“Grab your gear!” the bush pilot shouted. “We’ve got sixty-minutes to get you into camp before the storm hits! The weather is going to deteriorate badly. If we can get you into camp, you can ride it out there, then hit the hills soon it lets up!”
I grabbed rifle, sleeping bag, camera and three changes of clothes.
“Charlie will be waiting on you,” he continued. “Soon as we land, jump out and beware of the prop. I’ll pick you up in seven days.”
He paused then added, “Weather permitting!”
At last I was headed to the edge of Alaska’s Brooks Range to hunt moose and caribou. For the past three days I had been in the base camp waiting for the weather to change to allow flying. Each morning I headed to the mess tent for coffee and to query if I might make it into hunting camp that day. Each time the outfitter said, “We’ll get you in today, weather permitting!”
The bush pilot did an admirable job of getting me into the drop camp about 20 miles distant, dodging heavy rain showers and occasionally flying just above tree tops.
Balloon tires made for a smooth landing. He stopped the plane within 20 yards of touching down. I jumped out with my gear, and the pilot quickly revved up the J-3 Cub and was gone.
I spent the next twelve hours watching torrential rains, which was fine since I could not hunt until the next day, per Alaskan law.
Come morning it was still raining. I donned my brown felt hat and Drake Non-Typical raingear and headed to the cook tent. There I reached for a cup of coffee extended my way and asked, “We hunting today?”
“Weather permitting,” Charlie replied. I have hunted Alaska and Canada many times. There were times when “weather permitted,” and times when “weather prevented”!
I have spent four days and more weathered-in, tucked inside one-man tents. Dealing with such takes a great deal of patience and a good mindset.
When traveling where there’s the possibility of being in such situations, I take a minimum of four paperback books, a deck of cards, and my hunting journal to write in each day. These help pass the time!
I do not really mind hunting in the rain if I can safely do so. “Wet days” are when you really appreciate Drake Waterfowl’s excellent raingear. Good raingear keeps you dry and makes those days more tolerable and enjoyable.
Too, I love to catch and eat fish, so if I am going to be hunting in a “weather permitting” area, I always include a spinning rod and reel, no less than four fishing lures and eight small spinners, and, of course a fishing license. If in an area where only barbless hooks are allowed I use a plier to mash barbs.
One of the things I always carry when hunting is a mouth-blown predator call. If rain keeps me out of the mountains, or the hunting for a primary species gets really slow, I will try to find a place where I can attempt to call in predators whether I intend to shoot or just photograph.
Meanwhile, back in the Brooks Range. . . during the second day of rain confinement I somehow lost two playing cards. Ever try playing solitaire with a deck of fifty? Thankfully I had books to read.
Only a few steps from my tent, there had been a small stream. But now, the recent rains had swelled “the brook” to a raging torrent easing ever closer to my flap door. What fish that inhabited it had apparently migrated upstream to repopulate the headwaters. Try as I might, I could not hook anything.
When the rain finally slowed, my guide and I headed into the bush in search of caribou and/or moose. Mid-afternoon we heard the drone of a plane, knowing if the weather broke, a badly needed grocery delivery had been planned.
Returning to camp at dark, we learned the pilot had not seen a single caribou on his flight in. Not news we wanted to hear!
The following morning, thankfully, less than a half mile from camp we spotted a herd of sixteen white-maned, regally bedecked bulls. A cautious, though hasty stalk and I was able to take the largest. Fresh caribou meat in camp!
Moose hunting was tough that year, this in an area where the norm is everyone in camp tagging bulls well over 50-inches wide with one or more destined for the Boone & Crockett record book.
I did score the last full day in camp at 3:00 p.m., three miles from camp. My guide and I spent my last twenty-four hours in the Brooks Range packing moose meat across broken, nasty muskeg terrain complete with considerable grizzly sign. Thankfully Ol’ Ephram and his tribe had seemingly followed the fish upstream.
I dropped my last load of antlers and cape just as the “weather permitted” plane flew in to pick me up to start my long journey back to Texas.
Just checked the latest weather forecast for my upcoming trip to a land of wind and rain. I am packing my “usuals”; my .375 Ruger with a weather impervious stock, a couple of boxes of Hornady 250-grain GMX, my Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance card, as well as my “no hunting/no travel/weather prevented” essentials.
I will arrive in camp and be ready to hunt, “weather permitting”!