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Old 03-28-2009, 10:01 AM
  #4  
ArcticBowMan
Nontypical Buck
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 1,665
Default RE: March 2009 Musk Ox Bowhunt

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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