Prois Solas Gloves

 

The Solas Gloves from Prois have just become my new favourite set of gloves. I love how they fit and how lightweight they are, but still warm. I have small hands and the smalls fit very nicely. They are comfortable to shoot in and also with a release on my wrist. The fabric is soft on the skin and they have the touch capabilities on the thumb and index finger so I can still use my phone. These are meant to be a lightweight glove so temperature will depend on the individual. These will be my go to gloves unless it is too cold out. 

The Solas Gloves have a 40+ UPF for UV Protection and Silvdur Antimicrobial treatment to reduce body odor. They are breathable, moisture wicking and windproof. They have sheepskin on the palm, fingers and finger tips for durability and grip. 

The Solas gloves sell for $59.99 USD and come in S, M, & L

You can purchase them from www.proishunting.com .Use my code DALKE for 20% off. 

First 2019 Success

Hunting in the winter in BC can come with its own challenges; its cold, wet, and usually lots of snow. Now mix in mountainous terrain and it makes it that much more difficult. Here, the only type of winter hunting you can do is for predators. Wolf, coyote, bobcat, lynx and cougar are all open in the month of December and all have various lengths of seasons. During the fall we picked up two coonhound puppies and have been busy training them for cat hunting. So when we had the opportunity to head out for a cat hunt with Kyle, Kelsey and Gage, we took it. We loaded up the puppies and both kids at 3:00 in the morning to head out for cats. By this time Lynx was closed but we still had cougar and bobcat. Everyone either had 1 tag or both so we were well covered. 

In the first few hours before daylight (8:00 AM) it's a lot of driving and checking tracks. We each took a different side of the valley and kept in touch by radio. Kyle and Kels found a number of bobcat tracks while we found a few cougar. One set we found was really fresh, but the farther up the road we went those tracks were lost in the large number of fresh wolf tracks. A pack was in there chasing deer all over the road and through the bush. After that we weren't overly keen on dropping dogs. So we headed to the same side as Kyle and Kels. By now it was starting to get light and Kyle had found a good bobcat track. So he decided to walk his old girl, Jenny, on the track and see if she would take it. Kyle had 4 hounds in his box, but 2 are very young still and one was just a pup. As we were driving in he radioed and said Jen was taking it and he was going to let her go and follow her in. Kelsey and Gage were at the truck still so we met up with them. Jen treed the cat and so we parked, got the kids bundled up, and leashed the puppies to walk in following our GPS. Kelsey left the 2 young dogs in the dog box and brought her dog, Remi in as well. It was about a 30 minute hike through the snow, but thankfully it wasn't in any steep terrain for the kids. This was Eastons first cat hunt ever, Pheonix was on a cougar hunt the year before with Kyle, so it was the perfect one to bring him on. 

When we got down to the tree, the cat was in a great one for photos; not too much cover to hide him in. Kelsey and I right away dropped everything and pulled out our cameras to take photos and video. Kelsey and Kyle both passed on him, so the chance to take him was given to Gage- he declined and so Pheonix was given the option. She didn't even hesitate with her reply. She had made a goal to fill her cougar tag before the season was done, well now she had the option to get her first bobcat. The best shot she had was a steep one without much room for error because of the way the cat was sitting in the branches. Kyle and I were videoing and told Kyle to get her to do whatever he wanted and to set her up how he wanted. He talked with Pheonix once she was set and comfortable on where he wanted her to shoot- a black spot about the size of a toonie right above his paws. She got comfortable and when she felt good she squeezed the trigger. Down came the cat and she had her first ever bobcat! She was so excited and we were so happy for her. She made a perfect shot, right where Kyle wanted her to shoot. Of course at school on Monday she told everyone about her successful hunt lol!

2018...A Year of Firsts

For the first time in a long time, I did not harvest anything during the fall season and I didn't kill a bear at home in the spring- but looking back on the year, it was an amazing year. Not just for me but my family. This truly was a year of firsts for us.

The spring season started off with bear and turkey here in BC. I have never killed a turkey, although it wasn't for lack of trying lol. But this year I was lucky enough to get my very first one! And to top it off, Kyle and I doubled on them- a first for us.

