A couple of buddies and myself had been hearing where the grand daddies of grayling were hanging out a couple hundred miles south of Fairbanks.
If we would have been older at the time, we probobly would remind you of Walter Mathau and Jack Lemon in "Grumpy Old Men"
So we headed south out of Fairbanks thru Delta Junction, Fort Richardson and on down to Paxon where we turned west on the Denali highway for about 30 or 40 miles. Here we parked the pickup and had to hike in about 5 miles to the north. My two buddies walked and I rode in on a 1972 Yamaha dirt bike.
Once we made it to where those grand daddy grayling were lurking, and resting from the trek in, It started raining. It was deceided that we'd better move our gear over under a tree to keep dry. Buddy #1 thru his pack up on his back and as it came down the pack frame hit the hammer on his old army 45. Luck was'nt with him that day and the bullet went thru his heel.
As it turned out there was a veternarian from Healy AK fishing a few hundred yards down stream. He came up and administered first aid as best he could while I rode back out on the Yamaha down to the pickup and drove another 5 or 10 miles further west where there was lodge/roadhouse. They had a flat bottom jet boat they put in and went upstream and picked him up and brought him back down to the lodge. The nearest hospital was in Fairbanks still some 200 miles away. The groanin was quite intense for the first 100 miles, where the consumption of about a fifth of wiskey quieted him down somewhat, but did'nt make the doctor to happy at he Fairbanks hospital.
With what had happened we never did see how big those grand daddys were.
I asked him one time why he had a round chambered and he said he thought he had heard a bear on the hike in.
He was no stranger to veterenarian medicine either. I remember when he would get something like an ear ache, he would go to a vet and get some antibiotics. Said they worked just as well and were cheaper than a regular pharmacy.
If we would have been older at the time, we probobly would remind you of Walter Mathau and Jack Lemon in "Grumpy Old Men"
So we headed south out of Fairbanks thru Delta Junction, Fort Richardson and on down to Paxon where we turned west on the Denali highway for about 30 or 40 miles. Here we parked the pickup and had to hike in about 5 miles to the north. My two buddies walked and I rode in on a 1972 Yamaha dirt bike.
Once we made it to where those grand daddy grayling were lurking, and resting from the trek in, It started raining. It was deceided that we'd better move our gear over under a tree to keep dry. Buddy #1 thru his pack up on his back and as it came down the pack frame hit the hammer on his old army 45. Luck was'nt with him that day and the bullet went thru his heel.
As it turned out there was a veternarian from Healy AK fishing a few hundred yards down stream. He came up and administered first aid as best he could while I rode back out on the Yamaha down to the pickup and drove another 5 or 10 miles further west where there was lodge/roadhouse. They had a flat bottom jet boat they put in and went upstream and picked him up and brought him back down to the lodge. The nearest hospital was in Fairbanks still some 200 miles away. The groanin was quite intense for the first 100 miles, where the consumption of about a fifth of wiskey quieted him down somewhat, but did'nt make the doctor to happy at he Fairbanks hospital.
With what had happened we never did see how big those grand daddys were.
I asked him one time why he had a round chambered and he said he thought he had heard a bear on the hike in.
He was no stranger to veterenarian medicine either. I remember when he would get something like an ear ache, he would go to a vet and get some antibiotics. Said they worked just as well and were cheaper than a regular pharmacy.
I realize that it isn't that funny, but dogone, those 45's blow a hole the size of the grand canyon!