bevance
FNG
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2019
- Messages
- 26
Alright, so this is an interesting story that happened to me and my pops elk hunting this past fall. I’ll never be able to get to the bottom of it, but curious to hear what everyone else has to say on here after I've been self reflecting for the past several months...
The backstory is that I killed a bull on day 3 of our hunt mid-October. We spent the next day packing the meat out. We shuttled the meat down to my truck. It wasn’t a terrible packout, definitely not the worst I have had. Truck was parked at the end of a road downhill from kill site and camp that is kind of a trailhead but kind of not a trailhead. We shuttled out the meat, so we made many trips back and forth and finally made the last 3-4 trips to the truck towards the end. When we made it to the truck with game bags, we set the meat under my truck bed in the shade. I think there was another empty truck parked here at the time, but we didn’t see anyone else there until the last load hit the truck.
It was dark by the time we made it back to the truck with the last of it, but just about 10-15 minutes after the sun set. I am pretty sure the skull and antlers were the last load that I had. And my dad had some meat on his last trek down. When I popped out at the truck in the parking lot I was a bit ahead of my dad, and I ran into two guides from the outfitters camp further up the mountain from where we had been hunting. I had met the one the previous year when he was packing out another bull. They were packing out a client’s bull after some horse rodeo that had happened. I think they said they had hiked 13 miles with the head so they could get out of camp and enjoy some time after their hunters were successful.
We talked and they were excited to see my bull. I am usually not so big on chitter chatter at trailheads with other hunters, because you never know if you are going to get weird vibes from anyone. I also know I am their competition so I didn’t know how they would feel about me pulling a bull out of there. But, to my surprise they were stoked to see it. (At least they did a good acting job if they weren’t excited) The one even told me he is 99 percent he called my bull in archery season for a client who couldn’t get a shot. And that was about 10-12 miles away as the crow files. That was cool to hear.
But here is where it gets interesting. They were waiting for someone to come up the road to pick them up, that’s why they were hanging out. My dad and I went to load up out meat and my dad started counting our game bags and he told me “We are missing a bag with a shoulder”. So, we started frantically looking around and checking to see if we were missing it. We were in fact missing one elk shoulder in a bag. This was kind of a gut punch after a successful hunt because we love to eat elk meat. So, it immediately but a big damper on the mood. Now, looking back, they got a little weird as soon as we noticed the game bag was missing. We were busy running around like chickens with our heads cut off to notice, but looking back they got a little antsy to me. They didn’t really seem that interested that we lost a bag of meat. And as soon as we started tearing out my truck looking for the missing bag, the two guides said they were gonna take off and walk down to meet their friend who was driving up to get them. We said it was nice to meet you all good luck with the rest of your season and they did the same. They took off pretty quick like and my dad and I continued looking for the missing game bag. We went downhill and searched below the truck since it was a steep sidehill where we parked. Maybe, and that's a big maybe, it had rolled over the side. This was scrub oak hell, so it was tough to even see anything in the dark. I kept asking my dad if he was 100 percent sure he packed it out and we didn’t leave it. He said he was, but it was one of those things that you aren’t fully paying attention so I couldn’t 100 percent say he brought it out on one of the final shuttles and didn’t leave it… So, I told him I would hike back up the 2 miles to the last spot we could say we knew we had it when we shuttled out the meat. I told my dad to keep searching around the truck. I made it back up in the dark and no meat to be found... So still down in the dumps. I ran back down the hill hoping that my dad was able to locate the game bag with the shoulder, but he wasn’t… We were bushed from packing out my bull that whole day so we said we would go back to base camp and come back the next day in the daylight and search for one last time before heading back home...
For some reason I took one last look out from the parking lot. I walked out into the scrub brush, and there was kind of a natural path that led straight out and angled downhill from the parking lot. About 30-40 yards from the truck walking this I miraculously came upon the missing game back with our shoulder. It was laying on the back side of a downed log but I was able to spot it. Zero to Hero, back to zero, and then back to hero when I found the meat...
Our first initial thought was that a bear or other critter came in and scooped up the shoulder and took off during one of our shuttle trips. My dad just happened to notice before we left. But, thinking about it on the drive back east I think there are a couple of things going against that hypothesis. 1 was that there were no visible teeth marks in the bag or the meat, and it didn’t look like there were any drag marks down there. I also don’t think they would have dropped it so quickly, unless it got spooked when the guides rolled up. But the meat was so close they would have heard a racket of something running off. I also doubt it would have dropped the meat if nobody came and spooked it. This went down during the day, and it was pretty hot that day. We got back like 15-20 minutes after dark, so I don’t think they would have been moving until after the sun went down.
So, I told my dad when we were on the truck ride back somewhere heading east, “I think those dang guides tried to pigeon hole our shoulder from us." My hypothesis is that they figured these dumb WV nonresidents wouldn’t notice a shoulder missing at the trailhead. And honestly, if it wasn’t for my dad double-checking the game bags I doubt I would have even noticed until the next day.
So that's my mystery. I have exactly 0 proof to back up my claims in my head, so it doesn't keep me up that much at night. I do think what the heck every now and then. Not going to throw smut or make a big thread in here mention any outfit names or names of the guides and mother F them haha. Would be hard to prove my case in a court of law! It will always be a pretty much unsolved issue, but that is what my spider senses tell me happened.
It all worked out in the end for us. But if I ever meet those two fellers at the trailhead again, I just might have to ask them if there was any funny business went down that day.
