MEET THE MULES

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Tater is the riderless one and Teddy is the one with my lovely daughter bareback. We just got back from a bareback 2 hour ride.

Both will do just about anything like pack, ride, mounted shoot, go for a jog with you. Hard to beat em.

[Non-Typical Solutions]

Tough to beat a good packin mule that will do it all......they are great animals......plus a daughter that will ride is just icing on the whole program.

That is way cool.....

[Guest oneshot]

Great beasts... Thanks for the look...

 

They put mules in the paddocks on the horse farms in NY, to keep the coyotes away from the high dollar horses...(the horses will herd-up into a corner or along the fence and the mule stands out front on guard, very cool to see)... The horse farm next door has two mules, one named "Har", and the other is named "Lee", they come when called and it's kinda funny when the farm manager yells out " Har-Lee!!! and shows/shakes the grain bucket....

[billrquimby]

Mulepackhunter:

 

Congratulations on your choice of mounts. In my view, there is no better animal for hunting than a gentle mule. I'm convinced that the one I used to own was a lot smarter than I was. I could almost fall asleep while riding her, and she would find a deer or javelina for me. When she stopped suddenly, I knew she had seen something. All I had to do was look where she was looking.

 

You may enjoy the following paragraphs from one of my books, "Sixty Years A Hunter." (If you'll pardon a crass commercial, the book is available from www.safaripress.com)

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

I had more experiences with black bears in

Arizona after that, and two involved a mule I once

owned. Jenny was a huge animal that looked as if she

should have been pulling a plow in Missouri instead

of wearing a saddle. I was told a ranch owner used

Jenny when she was younger to carry steel fence

posts and barbed wire to places that couldn't be reached by Jeeps.

Later she carried tourists up and down the Grand

Canyon's Bright Angel Trail. She was old, but a bet-

ter animal for hunting in our rocky and steep terrain

would be tough to find. I built a trailer to transport

her and she would readily walk in and out of it -- until

the day when Alex Jacome got impatient when she

stopped to look inside the trailer before stepping on

the ramp. When she stopped, he hit her rump with

the knotted end of her lead rope. From that day on I

had to coax her into that trailer.

The thing about mules, or at least that mule, was

they will not do anything they think might hurt them.

As you've seen in a dozen movies you can ride a horse

over a cliff. You would have to blindfold Jenny and

shove her off the cliff with a tank to get her to do that.

I gave Jenny her head when I hunted with her. I'd

point her in the direction I wanted to go and she

would find the best way to get us there. I remember

our getting hung up in a patch of manzanita on a

steep and rocky slope. A horse would have panicked

in such a spot but that mule simply backed up and

found a way around the brush. Jenny paid no atten-

tion when I tied the rear legs of javelinas together and

hung them from my saddle horn. I'd ride back to

camp with the “pig” flopping against her belly and

shoulder. I packed out a whitetail by cutting slits in its

belly skin to hang it from the saddle horn, and riding

out with it on my lap. Nothing seemed to bother that

mule until I asked her to pack out a bear.

I was hunting a whitetail near Stockton Pass

between Fort Grant and Safford when I rode up on

two young men who wanted me to help them get a

bear they'd killed to a road. Because she'd carried

my deer and javelinas I expected to have no problems.

Was I ever wrong!

Jenny started behaving strangely when I rode up

to their dead bear so I got off and led her around it,

and then had her step over it. Eventually she seemed

to calm down. I'm not a cowboy and I had never

packed out a bear, but it seemed to me that the best

way to do it would be to drape the bear over the sad-

dle and tie its legs to the cinch rings on each side.

Jenny kept shying away every time the two hunters

tried to lift the bear up on the saddle so I took off my

jacket and used it to blindfold her. That worked for a

while. She stood still while the bear was loaded and

its front legs were tied to a ring. The two men had

started to tie up the bear's rear legs on the opposite

side of the saddle when the mule shook her head vio-

lently and knocked me down. One look at the bear on

her back was all it took. She spun around, bucked,

and took off running with the bear hanging off one

side of the saddle. A hundred yards or so later the

bear fell off when its paws slipped out of the ropes.

I chased that mule for at least a mile before I found

her with a stirrup caught in a tree stump. Her eyes

were as large as baseballs, her teeth were bared,

and her ears were folded back against her head as I

approached. Somewhere along the way she had bro-

ken off a rein. (I can't explain why I didn't find it

when I followed her.) I was holding the remaining

rein when I unhooked the stirrup and found I could-

n't control her with just one rein. There was nothing

to do except jump on and ride her back to camp. It

was a terrifying ride I will never forget. She was an old

mule but she didn't stop running until she reached

her trailer.

