The Anderson Family: Buffalo Hunt!

We started out December with Brett’s buffalo hunt! He drew out for the 5-13th hunt. He went up the 2 weekends before to scout, but they never saw any. We went up the night before and set up camp. Brett had gone with his dad and uncle the night before so they could look again all day Friday. They still didn’t have any luck.
We decided we would split up on the morning of the hunt. My brother, Taylor, would go where he had seen them before at other times of the year. Errol and Brett’s Uncle would go to the other side of the mountain, opposite of Taylor. Rustin would go next, coming back towards Taylor, and then me and my dad would be in between Rustin and Taylor. We would get up high and see what we could see in the between all of us. Brett was going to keep riding back and forth between all of us so that if one of us spotted some, he could come immediately.
So, we stayed with Taylor early on. It was so cold, and we couldn’t see anything in between us all. Taylor was trying to decide if he really should go to where he has seen them at other times, and finally decided he would.
He had been gone about 45 minutes to an hour when we got a call that Brett needed to get over there like 10 minutes ago! Only problem… Brett wasn’t answering his radio; Rustin wasn’t answering his radio; Errol and Kurt weren’t answering their radios. We didn’t know if they could hear us or not, but we couldn’t hear them. So I just kept saying over the radios, “If any of you can hear me, send Brett to Taylor, now!!”
Rustin finally heard us, and he was able to get ahold of Brett. We had decided to go find him and had almost got all the way around to where Errol was before we found him. He was on his way over to Taylor. So we followed!
We got there only to hear that someone had spooked the buffalo, or shot at them. They weren’t sure which. They just knew that they had taken off just a couple minutes before! Brett was so disappointed… but, at least they had found some!
We decided we would ride over to the other side of the draw that they had saw them in. We had made it to the top of the switchbacks that led to the little road we were trying to get to, when I looked down and saw all these dark spots sitting in the valley. I looked and them, and said, “What are those… are they elk?” Then it dawned on me… duh!! “Those are buffalo!!” I yelled. “Get down there!”

There was another truck parked in the road… and the buffalo were walking across the flat and crossing the road. We were in the jeep, and Brett was on a 4-wheeler. We took off as fast as we could down the mountain, hoping to catch them before the ran off. We thought the other truck stopped was somebody that had a tag, so we were kind of worried about them shooting and Brett not getting a shot!
Brett got to the edge of the trees, jumped off his 4-wheeler, grabbed his gun and bullets and tried to pull up for a shot… the buffalo were too grouped together and you couldn’t tell one from the other!
That is when the people from the other truck started motioning him towards them. They worked for the state parks, and told him they had a good shot if he came down by them! So he did!

He set up, and had Taylor and the guys from the park service help him decide which one was a cow… (both bulls and cows have horns… you just have to know how to tell the difference). And then he shot. He hit it on his first shot, and it went down… but then it got back up. So he shot again and dropped it.

We had such a fun time on the hunt! The Henrie Mountains are beautiful. There is such an abundance of wildlife there. Everywhere you go you see beautiful deer, they are just all over. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures this time because it was way too cold by the time we got the buffalo cleaned and caped. It was almost dark and we wanted to get back to camp. It was sooooo bitterly cold. I rode a 4-wheeler back, and it is at least an hour drive in single digit temperatures… or colder! So… no pics of deer, but here are some pics of the buffalo!