At the beginning of May, Pheonix turned 10- legal age to hunt in BC. From then on we were on the hunt for her and her first big game animal, she wanted a black bear. We had a few plays on different bears but she just wasn't quick enough. Then we went to Saskatchewan (unfortunately the age there to hunt is 12) for a week and a half to do some bear hunting with friends. It wasn't long after we got home that she was able to fill her first big game animal! And it was a dandy bear. She got the enjoyment of being able to watch him interact with a sow and they had no clue she was even there. Kyle was with her when she pulled the trigger and was hanging back with Easton. Her first hunting season ever and she got her first big game animal and her first bear. She was over the moon.

In Saskatchewan, I was able to accomplish a first for me as well. We had been there 2 other years previously and each time I left with just a tag. This year was different. The very first night we were there- Pheonix and I sat in a stand and waited patiently. The very first bear that came in was the one I took. I knew he was a decent bear but I wasn't expecting for him to grow in size when I walked up to him. 3rd time...or year...was the charm apparently. And he is my biggest bear ever, he even beats Kyles grizzly bear! We both came home with beautiful big bears.

The fall season came along and I was 100% dedicated to getting Pheonix her first buck. She had so many opportunities but she just had troubles getting on them quick enough or was picky about what she wanted. When the doe season opened for youth she was excited to be able to shoot a buck and a doe, so of course when the first doe she had an opportunity at came she took it without hesitation. It was just the kids and I hunting when she got her first deer. It took a bit for her to get set up, but the doe wasn't concerned with us. She missed her first shot, and I was keeping an eye on it in my binos. I was very impressed and proud of her on how she didn't even miss a beat when I told her to shoot again. She adjusted her shooting sticks and shifted over and reset up like a pro in one swift movement. Perfect shot and she had her first deer.

When she shot her first deer, Kyle was away up north hunting for moose with his cousin. His first time hunting moose up north. He was successful with a beautiful tri-palm. His first moose ever.

For the 2019 season, Pheonix already has her sights set on a cougar! We will see....

 

Pheonix Turns 10!

Since she was 6 shes been begging us to let her hunt. In BC though the legal age to hunt is 10. So every spring and every fall, out we would go hunting and Pheonix begging us the entire time to let her hunt. So obviously she was on the countdown until she turned 10, which was the beginning of May 2018. In December we allowed her to do her hunter education course, but the paperwork could not be sent until it was closer to her birthday. She passed her hunters education and we sent her papers in a week before her birthday. The day after her birthday, she received her hunter number and congratulations from the BCWF- she was now allowed to hunt and it was spring bear season! To say she was excited is an understatement.

The first day she could hunt, we took her out. Easton decided to stay with Oma and Papa decided to hop in the jeep with us. We came to a road that Kyle and I had seen a blonde black bear and he dropped Pheonix and I off to walk it. He stayed parked and watched us in the binos. Pheonix and I didn't get very far down the road before I told her to stop, there on the side of the road about 150 yards ahead of us was a bear. He seen us and was sitting on his backend eating grass. He wasn't worried. I told her to stay put and I walked out so I could get a better look at him. I put my binos up and was watching him, she made her way over to me quietly and sat down. Unbeknownst to me, Kyle had seen me react to the bear and knew I had my sights on one and was making his way to us. He came up beside us and got really excited, which got Pheonix excited. He was getting her to get her rifle ready on the shooting sticks....I told him No, its not the right bear. He kind of brushed me off and said its a huge bear, it has no hump I already looked. So more sternly I said to him No Kyle! Look at its face...look at its head...its a Grizzly! He rolled his eyes, and looked through his rifle scope for a better look (has a higher power than our binoculars), after a minute or so he told Pheonix to put her rifle down. Mom was right. It was a massive grizzly bear. We sat and watched him for a few minutes as the great brute got off his butt and waddled up the road and off into the bush. He was so fat he had no hump!
When we got back to the jeep Kyle apologized for not listening to me, he was just overexcited with the idea Pheonix might have got a monster black bear for her first big game animal.

Our next outing we found a beautiful black bear really early in the evening. Kyle and Pheonix jumped out and pulled a stalk on it. They got within range and Pheonix got set up, after a minute the bear spooked off and they came back to the jeep. I asked what happened and Pheonix quietly said she left her clip in the jeep. She was upset, but she learned a lesson! We seen 3 more bears after that (all cinnamons) but they didn't stick around for her.


