Henry Mountain Bison - spoiler alert

Awesome! Can't wait for the story.

Congrats, Randy. Who 'da thunk you'd draw bison in UT before pronghorn?

Finally off the mountain and doing inventory of what is left of our vehicles and trailers after some of the sketchiest roads and water torrent canyon crossings. Now we need to get this meat deboned and sorted among the great folks who helped.

It'll be a few days before I can get to the story details, but suffice to say it will go down as one of my most memorable hunts/camps ever. JR, Ray, Marcus, and Dan all contibuted in such special and meaningful ways. I am forever grateful to each of them.

So cool!!! Congratulations!

Coming out of a wet Henry Mountains proved to be quite the adventure. As fun as this part was, it was not the most challenging nor did it require this vehicle and trailer to be airborne like a later crossing. Unfortunately, we missed the video on that portion.

[video=youtube_share;sqokOIQMN4Y]https://youtu.be/sqokOIQMN4Y[/video]

You guys were having too much fun in that video! LOL Sounds like everyone was still in high spirits.

Here was the airborne creek crossing aftermath.

Wow!! What a beast. Congrats.

Beautiful bull! Congrats

Well hello there Cush! Yes, I’m still alive......somehow. Trying to get my life back together and hunting helps. Let’s share a camp together sometime soon.

EODRay said:

Well hello there Cush! Yes, I’m still alive......somehow. Trying to get my life back together and hunting helps. Let’s share a camp together sometime soon.

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You two should carpool to the Hunt Talk Bear Hunt in 2019....just sayin'.

jryoung said:

Here was the airborne creek crossing aftermath.

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I know exactly where that is. We had to shovel the bank off that wash last August after a rain storm to get off the mountain. We were camped just up the hill at Mcmillan springs.

Can't wait for the adventure story. Great bull, congrats!

congrats! be some good eating there

That's just awesome Randy. Congrats!

Congrats!! Looks like an awesome beast!

Camera guys have over 2,000 images they are sorting and editing. When they get more, I will post them here.

In the interim, here is one of the broadhead, a 125 grain Bone Broadhead (see their banner ad rotating in the upper left space) that went through one lung and stuck in the off shoulder blade. Serious penetration, beyond what I expected.



When you see the footage, you will laugh. Here is why, especially when you know that we brought four llamas for the expected packout from a high ridge or a deep canyon.

The part you will find funny/ironic, is that this bison came off the top of the ridge line that is around 10,600'. He traveled with three other bulls, down the ridge, using the same trail as two bulls I stalked the night before, so I had a pretty good idea of where they might go.

We left the truck and started hiking up to the top of the aspen grove where the trail entered. Unknown to me, while we were hiking, the bison had been moving faster than expected and caught us off guard. Thankfully Dan (camera guy) saw one of them staring at us through the aspens. Knowing something was not right, they started moving to our left into some pinions above us.

We shadowed them as they sidehilled, finally being presented a shot as the trailing bull (fortunately the biggest of the four), stopped to see where his buddies were heading. That gave me my chance.

At first I thought I had a complete pass through. It was a slightly uphill angle and slightly quartering away. End result was an angle higher than I anticipated, taking out the near-side lung and burying into the shoulder blade on the opposite side.

The bull traveled over 400 yards in the time he was on his feet. Ironically, we had brought four llamas for packing out a bison we thought would like be taken on a high ridge or down in a canyon. The bull expired just above one of the oodles of roads that terrace the Henry Mountains, resulting in no need for the llamas. So, the pack out was not even a true "pack out."

We could have had got him out whole. Really, what are the odds that someone could extract a free range bison in its entirety, from a place as rugged as the Henry Mountains? But, we knew we had to cut the pieces to manageable chunks, so we didn't roll him the 20 yards to a tailgate, even though it would have been a great pic, especially if composed with one of Greenhorn's half-racks of beer as a foreground item.

That would have been a sight to behold.If'n you could lift that beast into the back of a Nissan with camper shell.lol

Very cool Randy, congrats! Another of your hunts this year brings back great memories for me!

Very cool Randy! Congrats on a great bull! Looks like you guys had quite the adventure on the Henry’s.