Memories, Birds, and Berries

 

My oldest is an aspiring Dall Sheep hunter.  I failed to realize there was a youth early season, and couldn't figure a place to take him that wouldn't be a circus on such late notice.  So we decided to go caribou hunting by river boat.  

This particular venture was with an old beer can 18 foot Ouachita flat bottom, powered by a thirty five horse Swamp Runner longtail.

The start of the trip was pretty uneventful, though the kid let the boat float into the river when I bumped it off the trailer.  I had told him to grab the anchor line so that very thing wouldn't happen when dumped it from the trailer, but thankfully we had an on beach wind.  Could have gone very differently if the wind wasn't so favorable. 

 

We spent two days motoring nearly 120 miles from the ramp.  It was pretty smokey, was a bit disconcerting, but not enough to stop us.

It was really nice when it cleared up.  This spot here yielded several grayling that made excellent camp fare.

Though we were shoehorned into my one man sheep hunting tent we were pretty comfortable.  After being rained into the tent the first night on that gravel bar we put up a leanto.  We spent many hours under there out of the rain reading Robert Ruark's "The Old Man's Boy Grows Older," The sequel to "The Old Man and The Boy."  

There he is, beating the water for grayling.  He's as fishing sick as I was at his age.  Now I'm pretty content to drive him to the fishing hole and lean back on a rock and take in the sun and listen to the water babble it's way down the river, and read a book.  Much like my own father when I was a kid.  

But I'm still liable to outfish the kid if I know how the deck was shuffled.  We hadn't yet wet a line in this hole, though we both talked some serious smack at the previous spot.  I wrangled my way into first casts at the new spot, and got my half of dinner on the very first cast.  It took him a few, but he got some out of there as well.  Who's fish was bigger is debatable, but mine was.

Main meals were MREs, which weren't bad, but fresh grayling and grouse were a welcome addition.

We ate well.  We brought several containers to bring home blueberries.  My wife starts picking them in July, for making jam.  I don't like eating them from the plant until the second half of August, and even then they're a bit tart, but she makes good jam so I can't argue too much.  For eating I think they're best in moose season.

This dish was my best cooking of the trip.  We had whacked several sharp tail grouse, which have white meat like chicken.  I tore the skin off and took the legs from the hips.  Then tore the spine and guts from the torso, leaving the small ribs, and upper wings, attached to the breasts.  I also took the hearts and cut the meaty bits from the gizzards, put it all in an oven improvised from one of our mess kits, drizzled in a pool of olive oil, and put coals over the top with a few underneath, more on top, and left to bake.  Best grouse I've ever eaten, until the next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you don't see any 'bou sign, you pick berries.  They're still tough enough to make the ride home in the middle of August, and make a good akutaq (Eskimo Ice Cream) as the sugar takes the edge off the tartness...kind of.
 

We never did find a caribou, but we came across some ptarmigan on the way home.

I've cleaned his last grouse, if he wants to kill them he's going to have to clean them.  So far he's shown no trouble eating them either.  We keep the wings and guts for trapping bait.

Though we didn't get a 'bou, or a black bear, we had a great time.  We read, fished, hunted, picked berries, made some great memories.  Some times that's all you bring back is memories, best to try to make them good ones.  But we did come across that covey of ptarmigan, and a covey of spruce hens on the way home as well.  And nearly three gallons of blueberries.  It was a good trip.