We ended up getting a bunch of rain for a week straight, so on the first break we got we headed out. We went back into our favourite bear area, the same area she forgot her clip, and things seemed pretty quiet. We decided to go down a road we don't normally travel, but we had seen 3 cinnamon bears in that area before so figured we would give it a shot. We slowly drove down keeping a close eye out. Suddenly, Kyle stops the jeep and is staring at a pile of rocks. I asked what he was staring at and he said there's a bear behind it, sure enough all we seen was a black ear moving behind the pile and he threw the jeep in reverse. He parked us a ways back down the road and he and Pheonix jumped out and went back down towards the bear. I stayed with Easton at the jeep. Everything was saturated and mosquitoes filled the air. As we sat in the jeep they swarmed around, trying to find a way in. I felt bad for Kyle and Pheonix, they had to have been getting eaten alive. I watched Kyle and Pheonix disappear out of view and I got out of the jeep to listen. It took a while before the gun shot. Apparently they set up 9 - 10 times before taking the shot. The bear had a sow with him and they moved around a lot, so they had to constantly move to stay in range. Kyle would help her adjust her shooting sticks to where she needed them, I guess she was quite bossy about what she wanted haha! Eventually a gun shot rung out into the evening air. I slowly started to walk down the road a bit and seen Kyle, he motioned for me to bring the jeep down.

 I parked the jeep down where they were standing on the road and jumped out. Pheonix was vibrating and telling me all about it. Kyle said the bear dropped just at the treeline (they were in a clear cut that I couldn't see before) and that she had made an excellent shot, but when he ran Kyle was worried it would make it to far and darkness was coming. So when it had stopped to look back at them, Kyle let off a shot too. The bear only ran 5 feet and he dropped. So off we went to find her bear. I was really wishing for a pair of rain pants or gaiters! There we found him at the edge of the treeline, I looked at the bear and I looked at Kyle- it was a big bear. He had a big noggin on him and was 6 feet. Much bigger bear than we were expecting for her first bear! We got some photos of Pheonix with him and we got to work quartering and skinning him. I checked the skin and noticed it only had one entry and exit. I looked at Kyle and asked him again, Pheonix for sure hit him? He said yes no doubt about it, she hit him good. I laughed and told him he missed then! He said no way and looked at the skin. Sure enough...only the 2 holes. He covered it up with saying he shot at it free hand lol!

It was a great spring for all of us! Although Kyle and I didn't get our bears at home, we both got our bears in Saskatchewan which was a first for me...third times the charm apparently! But we all got big impressive bears and our freezer was loaded with pepperoni and cheese smokies!

2017 Whitetail Buck

Hunting with the kids can some times be a challenge, especially when the temperatures are starting to drop and you can feel winter trying to claw its way into the area. We do a bit more truck hunting when it's cold, mainly because Easton has a hard time staying warm. He's like me in that way, I have a hard time keeping warm and I always carry a backpack full of layers with me. This year we haven't been having to much luck when it comes to elk. The hot summer and drought conditions pushed the elk out of our usual elk spots and so we had to do a little more exploring. So we haven't been seeing much of elk, actually we weren't seeing much of anything for the first week or two after the bush was re-opened. Due to fires the bush was closed from September 2-14, they finally re-opened it on my birthday (15th) at noon.

We traveled a little more north hoping we wouldn't see too many people out, boy were we wrong. Truck after truck and we ended up seeing nothing at all. The terrain in there is to thick and steep for the kids to hike, so we chalked it up to a nice evening drive.

Next time we stayed a little closer to town and tried sitting. We each took a kid and separated.  I had Easton with me. We were seated in the middle of a rock ledge with a bunch of fallen trees to cover any movement. After about 30 minutes Easton was asking how long we were going to stay. The wind was howling and it was a bone chilling one that cut right through your clothing. I told him until dark. He was bored but played with his lego men beside me. I wasn't too worried about the noise he was making-the wind would cover his sound.  By this time he had his hoodie on and his jacket along with my gloves and toque. After another 15 minutes, he said he was cold. So I pulled out my down jacket for him to wear and pulled both his hoods up over the toque. I bundled up after I got him cozy, wearing my vest and softshell jacket, gloves and toque. We sat there for a little bit and he snuggled up to me. After an hour he was asking if daddy and Pheonix were back at the truck yet, I kept telling him no they weren't but he wanted to go check. This was his way of saying he wanted to go back to the truck. We sat for another 10 minutes and I could see he was cold, I was starting to get pretty chilled too. So I suggested we head back to the truck. I messaged Kyle to let him know what we were doing and he asked us to come pick them up then. Neither of us seen an animal, but that's part of hunting.

