Popo Agie Canoe Trip

[mdeerjunkie]

The suspense is killing me! Great story so far!

 

[Schaaf]

Day 4 started with a sunrise walk to the last blood spot we found. The only guide we had from that bedding spot was a bloody hoof print in the snow from when he stood up, it was a couple feet from where he would have been laying down. Using that as our guide we started a grid search from that location to the northern edge of the island. Each of us about 15 yards apart with the two people on the ends using OnX to track their path to create the outline of our grid search. We made passes through the timber this way for the next 3 hours. All kinds of fresh deer sign but not one more drop of blood. At about 9:15 we sat down for a break not far from the last blood spot. John and I had gone back and forth on which tactic to use for looking. I advocated for continuing our grid search the same way we had agreed to in the beginning thinking the buck was certainly dead and using the cold weather to our advantage we would eventually find him. I worried about pin balling back and forth to different areas would leave us more frustrated with a handful of stones still unturned. During our break, John went back to the original blood spot and looked closely at the ground about 30 yards away from the bed and finally found a speck of blood about the size of the bottom of a shell casing. This speck was 180 degrees in the opposite direction as where we thought he had gone based off his hoof prints after standing.

We gave up on the grid search and were now back to trailing blood. The buck was back in the same pattern as the night before.. Strong, consistent blood trail and then nothing for 40 yards. About 80 yards from last nights bed, we found another bloody bed, then 15 yards later another bed spot. He totaled 5 bloody bed sites within about 40 yards. I was sure he had finally lost too much blood and was getting delirious. It felt like he had to be within a stones throw at this point. Anxious to find him, I took my eyes off the trail and started scanning the bushes close by. Within 30 seconds Scott called out he had found him in his final bed. It was now 10:00. 18 hours after yesterdays shot. He was laying in direct sunlight so we hurried with the pictures and started processing. Even though it had gotten down to 10 degrees the night before, some of his guts had started to sour. All the meat seemed to be fine but we would take a closer look back at camp. We cleaned him up, packed his chest cavity with snow and started dragging him to the canoe I had left close by last night on my way back from the other island.

 

[Schaaf]

 

[Schaaf]

John and I left Hayden and Scott back at camp to do some housewife chores and quarter the buck for the rest of the trip but the rest of the days hunting sucked. Turns out when you grid search the most productive part of the island you blow everything out. We saved the Chili Dogs for Day 4. Never needed to light the stove that night after Chili Dogs, tenderloins, and a weeks worth of Schmidt Beer.

 

[Schaaf]

Our Day 5 was time to head home. The weather was showing for 45 mph gusts by 11 am so we had camp packed and were in the canoes by 7 that morning with about a 3 hour paddle to the take out location. We still had 10 Old Mil's left so we had our breakfast drank by 8. Had to paddle ashore twice to open the valve.

 

[Cheater]

Looks like an awesome adventure! Congrats!

 

[mdeerjunkie]

looks like a blast! congrats!

 

[Deleted member 20812]

Awesome adventure man!

 

[Sask hunter]

Cool hunt!!

 

[MTLabrador]

Very nice!

 

[Deleted member 16014]

Great stuff.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Awesome trip. Inspires me to do something similar here in Oregon.

 

[WestKyHunt]

Sounds like a great trip!
I've always wanted to do something similar to this. Hard to do in KY... which means I have an excuse to go out west

 

[brownbear932008]

Awesome trip I sure enjoyed reading that one! Beautiful buck and way to stick with it after the shot.

 

[chuckchili]

Looks like a good time. Great pictures!

 

[Crumb]

Looks like a great time!

 

[PsRpOiGrRiAtM]

What an awesome adventure! Clue me in to where you found the animal beer, if you can. Haven't seen any around Billings, and surprisingly I've looked for it (albeit half-heartedly.)

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

Awesome buck, 10/10 write up.

I love canoe hunts.

 

[Jape]

Really cool hunt and great storytelling. Makes me want to do it now.

 

[Dougfirtree]

I'm more surprised at Schmidt beer--I haven't seen animal cans since my dad used to drink them in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, I haven't tasted Schmidt beer since the late 90's (coincidentally, the last time I set foot in Montana).