It might be a good cautionary tale for anyone else, hide your meat!!!!
But, I guess we'll neva know.
The backstory is that I killed a bull on day 3 of our hunt mid-October. We spent the next day packing the meat out. We shuttled the meat down to my truck. It wasn’t a terrible packout, definitely not the worst I have had. Truck was parked at the end of a road downhill from kill site and camp that is kind of a trailhead but kind of not a trailhead. We shuttled out the meat, so we made many trips back and forth and finally made the last 3-4 trips to the truck towards the end. When we made it to the truck with game bags, we set the meat under my truck bed in the shade. I think there was another empty truck parked here at the time, but we didn’t see anyone else there until the last load hit the truck.
It was dark by the time we made it back to the truck with the last of it, but just about 10-15 minutes after the sun set. I am pretty sure the skull and antlers were the last load that I had. And my dad had some meat on his last trek down. When I popped out at the truck in the parking lot I was a bit ahead of my dad, and I ran into two guides from the outfitters camp further up the mountain from where we had been hunting. I had met the one the previous year when he was packing out another bull. They were packing out a client’s bull after some horse rodeo that had happened. I think they said they had hiked 13 miles with the head so they could get out of camp and enjoy some time after their hunters were successful.
We talked and they were excited to see my bull. I am usually not so big on chitter chatter at trailheads with other hunters, because you never know if you are going to get weird vibes from anyone. I also know I am their competition so I didn’t know how they would feel about me pulling a bull out of there. But, to my surprise they were stoked to see it. (At least they did a good acting job if they weren’t excited) The one even told me he is 99 percent he called my bull in archery season for a client who couldn’t get a shot. And that was about 10-12 miles away as the crow files. That was cool to hear.
But here is where it gets interesting. They were waiting for someone to come up the road to pick them up, that’s why they were hanging out. My dad and I went to load up out meat and my dad started counting our game bags and he told me “We are missing a bag with a shoulder”. So, we started frantically looking around and checking to see if we were missing it. We were in fact missing one elk shoulder in a bag. This was kind of a gut punch after a successful hunt because we love to eat elk meat. So, it immediately but a big damper on the mood. Now, looking back, they got a little weird as soon as we noticed the game bag was missing. We were busy running around like chickens with our heads cut off to notice, but looking back they got a little antsy to me. They didn’t really seem that interested that we lost a bag of meat. And as soon as we started tearing out my truck looking for the missing bag, the two guides said they were gonna take off and walk down to meet their friend who was driving up to get them. We said it was nice to meet you all good luck with the rest of your season and they did the same. They took off pretty quick like and my dad and I continued looking for the missing game bag. We went downhill and searched below the truck since it was a steep sidehill where we parked. Maybe, and that's a big maybe, it had rolled over the side. This was scrub oak hell, so it was tough to even see anything in the dark. I kept asking my dad if he was 100 percent sure he packed it out and we didn’t leave it. He said he was, but it was one of those things that you aren’t fully paying attention so I couldn’t 100 percent say he brought it out on one of the final shuttles and didn’t leave it… So, I told him I would hike back up the 2 miles to the last spot we could say we knew we had it when we shuttled out the meat. I told my dad to keep searching around the truck. I made it back up in the dark and no meat to be found... So still down in the dumps. I ran back down the hill hoping that my dad was able to locate the game bag with the shoulder, but he wasn’t… We were bushed from packing out my bull that whole day so we said we would go back to base camp and come back the next day in the daylight and search for one last time before heading back home...
For some reason I took one last look out from the parking lot. I walked out into the scrub brush, and there was kind of a natural path that led straight out and angled downhill from the parking lot. About 30-40 yards from the truck walking this I miraculously came upon the missing game back with our shoulder. It was laying on the back side of a downed log but I was able to spot it. Zero to Hero, back to zero, and then back to hero when I found the meat...
Our first initial thought was that a bear or other critter came in and scooped up the shoulder and took off during one of our shuttle trips. My dad just happened to notice before we left. But, thinking about it on the drive back east I think there are a couple of things going against that hypothesis. 1 was that there were no visible teeth marks in the bag or the meat, and it didn’t look like there were any drag marks down there. I also don’t think they would have dropped it so quickly, unless it got spooked when the guides rolled up. But the meat was so close they would have heard a racket of something running off. I also doubt it would have dropped the meat if nobody came and spooked it. This went down during the day, and it was pretty hot that day. We got back like 15-20 minutes after dark, so I don’t think they would have been moving until after the sun went down.
So, I told my dad when we were on the truck ride back somewhere heading east, “I think those dang guides tried to pigeon hole our shoulder from us." My hypothesis is that they figured these dumb WV nonresidents wouldn’t notice a shoulder missing at the trailhead. And honestly, if it wasn’t for my dad double-checking the game bags I doubt I would have even noticed until the next day.
So that's my mystery. I have exactly 0 proof to back up my claims in my head, so it doesn't keep me up that much at night. I do think what the heck every now and then. Not going to throw smut or make a big thread in here mention any outfit names or names of the guides and mother F them haha. Would be hard to prove my case in a court of law! It will always be a pretty much unsolved issue, but that is what my spider senses tell me happened.
It all worked out in the end for us. But if I ever meet those two fellers at the trailhead again, I just might have to ask them if there was any funny business went down that day.
It might be a good cautionary tale for anyone else, hide your meat!!!!
But, I guess we'll neva know.