Finally, one evening I made a suggestion on where we should go. We have good luck with whitetail in there and we see bear and elk too. We were seeing a couple does, some little bucks. But not really anything either of us wanted to cut our tags on. We parked the truck where they deactivated the road and Kyle decided to go for a short walk on the other side, I stayed at the truck with the kids. I took a picture of the sunsetting and let Pheonix play with the big camera.
When Kyle came back to the truck it was about 20 minutes before we would lose shooting light, and we turned around and started making our way out. We only went about a kilometer down the road when he stops the truck and says big buck Niki. I coudn't see it, it was on his side of the truck down a pretty good hill. I didn't waste any time, I jumped out with my gun and dropped down into the clearing a little bit. I instantly seen him with the light bouncing of his antlers, he looked like he was the same size as Kyles big buck that he shot a couple years ago. He was standing just on the edge of the treeline in a cut block about 200 yards down. I didnt waste any time I put my rifle up, aimed and squeezed the trigger. Kyle watched him in his binos. As soon as my shot went off Kyle says you hit him hard, I reloaded and made my way down a little bit more to a giant root ball. I was going to use it as a rest if needed. But it wasn't needed. He was going down when he was heading back into the treeline and I watched him go down with a huge crash. I was over the moon! We waited a bit and grabbed our backpacks. Pheonix wanted to come with us, Easton stayed up in the truck and watched a movie snuggled in his nest of blankets. By the time we got down to him we were almost out of light in the clearing, it was dark in the trees. He was easy to spot though, he had fallen with his antlers stuck in the ground and his bright white throat patch seemed to glow in the low light.

Once we got to him he did have some ground shrinkage, but I didn't care. He was still an amazing buck. My biggest one and he had a unique rack- double brow tines on both side with a kicker on the one which made him  a 6x7.
Pheonix was getting nervous with the darkness in the trees, so I gave her my unloaded rifle to take back to the truck and she could stay up there with Easton until Kyle and I finished up, we kept Kyles rifle ready just in case.
It didnt take us to long to get him field dressed. We loaded him onto my pack and I hiked back up to the truck. Kyle didn't take a single piece of him. At the butcher we weighed just the 4 quarters, backstraps, and tenderloins- he came out to 67lbs.



Nikita

Stone Sheep Hunt 2017

July 27th, 4:30 in the morning and we were on our way north for our Stone Sheep hunt. Kyle, Kelsey, Southgate and I along with our hunting gear and fresh clothes were crammed into my little half ton Ram. There was not an inch of space to spare in the box. Kyle drove and Southgate claimed the front seat, while Kelsey and I had a nest of blankets and pillows in the back seat.  The first leg of our journey was to make it to Ft.Nelson, stay the night then finish the journey in the morning. Its a long drive from our homes in the East Kootenays, about a 20 hour drive all together and Kyle decided to drive the entire trip. Poor Southgate had food poisoning the day before and was puking the whole day, the long drive gave him a chance to somewhat recover but he still felt queasy. We got to the hotel after a long day of driving and we all crashed. Surprisingly, the beds were extremely comfortable, we all had troubles getting up the next morning.

The next morning we were off again, bright and early. We wanted to get to the beginning of the trail early because the hike in would be 8 hours. We pulled up to where the trail head started and we were relieved to see no vehicles were parked there, we were the first ones in. So we parked the truck and started changing into our hunting gear and loading the packs. We were off, I did my best to keep up with everyone else but being the shortest in the group has some major disadvantages...and I wasn't just the smallest by an inch or two-it was 5 inches, but Kyle stayed with me making sure I didn't fall behind to bad. What a good hubby! At about half way we stopped to have some snacks and rest a bit. Thank god! I was starving. After about 15 minutes we loaded back up to finish off the last half of our hike. About 2 hours away from camp my left hip was starting to protest the hike, it was getting pretty sore. I had a couple times where my stiff boots slipped on the wet rocks along the creek, i'm sure that combined with the long heavy hike was wearing on my hips. I ended up slowing a bit but still trekked on. We came up to a camp spot and Kelsey and I were so happy! Only to have Southgate say this wasn't our camping area-damn it. Still had an hour to go.

