just the tips of their heads bobbing through the waving grass.  They were hustling their way to safety.   Another larger group of Canadian Geese took to the air as we came up on them on the very next bend of the river. Two seals bobbed their heads to get a look at us before diving out of sight into the muddy waters.

    As we pulled up to camp I noticed a fat seagull was squatting on the chimney cap of my bunkhouse.  The cap was now collapsed and there was a new series of white stains below it on the metal roofing.  Sweet.   I pulled the boat up to the bank and we began unloading gear and settling in.   I anchored the boats as the rest of the gang shuttled bags and gear up to the cabin.

   “Hey look there’s a coyote!”  sure enough a large coyote was trotting along the flats directly across the river from us.  We managed to gather all three pairs of binoculars and were focused-in when the coyote lept upward and then pounced nose-down into the grass.  It was easy to see the Twinkie sized vole in its mouth.  The coyote looked over at us and our barrage of glass lenses before turning tail, picking up the pace, and leaving us.   

       All day the Sand hill Cranes were constant.  As I was unpacking my bag in the bunkhouse, four of them flew ten feet over top, landing on the other side of the river.   Their squeaky clarinet-like bleatings are a dead-giveaway.  The mated pairs call in unison: two female calls to the one male.  (There’s a joke in there somewhere.)  There were several other groups of them walking among the grasses on the other side of the river.

       As I walked back to the main cabin I saw a goshawk dipping and swooping over the flats probably looking for Twinky-Voles, same as the coyote.  When I got back to the cabin I found the binocs.  I wanted to see if those bears were still around.   All I found were a half dozen eagles perched on drift logs out by the high tide line.  Several salmon finned and swirled in the river.  

       For some it might be easy to take for granted the abundant flora and fauna after so many years. We have been commercial fishing on the Susitna Mud Flats for the last 34 summers and, in contrast it seems that I have gained a greater appreciation for it as time passes.  It amazes me the diversity and numbers of creatures that gather for the push of the salmon each summer.  It’s like greeting old friends each July as we spill out of the Susitna River making our way to camp.  

   “Nice day.” I said. Larry and Mike were hanging out in the sun on the front porch talking to my dad.  Corey was untangling a kite and Mom was unpacking the food and organizing the kitchen.  The sun was kissing us midday and there was just enough of a breeze to sway our giant American flag that is attached to an old wooden oar. Mom found the oar beach combing one day. 
 “Where are all the fish?” I asked.  Nobody seemed to know.  By this time each year there are usually lots of fish in the river, so many in fact that I prop a few on the way to camp.  On some years the fish are so thick that some even wash up on shore in the wake behind the boat.  They flop and twist on the mud until they slide back into the water. 

     “They’re coming.” said Larry.  In the end he was right. They came and once again life was good. 

Corey and I practicing the forgotten
art of mud-glissading.

Corey earning his stripes

Mom and Dad enjoying the river

Hazelee and Brenton crewing for cheap.

The crew in action.