I jumped ship and moved my family from the coast to Fort McMurray over 5 years ago. Land of milk and honey and all that...
Well, after 5 years of having either an early or late season Bull Moose draw in the Fort McMurray area and not getting one the jinx is finally off. I’ve spotted quite a few in the off-season but was never able to connect once the season started. I never had an issue getting a bull when living in BC but this northern Alberta moose hunting was not letting me off easy...
It’s been quite a hunting season. I was able to take 7 days off work in November which gave me a 21 day stretch off. I wanted to have the whole time for hunting even going to the effort of flying my mother-in-law up from the coast to visit (look after the kids) while my wife was away this past weekend.
I left town yesterday morning with the quad in the back of the truck. With the ground being frozen I could make it most of the way in to a series of small cut blocks and didn’t need the quad. There was probably 10 inches of snow on the ground but low spots were filled in quite a bit deeper. I started walking around 7:40 to be at the first cut block at day break. By 9:30 I was about 2k from the truck at the start of another cut block. I sat down to have a bite to eat and before I could get my pack open a moose popped out not 60 yards from me. Followed by two more. One was a young bull so after a quick high neck shot it was all done. Jinx over!!!
I walked back to the truck and drove the quad back in. It was around -17 and I no sooner got a few pictures taken and it started to snow. Being by myself I set a cheap digital camera up on a 10 second timer, pushed the button and then had to run over to the Bull as quick as I could before the camera went off. Couldn’t get my gloves back on fast enough so that’s why no gloves in the pictures; it’s not that I’m tough...
It was a young bull but it was all I could handle on my own. Early season would be a different story but at -17 in a blizzard it was pretty brutal. I used the gutless method and had everything loaded up on the quad for dusk.
My wife is pretty excited. We usually ration our game meat to last the year but with a cow Elk, mature Whitetail buck and now this Immy Bull Moose all in the last two weeks we’ll be eating well this winter!
Cheers,
Fuzzy
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Re: Northern Alberta Immature Bull Moose Success