10 kms from the truck to camp. I was so happy to be able to drop my 50lb pack. It took a few minutes before I could walk normal. We went straight into setting up camp and I noticed all around were places where an animal had been digging. We figured it was probably a grizzly. After we were done we got to glassing, it didn't take long for the guys to start spotting rams. I was pretty excited to spot one sky lined, only a half curl ram. Beside me, Kelsey shifted then jumped up squealing that something had poked her. She turned around and hanging out of her pants was a porcupine quill. We both got a good laugh from it but started watching closely where we sat down. A little while later Kyle sat down where Kelsey had been, and soon found a quill poking into his pants. I started looking closer at the diggings around camp, the most was around the fire pit. Beside the pit was a stump full of quills- we knew who the culprit was that did all the digging!

By the time we called it a night we had seen 12 rams, none that were legal. At least we were seeing sheep!

I don't usually sleep at all when we are camping, especially in a tent. I was surprised I actually had a decent sleep until I woke up from a nightmare. Of course my nightmare was of grizzly bears coming into camp. But as I lay there wide awake, I could hear a strange noise outside our tents. At first I thought Southgate was snoring because the sound was by his tent. As I listened closer I realized it wasn't him snoring but an animal, but I had never heard this noise before. I listened a little longer and then a second sound came but it was closer to our tent, so now there were 2 animals wandering around our tents in the dark. I woke Kyle up and asked him what that sound was, he listened for a little bit then decided to check it out. He took his rifle with him and popped out of the tent, flashing the flashlight around camp. There by the fire pit were 2 porcupines digging, squeaking away. Kyle threw a rock at them and they disappeared back into the trees. He thought it was cubs at first trying to get our food out of the tree we hung it in, that's why he took his rifle. After a bit I was able to fall back asleep.

In the morning we spent a couple hours glassing. After, we decided we would all pack up camp and head farther up the valley. At one point we decided to split up, Kelsey and Southgate went up a draw we had seen sheep in earlier. Kyle and I went farther back into the valley with the hopes of getting to the lake at the very back. It was a rough go. We took a trail that went straight up the mountain and then disappeared in the caribou brush. So we bush whacked a little ways and then Kyle sees a trail down by the creek, cursing we start heading back down the mountain. It was thick and it was steep. Kyle has no problems pushing through the brush, hes big and has a lot of power and weight behind him. Me on the other hand, had a really hard time getting through.The branches would pull on my pack throwing me off balance and I wasn't able to power through the brush.We got back down to the trail and it wasn't to bad for a short while. It was a goat trail- I found tons of goat wool all over the brush on the trail. Then the trail got bad, I'm not sure how a goat goes through that trail but it was thick.

The goat trail

We finally fought our way to a knoll, we thought it was close to the back of the basin. We crest the top of the hill and had the wind taken out of our sails. We had gone about 3 kms...and we had about another 4 to get to the back. The basin was much much bigger then we had originally thought. We both dropped our packs and sat down to rest. I was exhausted. We had to make a decision- do we keep going, stay here for the night or head back down the valley and meet up with Kelsey and Southgate? It was very windy on the top of the knoll. I had suggested making camp, but Kyle didn't think it was a good idea. The only spot we could have camp was where we were sitting, and we had no cover at all. Part of Kyle wanted to keep pushing to the back, I was straight up with him. I knew if we made it back there and shot a ram or two while back there, there would be no way I could get a sheep out of there and back to the truck. We would be 20kms from the truck. It would take us at least 2 days to get out of there and it was all bush whacking the whole way. We glassed for a bit and then made the decision to go back down the valley and meet up with the other two.

Once we all met up we discussed what to do and decided to head down the valley to the last camping spot along the creek. We set up camp and had dinner then did some more glassing. While we were glassing a porcupine came wandering down the trail and Kyle was sitting on the trail. When it seen him it stopped and went back the way it came. Southgate chased it and it went up a tree. After we went to bed I didn't feel tired but my body had other ideas. I was warm and comfortable but could not stop shaking. The shaking kept me awake and lasted probably a half hour. Once I was finally able to sleep I slept like the dead. In the morning I told Kyle about the shaking and he said it was because my body was so exhausted.

