What Have We Been Up To? PART 2! FINISHED!!!

[Lance]

It was a down poor of rain when the alarm went off in the morning! And it continued to rain all day! But hey, we were buffalo hunting and daylight was burning! We decided to start out spread out across the lower stuff and work our way into the higher ground and cover everything in between on the way.

 

Here are some pictures taken between cloud bursts that morning.

Fog rising from the Canyon!

 

To be continued....

[Tines]

You all will have to forgive Lance in his speed (or lack thereof) of posting. The poor fellas index fingers are probably rubbed raw!

 

I'll post this picture for Lance. This was a sticker on the back of Dennis' trailer. This helped my mind at ease after I found out he was a former UofA professor.......If it offends anyone, sorry. Not really, we can all be proud of many different things and it was nice to be in camp with someone who stood for something, regardless of what others may think! Not to mention it was pretty dang funny.....

 

 

 

[cmc]

I don't know for sure but hearing it from the hunter himself lat night might just top this thread....

 

I got the scoop with pictures last night from my father in law.... so get on with the tale Lance... punch line any time!

 

 

Oh and Tines... you should have seen him before he mellowed out. LOL

 

 

[Tines]

Lance seems taking people fishing is more important than finishing this post.......something about "paying the bills".........overrated if you ask me!

 

So I'll post a couple more from the hunt. Lance has most of them but we know we can't wait on that guy....

 

Here's my view from the picture Lance took of me by the big hole in the ground.

 

 

Next is a skull I found while heading to my glassing spot. Cute little guy...

 

 

Finally, this picture made me laugh. While there was a lull in hunting, I decided to snap a few pictures. This particular one being just your typical glassing picture. The reason it looks the way it does is because as I pushed the button on the camera and ran over to the glasses, I tripped and bumped the tripod, almost nocking it off of the other side- about an 80 foot cliff! Although you can't see it, I'm sure I choked on stomach and my heart rate jumped to about 150 in probably 2 seconds! Those of us who have done this and would rather go down the cliff WITH our optics can appreciate!

 

 

Looking forward to the rest of the pics Lance!

[stanley]

Uh, hello????? Still there? MORE PLEASE!!!!!!

 

S.

 

[Gr8 White Jr]

At some point this has to be considered cruel and unusual punishment! Come on Lance!

 

-Tracy

[Lance]

Sorry for the delay. Lots has happend.

 

Any way, I have decided that if you want to hear the rest of the story, then you have to come to the "Flagstaff Area Coueswhitetail.com Get-to-gether!" You can look up the details in the "Get-to-gether's" section of this Forum! See you there!

 

Lance

[Lance]

Latter that morning the clouds lifted a little and we headed to glass from some higher ground. We split up and covered several miles of country. Jon on one point, Jake on another , Dennis and I on another and Russ burning boot leather around the bottoms. But as we reached our positions the clouds and the rain rolled in thick and heavy! It washed away all tracks and made glassing almost impossible. And it rained and it rained!

 

 

Here are some pictures from late that morning in between clouds and rain....

 

Finally Russ came on the radio and said he had fresh buffalo tracks! By the way it was raining they could only be fresh! But then he came back on the radio and reported that they were just up in front of him but that it was a cow and a tiny calf. Dennis did want to shoot a cow but we weren't really set on taking a cow away from such a young calf so I told Russ to just fallow them and see where they were headed and if they would lead us to some more buffalo. Up and up and up they went until Russ said "I think I'm closer to the top, do you want to just pick me up there?" We decided to make a change of scenery and head for higher ground to see what we could find.

 

We headed back to camp and changed into dry clothes and made our way around to the top and split up again.

When we got there we found buffalo sign but it was hard to tell how old the tracks were due to the amount of rain so we had to find droppings. From the droppings we could tell we were still a couple of days behind them. But then while sneaking through an area I found sign only a day old but it was too wet to fallow tracks, so we decided to spend the rest of the day there and search every hole we could find before dark.

 

It was wet and fogy and it rained and rained and even hailed a little for us! We didn't find any buffalo that evening but had a great time walking around in our "Water moccasins none the less!

 

Below are some pictures from that evening.

 

To be continued!

