Yesterday I finally braved the heat and took my little munchkin (5yrs old) on a bike ride. Something about 105 degree heat just makes me a little less than excited to get out there and ride through blast-furnace breezes and dust and dried vegetation blowing around. But I did it...and I LIKED it! I guess I've just gotten lazy, it's much easier to sit in a recliner with a glass of tea watching the tube after all. The thing I had forgotten was how much I like to ride my bike.
Growing up, we used to ride our bikes down dirt roads, in creeks, along 'nature trails' (cowpaths) and generally everywhere-heck, we had no choice. After getting older and rediscovering that I prefer to ride my bike in all those kinds of places, I purchased a pretty nice mountain bike, which sits collecting dust a good bit of the time! What makes my bike different in the seasonal patterns of dust collection though, is that when hunting season rolls around, I'm getting geared up for the really gnarly rides! These rides are way different than a mountain bike trail ride because the trails are not created for bikes of any kind. Mud, sand, water crossings, roads comprised of fist-sized rocks, knee high vegetation, steep drops, basically everything cool about off road biking but without anything being created, maintained, or ehnhanced for the purpose of riding a bike. Yeah, I like it that way!
So how the heck do you hunt from a bike? The phrase is a little misleading I suppose, I'm not actually 'hunting' from the bike itself (duh), although if I could figure out how to get a video, a ride by pig assassination would be an internet sensation! No, I'm using the bike to cover way more ground than I normally could in a day. I think a mile into an area is pretty good, considering most hunters are on foot, and about half of those will decide to stop when they've only gone a few hundred yards into an area! While those guys are laughing at the fool on the mountain bike that just passed them, they're missing out on a quick way to cover lots of ground while escaping the crowd...but there's more. While pedaling your bike, even in rough terrain it's fairly quiet. Since your traveling several times faster than you can on foot, it's not unusual to round a bend or top a rise and find yourself within easy shooting distance of critters! Luckily, the gearset on my Specialized Rockhopper is very quiet when coasting, and my brakes are mostly quiet if I keep them clean enough.
I know, I know, right about now you're wondering how the heck I plan on getting an animal OUT after shooting it so far back in the woods. Well, I have an answer for that too. It's called a trailer. Ok, more accurately it's called a game cart that is modified to be pulled as a trailer. Still your skeptical? How can a person tow an animal with a bike? Well I don't. This is where you suffer in order to have higher success. The bike goes on top of the game, on the cart, all strapped down real nice, and it's time to start walking. Still, up and down creek banks you say? Hillbilly winch time. I have a small pulley set that is used to hoist animals or anything up to around 1000lbs. Tie off to a tree at the top of the bank and start pulling. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it works. Yes, others will wonder why you're working so hard. They're also the ones that are probably sitting around a camp drinking beer talking about what they WISH they had seen vs. what they actually saw in the field! OK, maybe not all of them, but if you use my method you will have outpaced probably 85% of the hunters that will hit the public lands!