When I woke up and crawled out of the tent, the guys were glassing. They thought they found a legal ram back where Kyle and I had been the day before. I was not exactly thrilled by this news. The guys decided to go back down to the old camp and do some glassing, Kelsey and I stayed at camp. About an hour later we got a message on the Inreach- 2 legal rams. Pack up camp. Both Kelsey and I were happier about this news. We quickly started packing everything up. I had my gear all done and was working on the tent when the guys showed up. I was still pretty stiff from the day before and my feet were sore but hopefully this would be the last time we moved camp. Its been colder today and we have had rain and off all day. I enjoyed having the day to rest my sore feet and legs. Later in the day the guys decided to climb to higher ground behind our camp so they could see into the basin where the rams were. While they were up there we got hit with a torrential down pour and the guys were drenched, good thing they were in rain gear.

It rained all night and when we woke up it was still raining. Kyle had to get up because his back gets sore, I stayed in the tent- wrapped in my sleeping bag, too comfortable to get out. Everything felt damp. Even inside the tent. I waited as long as i could in the tent, but I had to pee. I grumpily donned my layers of clothing and rain gear and crawled out of the tent. We checked the weather on the Inreach and it said the temperature was 7C but feels like 4C. If it doesn't warm up we may see snow in the morning. The Inreach said the rain was to clear by tonight and tomorrow-Opening day- would be beautiful.
The rain finally cleared off around 4pm and we were able to do some glassing. Southgate found a massive ram back up the valley-we had a target for morning providing he's there. The clouds finally broke up and the sun came out, we tried to get our gear out and dry it in the sun before dark. It felt good to be able to strip some layers off.

OPENING DAY
We were up bright and early and MY GOD was it cold. You could see your breath and the vegetation had a heavy frost on it. We loaded up without eating breakfast and set off for Southgates ram. He was there, and we were ready. We had a long hike up the valley then straight up the mountain to get to the same basin he was in. It took us 3 hours to get up to the lowest ridge in the basin, after that it was a long wait. We couldn't see him anywhere and unfortunately it would be too easy for him to just hope into the next basin. After an hour the guys decided to climb up higher to see into the one basin closest to us and to hopefully see farther down the ridges. Kelsey and I stayed where we were and watched the basin we originally came to. We stayed up there for over 4 hours before we all decided he must have moved to a different basin or dropped over the ridge to the other MU (management unit). Reluctantly, we all headed back down to camp. We all were hungry and tired. It was also a nice day- sunny and 18C, it gave us a chance to wash some of our clothes. That night while we were glassing, a ton of sheep came into our valley from over top the ridge. Sheep after sheep started making their way over. I think we counted 20 sheep, most were young rams. We figured a ram had been shot in the next valley and it was pushing all the others up and over to us. Right before dark we had a treat, 3 young rams just in the basin above camp, were playing and having a ball. We watched them ripping up and down the ridge, down the mountain, back up again, head butting each other and chasing each other.

In the morning you could see Southgate was a bit down about not finding that big ram yesterday. Kyle was the only one raring to go, Southgate was bummed and Kelsey and I were tired. So the morning ended up a bit of a lazy one, which annoyed Kyle haha but he managed to live. It only lasted a very short time anyway, because there...back in the same basin just sky lined...was Southgates ram. That added some spark back into Southgate. Kelsey and I made the call to stay at camp, we couldn't hike like the guys could and this way we could watch him in the spotting scope and relay messages to them with the Inreach if he decided to up and disappear on us again. While we watched him, more and more sheep were popping up and joining him- they were all ewes and lambs except one young ram who went to the next ridge line to bed down. Everywhere this big guy went, the ewes and lambs followed. This provided an extra obstacle to getting close to him. He had no problems sprawling right out in his bed and snoozing with those ewes around him...which gave Kelsey and I both a heart attack because we thought he had disappeared! While panicking he popped his head up and all was good again. After a couple of hours we managed to spot the guys making their way up to the ridges we were on the day before. Now we could watch them and the ram. While Kelsey and I were all excited about this new fact we heard some cracking in the bush beside us. We both stopped and looked at each other, then looked toward the noise. A porcupine stopped about 12 feet from us, noticed we were sitting there and turned around and followed the creek instead. So I got up and followed him with the camera. 

This was probably the same one that came into our camp last night. He was scratching at our tents. He started at Kelsey and Southgates tent...until Kelsey punched it through the tent thinking it was a mouse, you could hear him complaining the whole way across camp to our tent where he scratched at ours a bit then meandered away.

