Friday... Monday... it's photo day

[Richard Flanders]

I just spent six days camped on a river bank 35mi south of Fairbanks in hopes of a big bull moose walking by. No such luck but what a great time. Record temps and lots of sunshine. When I wasn't walking the gravel bars in search of cool rocks to take home I was mostly sitting in my chair in the sun reading and scanning for incoming moose. There were some, but all cows and calves. What a great time! On the way home yesterday I happened upon a pack of wolves chasing three moose. As I flew over and circled the moose in the rear stopped to face them down - big mistake - while the others made good their escape and the four rear guard wolves moved up to help with the kill. Next flite down I'll check to see if they were successful. Thousands of hours in the air and I have never witnessed this show before and likely never will again. I love this place!

Yesterday morning a ruffie came screaming across the river low level and whizzed by me just 6ft off my shoulder and landed 30ft behind me in the woods and pranced around like he owned the place. Fortunately for him it took me way too long to fetch the .22 from the plane and he made his escape. I was looking forward to ruffie stir fry.....