Brian Henninger – PGA Tour Player – W/JR
“Dad, your crazy” were the words that came from my son’s mouth on an elk hunt in the Grizzly Hunt Unit, in Oregon. This all came about because I was pushing him too hard to get on a big bull that we had spotted earlier around 1300 from about a mile out. Plus the fact that I had just passed up shooting one of three branch bulls that we come upon while making the stalk. Jr. could not understand why dad would not shoot a bull broadside at 150 yards and just standing there for the longest time. (Real reason I was breathing so hard from walk up out of a draw, and being at a bad angle I could not get a clear shot) We had caught this group of elk at surprise and they were bewildered for the most part. I just let them walk off; we had a bigger fish to fry!
On this elk hunt, I had my son, his friend Brandon and myself for the most part and we were hunting the breaks of the John Day River in the BLM. I did have Mike an old hunting partner in the immediate area, but he was hunting a another unit to the north this season. The first day of the hunt we were socked in with fog. Visibility was about 300 yards, with no breaks in the weather. Spotted a number of dandy mule deer bucks, but elk were lacking. On the second day we were still socked in with fog, but things were about to change. My old buddy hunting the other unit had hiked up on top of the Buttes and gave a call on the Motorola, “bubba it’s clear at the Saddle”. Ok! I thought we can work our way down into the “Saddle” above the river. Then over the Motorola came call from someone else other than Mike, who said “Hey Frank where are you”! Told Mike “go to alternate channel” now! So we go to the alternate channel, not thinking that we would still get scanned as I was asking Mike “who was that”. “Don’t know Bubba”. Then all of a sudden the person came back on the new channel and said “Hey Frank you dummy, this is BHH”, then I replied “What you doing”, his reply was “were up here in the sun with at least 1/2 dozen bulls in the bino’s, how long before you guys can get up here”. BHH was the early name that I would use with Brian Hennniner. It wasn’t very long before we set out on a single 4X4 quad cross country from the BLM to get an opportunity to hunt the Smith Ranch. It did take two hours to go 7 1/2 miles uphill to get and his brother John who were hunting the Smith Ranch. I had line Brian Henninger and his brother John Henninger up the year before to hunt the Smith Ranch for Elk and Deer. The temperature went from about 39 degrees at the river level to 68 degrees by the time we got to Brian. Having arrived upon Brian (I really like to call him 257 Bad) and his brother John, they were busy glassing the hills for elk. Brian said to me “Frank you glass long enough the hills come alive”. How true that statement was, anyone that who takes hunting seriously, know that to find game effectively, you need to glass long and hard in open country hunting. Within about 10 minutes I spot a extremely arge bull about a mile off up on a shallow swale, the hunt was on.
Brian Henninger does find the time to enjoy the outdoors during the off season from PGA Tour. It is always a pleasure to talk about hunting with him.
Dad W/JR’s Rocky Mtn. Bull – 340 Gross
