Kaden and I had a pretty cool outing this weekend. After about 4 hours of checking lakes and calling, we were idling down the Takotna River an hour above our property when we saw a large bull head into the trees. We tied up the boat and went into the heavy trees calling. He scraped and thrashed and circled us for (Pictures below) about twenty minutes, arcing closer and closer in the heavy black spruce trees. We knew he was right on us, but we couldn’t see anything in the dense trees. Finally, after he and I scraped back and forth, he committed, and came very close. He finally stepped through a small window in the trees thirty five yards in front of us and Kaden drilled him through the shoulders with his birthday .270. The bull crashed headlong through the trees, about 15 yards before crashing with his antlers locked in a 6 inch spruce tree. Kaden put a finishing shot under the ear, and we went to camp and got our other partners for the butchering, Holly, Kodie, and our buddy Jack. We could actually drive the boat up a little slough to within about 80 yards of where the big fella died. dry level walking was also a rarity! Kaden recovered his mushroomed .270 bullet under the hide on the off side shoulder which he was pretty excited about for sure. We had meat on a stick at camp last night, and ribeye on the grill tonight, pretty great. Very exciting experience for each of us, and I could not have planned it better if I tried! I am proud of my 12 y/o not getting buck fever at that close range with those big antlers.
