Merrit B.C. Hunting with Luke and Gilbert

I began Veterans Day by phoning my father to thank him for the peace and liberty I'd experienced in my life thanks to his service in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  At 92 he'd slept in and thanked me saying, "I'd better get up and see what's going on today."  I headed out then with Gilbert to pick up Luke for the last weekend of moose hunting in area 3, Thompson. Merrit BC was our destination.  Luke had his gear ready at his home in Kitsilano so that was the briefest of stops be fore we headed over to North Vancouver to pick up my gear.  Then it was a road trip.  Gilbert loves the fast food meals stops on road trips, always getting his single fried meat paddy as part of the hunting crew.
In Merrit we made our basecamp at the pet friendly Ramada Inn.  We were out in the darkness and on site hunting before dawn. We were back at the hotel after dark.  We did everything by the book and had the drill down to a t. The only trouble was the moose didn't show. We did see a 2 point buck which would have been easy pickings except it was 4 point buck only season and Gilbert began barking shouting in dog, "Don't shoot, it's only 2 points."  Before we could understand his message he was getting shouted at. The deer departed.  We never saw a single moose. Tracks of deer and moose were everywhere.  But what we did see were wolves. Incredible animals. Up close and unpleasant.  We saw 4 altogether.  Big black ones that ran at the sight of us.  Luke saw a bobcat.  I shot a grouse.  It was ATV and Ford F350 truck heaven.  It was too cold for much sitting in ambush.  So we stalked with fresh snow covering the sound of our footsteps.  Luke rode the Polaris Sportsman 500 ATV loving it.  I had a cold so did a lot of driving around coughing and sneezing in the heated cab of my Harley Davidson edition Ford F350 diesel truck.  I'd tried sitting in the cold but began coughing so quickly retreated to the warmth of the truch hanging out scoping likely areas with Gilbert as my companion. Then Luke would rejoin us and Gilbert would be ecstatic.  At night we watched warm movies and westerns.  It was a great weekend that could only have been made better by shooting a moose.