[Lance]

That night we rolled into camp late and due to some things we found that day we decided to check the low country one more time in the morning. The alarm came early that morning and no one was ready to get out of bed yet. We just pushed the snooze and listened to the pounding rain outside. Finally we pushed ourselves out of bed and put on our driest clothes and rang out our "Water Moccasins" and tied them up tight. We spread out again pounding the ground and making a thorough grid search of an 8 mile area. Finding nothing but more and more rain, we wanted to get an earlier start on some higher ground so we headed back to camp and repacked for the rest of the day. Jon had about 3 more rough miles to cover than any one else and was the last one in that morning by about 40 min.

 

 

We headed out for the rest of the unit and some known buffalo haunts. Jon and I took Dennis in my truck and Russ and Jake headed in another direction in Russ's truck.

We drove, hiked, glassed, tracked and dove some more. Later that afternoon we met up with Russ and Jake to compare notes. We decided that the freshest sign was the same we had found the day before and made plans to hike out some canyons and points in the area far from the roads and see what we could find.

 

 

That day started with lots of rain but began to break up with scattered showers throughout mid day with a little heaver in the evening. I even got hailed on again and then just at dark, the skies opened up again and we experienced the biggest thunderstorm of them all, and could hardly see to drive! Needless to say, we rolled into camp late again having covered hundreds of miles. We were done for that little trip and the next day we would all head back to town. I told Dennis that when ever he could come back I'd be there and we would go at it again! He said he had his wifes birth day to celebrate and would let me know after that. So the next day the sun broke through the clouds and dried us out on the way home!

 

Sorry For all the "to be continues" I hope it isn't discouraging the readers. I hope you are enjoying the pictures, They take a long time for me to download but help get the story across. And now, one more time I have to continue this story next week when my boys and I get back from Scout camp.

Tell then!

 

Lance

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

 

 

Lance,

 

This is like watching paint dry.... It is like reading a good book.... you want to get to the end... Just hurry up!

[cmc]

I'm not sure what going to take longer.... the end of this story or the day I draw a buffalo tag... :)

[stanley]

Hello????? Is anybody there?????

 

S.

 

[cmc]

cricket chrip.... cricket chrip.... cricket chrip.... cricket chrip.... cricket chrip....

[Tines]

He wasn't kidding about scout camp, guys. Slacker, huh? That being said, we could use more scout leaders like him

[Lance]

Cricket Chirp! lol!

OK OK The never ending story continues!

 

Sorry for the delay. Scout Camp was a week on the back waters of Blue Ridge

 

You see, this way, with all the delays to finishing the story, you can feel the way we felt every time we took a trip back home for one reason or another. lol!

 

So there we were, I told Dennis whenever, and as soon as he could come back up, we would go at it again but that I had plans set for the next weekend and would have to go back Friday Morning. Dennis said he could meet me back in the Kaibab Tuesday afternoon after celebrated his wifes birthday.We had Russ waiting on call in Flagstaff for packing out a buffalo if we needed him but it would just be the two of us during those days. Dennis met me at camp and we headed out as soon as possible! We met up with some hunters that told us a small group of cow buffalo had been spotted at a distance and their friends were going after them. They were headed into the same area we had planed to hunt that evening so I elected to hunt elsewhere and let them have the country to themselves the rest of that day.

We headed for plan B where we could glass the rest of the evening. That evening started out with distant thunder storms but soon we were back at our regular windy downpours to keep us filling at home in the Bab, and continue the pattern of the week before. Rain, rain and more rain! It seemed like we just couldn't get a break from the rain. Now, I'm the kind of guy , like most Arizonans, who always prays for rain. So when its starts having an effect on me in a way like it was effecting this Buffalo hunt, I try not to jump on a complaining band wagon. So, although it was hard to muster some hope out of the horizontal rain that blew into every seam of our bodies and equipment, we were going to do our best. I turned to Dennis and told him "Dennis my friend, This buffalo hunt is just like life. It"s not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain!" And with that, our mood was set for the next couple of days! We pulled into camp that night without seeing any buffalo, hung clothes to dry and got to bed early.

 

Camp

Below are pictures from that evening.

Dennis enjoying the rain!

Me, enjoying the sideways rain on the lense of my binos!