It was supposed to bea February Musk Ox hunt, but weather kept me from getting to Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea. I drew one of 40 tags they issue per year to hunt Musk Ox out there. This herd numbers around 650 and they have no natural predators, so hunting is needed to keep the numbers in check. These tags are hard to come by, so I was excited to hear that I drew.
I booked with a transporter to get me around the island. The only town on Nunivak is Mekoryuk. It has about 200 residents.
It took me three attempts to get there. The first time I couldn't even get into Bethel, which is about 100 miles east of Nunivak. The weather out there is like no other place. It is usually blowing pretty good, snowing, foggy or bitter cold. I tried to get to Mekoryuk a second time later in February, and managed to land in Bethel, but the weather was too bad on Nunivak, so we gave up that round and I went back to Fairbanks. The season was going to end on March 15th, and I was not going to be able to make an attempt to get out there before the end of the season, so I figured that was all she wrote.
I called the biologist and requested an extension on the season. He said I would have to petition the board of game, so that is what I did. Somehow it worked, and they extended the season for 10 days. I contacted the transporter and we made arrangements for me to come out on the 22nd and hunt the last few days of the season. I was all ready to go, then check the news and find out all flights have been cancelled for the 22nd and 23rd due to the volcano erupting and ash being in the air. At this point I figured it was said and done, but I went ahead and had them change my ticket to the morning of the 24th. I was scheduled to arrive into Bethel around 2pm, and my flight to Mekoryuk would be at 4pm, getting in at 5pm. Everything worked out and I got to the island with my transporter, Abe. Here is the Cessna 208 that we took to the island. It was a regularly scheduled commercial flight, so I was able to hunt same day airborne.
We got off the plane and it was about a two mile snowmachine ride into town. The weather was nice, about 20 above, sunny and only 10-15mph winds. I told Abe that since we have light till around 9pm, I'd like to head out and see if we can find some musk ox close to town, so around 6pm, we headed out on snowmachines.
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We headed west to the northwest end of the island. We spotted several reindeer, but no musk ox. We headed southeast and kept riding up to the top of ridges to spot. Finally we spotted a group of musk ox on a distant mountainappropriately namedMusk Ox Mountain. It was a few miles away, and snowmachining over the drifts and frozen layers of snow was a little slow going. We finally got in range of the herd, and Abe stayed behind since he was only a transporter and not a guide. At this point I was on my own.
I rode up to the peak of the mountain (more like a hill), parked the snowmachine and worked my way down towards the herd. There was a small knoll that was close to the herd, so I got that in between us and snuck in to about 15 yards. The musk ox were huddled up pretty close, and I noticed one good sized bull in the middle, but there was no open shot. I held out for a while, and a cow ended up moving my direction, spotting me and taking off. The herd followed and I watched them run for well over a mile without any sign of stopping. Abe said the musk ox have been hunted before, so they would probably be spooky.
I got back on the machine and made a wide circle around the herd getting well in front of them. I parked the machine, and headed off in their direction. I was now on the flats, so there was little to no cover. The herd ended up spotting me, and took off running again, however this time I noticed there were two bulls in there, and one was a pig. They broke away from the other half dozen ox, and ended up turning to face me. I was able to work into around 15 yards, and the bulls would scoop up snow at me with their noses and grunt. All I had with me was my bow and backpack. I noticed Abe watching from over half a mile away. The bulls were in a T-shape, and the large one was facing right at me. I started working a circle around them, and after a few minutes, I was standing 15 yards from the big bull who was now perfectly broadside. I drew back, put the pin right behind his shoulder and touched off the shot. The arrow hit perfect, but hit the offside scalpula so it didn't pass through. The bull stammered for about 5 seconds, took one step and fell over face first into the snow. The other bull hopped back, and stuck around waiting for the big guy to get up and leave with him. About 30 seconds of huffing, and he was done.
After a few minutes, Abe showed up and congradulated me. We had to chase off the other bull, and then the work began.
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Since Abe was only a transporter, I was on my own. He couldn't even take pictures of me with the musk ox, so I had to do my own. I had my camcorder with me, but no way to video the shot. I set it up and took a few pictures before starting to butcher the bull. Notice me holding my remote in the pictures.
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This was by far the hardest animal I've ever field dressed. I caped him out for a shoulder mount, and the skin is very thick on them. The hide was long, and acted like steel when the knife would touch it, so they dulled quickly. Luckily I had brought a few out with me, so I managed to get the job done without dulling up the knives too much. Finally around 11pm, I had the bull all cut up and in the sled. We fired up the snowmachines and headed back to Mekoryuk. Abe's lights would not work on his machine, so I had to tailgate him on the way back to town to give him some light. Finally around 11:30 we got back to town, and I pulled the quarters out and started deboning them. By 1:30am I was done and headed to bed.
I woke up around 8am and started packing all my stuff. I wanted to get on the first available flights because the volcano is still active, and another explosion would cancel flights again. At 10am I left Mekoryuk and headed to Bethel. I changed my flight to leave Bethel at 2pm, and made it back to Fairbanks at 8pm on the night of the 25th. 36 hours total time away from home. The volcano erupted again first thing Thursday morning and cancelled all the flights for the day. It has been going off since then, and not many flights have been leaving, so I managed to squeeze in the hunt and finally got lucky with wather and natural disasters.
The green score on the bull is 105&2/8. Hopefully he'll keep his B&C status through the drying period, although I doubt I will ever enter an animal. It's just fun to know.
Here are a few pictures of the head and horns. This is by far the hardest animal out there to cape out. Getting under and between the horns and bulky eye sockets was a real pain.
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Pretty cool hunt, why couldn't anyone take pictures of you, makes no sense????
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Big River Longbow 66" 52# @ 28"
Big River Longbow 66" 47# @ 28"
Big River Longbow 62" 52# @ 28"
Big River Recurve 56" 52# @ 28"
NewWood Longbow 58" 45# @ 28"
March 2009 Musk Ox Bowhunt
