Yow, nice work, especially solo! I had the good fortune of being on a moose hunt 2018 as well. I posted a thread on it with plenty of photos. It was a group LEH & myself & buddy who downed the animal were relative rookies. Good thing we had one very seasoned & experienced pal with us. We camped on a lake & I had brought my canoe as well, although most of our hunting was getting to a location on quad or motorbike & sitting. I ventured out on one beauty day with my canoe to explore the lake & creeks feeding it, thinking I might get lucky. Didn't spy a moose but boy was it a beauty day & location for a paddle. My canoe is a 16' Bob's Special cedar stripper. Not sure it could have carried a moose that size in one trip. Did you debone yours? You mentioned you had a good amount of freeboard left.
There's a small lake up in the Monashees I like to take my canoe to. Mostly fishing but the boat provides easy access to a tree stand via a creek which is otherwise a long hike in from FSR. Spotted cow, calf & a spiker from the stand several years ago. I was hunting deer though & moose spike season was a week or so down the road. On that occasion I had hiked in.
Photo shows the creek leading to the tree stand. Paddling in is a lot quicker & easier than the hike.
Here's the creek with canoe early September 2018. Everything still green & with low water level it's tricky getting in even with a canoe. Don't think any other watercraft other than perhaps an inflatable will get you in there. Canoe can move along so silently too. At the other end of the lake last fall I spooked something big paddling up the creek there. Brush too thick to see what it was.
it definitely was a lot of work. But the excitement vastly supersedes the work ahead, it’s all part of “ for the love of the game “
what the pic doesn’t show is he is over a stump which made it impossible to prop him up on his back, in the past I will cut a stump or section of a log and place it on each side of him, just for the field dressing .
In this case, I had to skin the upper side of him, after partial field dressing, then took the hind quarters off, then cut the rib cage out as high up as I could, then each front quarter, which were brutal enough without half the rib cage on each side.
with the lake being cool, it was good to get the front shoulders in the bottom of the canoe.
once loaded, I got in and out of the canoe a few times each time shifting stuff around to get the canoe to site level side to side, you see in the pic the head and rack are off to one side, this was to keep in balanced.
took 5 hours by myself getting him into the canoe.
I also packed a fully stocked dry bag, that is for emergency only, dry cloths, dry footwear, mini stove with fuel, freeze dried food and a small folded up hikers tent, keep you out of the rain if need be.
I also carry a spot device in case I need assistance out of cell service.
HuntingBC Champ
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