After 7 hours of watching this one ram, he FINALLY got up out of his bed and started making his way down towards the guys. Kelsey and I were getting pretty excited and stressed out. We both watched in the phone scope, anticipating the moment when that big ram would buckle and roll. But...it wasn't meant to be. As Kelsey and I are sitting there going why didn't they shoot it, he was right there! In reality, the ram never came close enough to them...780 yards was the closest he came and even if they had shot him there he would have tumbled down a really bad cliff face. In the scope he looked so close, a good reminder that things look very different in person compared to in the glass. We watched as he walked into the next basin up onto the ridge and disappear into the other valley. From 3km away- it was pretty frustrating- I couldn't even imagine how Southgate felt right in that moment. So close...yet so far. His dream ram and after 5 years, to watch that white furry butt disappear just like that. 

The guys got back to camp late- about 8pm. Southgate was exhausted and very sun burnt. We discussed what we should do tomorrow and decided we would play it by ear. Either way tomorrow would either our last day there or last day to hunt. For the first time we all went to bed early. The guys- tired from their all day excursion, Kelsey and I from sitting with our faces glued to optics all day and fending off Asian Beetles. OMG the beetles!! There must have been a hatch with the warmer weather because we killed at least 100 of those suckers.

Kyle was the first one up in the morning again...such a keener. He found the big ram right away again. He was in the same spot as the day before. Southgate had to make a decision- try again or leave the area and hopefully find another place with multiple legal rams for more opportunities. Kyle was also on his last day of food. Southgate made the call to let the ram go, with that we packed up camp and made the long trek back down to the truck. Its an 8km hike back down to the truck and it didn't take too long to cover the distance, but my feet were still pretty raw and I had some blisters I had to deal with before the walk. My feet protested the whole way back to the truck, it made me slow and I tripped on everything. I was getting extremely frustrated. Eventually I just turned my brain off and cruised on auto-pilot, I stopped focusing on trying to keep up and just made sure to keep my feet moving. The truck was a welcomed relief. We had traveled about 50kms on foot, and most of that was with a loaded pack. We decided to get a cabin at Toad River and relax the rest of the day, and to clean up a bit. The cabins were beautiful. But the Asian Beetles were terrible.

We were right on the lake and across from our cabin was a cow and calf moose swimming and eating. Once we were cleaned up we decided to go for a drive and do some glassing for the evening.

I have a hard time spotting sheep so after a little glassing I pulled out my DSLR to take some photos. The lighting was perfect and the area was beautiful.

When we made it back to the cabin the sun was setting and the sky was on fire with color. Kelsey and I both went running to the lake with cameras to capture the beauty.

It felt AH-mazing to sleep on an actual bed and to have a luke warm shower haha! It felt so nice to wash my hair...i had sticks and leaves and bugs falling out of my lion mane. It was pretty gross.

The next morning I did not want to get out of bed. I was comfy and it felt like I didn't sleep long enough. But the guys wanted to get an early start to the next part of our journey, another 6 hour hike up a valley to hunt for 5 more days. But first we would drive the highway and glass from where we could. Reluctantly I pushed back the blankets and hopped out of bed- I almost collapsed. My calves were so tight I could barely walk. I hobbled around getting my stuff together. When I turned around I noticed Kyle was watching me closely...he could see something wasn't right. It was written all over my face. But I stayed quiet hoping that once I was moving around they would let go. I was hoping we would be able to find some rams from the highway so Southgate and Kelsey could go after them and maybe get her her ram. Of course we didn't see any, just young rams.

We got to the trail head and I got out of the truck trying to move around, hoping the pressure would let up. It didn't, and the more I moved the worse it got. I stood staring up the valley we were to be hiking up and couldn't move or speak. I didn't want to be the one to call off our trip early and it killed me to know it was because of me that we would be leaving 5 days early with no rams. They all knew i was sore and having troubles - just not the extent of it. I didn't know if I would make the 6 hour hike in, if I did- I knew I wouldn't make it back out again. I stood in silence while the 3 of them talked and planned. Kyle came over to me and asked if I thought I could do this. I shook my head and broke down in tears. I wanted them to go on without me, to leave me at the truck to camp by the river, but I knew Kyle would never leave me there and later when I told Kelsey she had the same sentiments as Kyle. So we made the long journey back home. I stayed quiet most of the way to red deer and slept quite a bit, crying makes me exhausted. We stopped in Red Deer and stayed the night then finished our trip home the next day.

Nikita