She was her gentle self again the next morning so

I jerry-rigged a rein from a piece of rope and rode out

again. Every time I pointed her toward the canyon

where she'd seen the bear she danced sideways. I

don't think I could have dragged her there with an

eighteen-wheeler.

My other experience with Jenny and a bear took

place a year or so later. I was hunting on Chitty

Creek, a roadless area under the Mogollon Rim not

far from the New Mexico border, when I rode up over

the dam of a large, nearly empty waterhole and

spooked a big bear on its opposite shore. I jumped

off, yanked my rifle out of its scabbard, and used the

saddle as a rest to shoot from.

Jenny was never bothered by gunfire. Honest to

gosh, that mule held her breath and didn't move

while I aimed at and shot that bear. The bear roared

when the bullet struck it, and then it ran into the

brush. I followed the blood trail for at least a mile

before getting off Jenny and looking for that bear on

foot. I eventually lost its trail.

I've wounded and lost very few animals, and I felt

badly each time, but I don't know how I would have

packed out that bear if I'd found it. Jenny certainly

would not have carried it, even if I could have loaded

it on her back by myself.

[naturegirl]

Beautiful riding weather and beautiful animals!

 

Bareback for 2 hours! I'm impressed!

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Thanks for the comments, Bill I will be checking that book out for sure, I am a big reader and cant get enough of outdoor real life writing. Sounds like a life packed with stories, I have a few myself and plan on making a few books worth in the years to come. Seems like every time you take off with mules you have a shot at o good story. No doubt they know exactly whats going on around them and forget trying to make them do anything they dont want to do. The trick I am told it to make them think it was their idea in the first place.

I know for now the trick with any animal packing meat is to get it wrapped and on them asap before any smell starts, a very fresh kill smells clean and fresh like earthy even and it doesnt bother mine, but a few hours later they know something is not right and get nervous.

Heading out this weekend to try and find some Yotes to hang over the fence and work them into meat packing some more. They have an elk hide on the fence at their water tank at all times for now.

That guard mule thing is true, although they do have flight in them they will fight just as often, I had a dog come at us one time and dammed if my big mule didnt turn nose to nose with this Pit and fire off a few jabs with his front right, that dog put the breaks on right now and decided we could proceed without further interuption. LOL I honeslty think had that dog came closer it would have been dead.

[Non-Typical Solutions]

Good story Bill.......and like PackHunter said, if you are riding mules there are stories being made.

 

When I was a teenager my brother took a bunch of us scouts in to McKenna Park there in the Gila wilderness using horses and mules.

That trip was a life changer......we borrowed a mule....first mistake......that was not gentle....second mistake and within the first 2 miles we had lost our pack mule and all our groceries for the week along the trail.

 

After we gathered up the mule and salvaged as much of the food as we could we did a "better" pack job on our not so gentle mule and continued on in.......it honestly was one of the funnest trips I have ever been on.

 

Got exposed to my first ever Rainbow group tanning in their nothings along the river there .......riding mules and having a great laugh.

 

After that trip my brother spent a lot of money and time getting together about 4 mules that I would have trusted with my life anywhere.

 

Great memories.......

[madx250]

I like your style!

[Edge]

Well the mules did good again last weekend in Heber. Chased cows, went down the trail and didn't blink at the ledges. Even that little vertically challenged mule went over logs like a track star.

 

And unlike my stupid horse, they even knew when it was time to take a drink from the stream...

So I will lighten up a little on the whole anti-mule rhetoric. But if Mike makes one more pro-Oprah comment, I'm revoking his Man Card for GOOD!

 

Saw 14 mulies, 1 dead elk and a coyote feasting on 1 dead elk and 1 timber rattler.

[DCMHunter]

Looks nice I am currently looking for a new mule. Hear is a pic with my last mule. He past away last week at the young age of 34. This pic was from his last trip in 2012.

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

nice job on the elk, thats my dream right there, my elk my way on my mules, hard to beat that.

we may be at reese brothers mule auction this year in feb, they always have a few good ones, be ready for the 3000.00 range. the smaller mule in the photos came from reese.

[tjhunt2]

Sorry for your loss DCMHunter. I'm sure he will be missed. I know absolutely nothing about mules but it appears they are awesome critters. The only thing I know about horses is I can't stay on them.

 

MULEPACKHUNTER.....always look forward to reading your post and thanks for sharing the pictures and your mules. I guarantee you will like reading Bill's book. I have read it several times and will several more. Until you get your own book put together I wouldn't mind reading some of your adventures on the mules.

 

TJ