Moose 2022

[tinhorse]

Day 1: we wake up way to early after only 2 1/2 hours sleep. It is cold and crisp at -3, I quickly get some warmer clothes on get the water boiling for coffee and morning oatmeal. After a quick bite and coffee we fill our cups one more time, double check the gear and set off to where we plan on hopefully finding our bull. We slowly make our way down the logging road to our desired spot. Out we get to the familiar grounds and being a little ambitious on morning one we wait the next 30 minutes for the sun to rise enough to check out the surrounding area. As we start our glassing we notice a large brown blob a little over a km away. It's still quite dark and a light mist is slowly shifting and it's only day one, but on both our other prior hunts we have always found a bull day 1. Could it possibly happen again? We surely couldn't get lucky day 1, 3 times in a row. As the mist lifts and the sky begins to brighten we stare intently where the brown mass sits. After a few more moments it's clear as glass and we both say to eachother " stump "....we laugh and say, "that would have been to easy." It's now 7:10 am and we split up, moving to get a better feel for the area and surroundings.

[jamfarm]

Nice moose. Good story so far, looking forward to hearing the rest.

[tinhorse]

As we start our hike it quickly starts to get hotter, and not the good hot where you are seeing animals...as the temperature rises a hush falls over the valley and by 9:00 am it seems unlikely that we are going to catch a moose on the move. I did see a couple does that morning, but no moose, only the brown moose stump and some older sign. We meet up again at 10:00 and decide to take a little spin to check out more of the country. It has been 4 years since we were there last and much has changed since then.

We start our drive and around the first corner we see 3 grouse. Being late morning we decide they may be a perfect dinner and decide some .22 shots most likey won't be scaring any moose away. Jimmy hops out and one grouse goes down as the other 2 fly away. No problem, hopefully we will see others. Around the first corner we go and again 3 grouse on the road. I hop out this time and take another 1. We continue on and the grouse continue around every corner. 3 more and we have 5 for dinner and that is plenty. In total we saw over 50 grouse that day and every other day we were hunting....Best year I have ever seen in my 25 years of hunting. We slowly continue on our drive, now feeling a little tired from the lack of sleep the night prior. It's now 1:32 pm and hopes of running into anything else seem slim. Jimmy puts the pedal down and we start to head back for a quick recovery siesta before the evening hunt. Suddenly as we round the next bend the brakes lock up and a cloud of dust swoops ahead of the truck from the dry silty road that hasn't seen rain in months. I look over and Jimmy, his hand pointing to an object standing on the roadside about 100 yards up the road.....

[Arctic Lake]

Tin horse good story telling ! Waiting for the rest !
Arctic Lake

[srupp]

hmmm LOL in the exact same place we saw tons of grouse but most were sharp tail..your obviously a much better shot than me..
ENJOYING your write up...
Steven

[tinhorse]

"Deer", standing there on the side of the road, 2 bucks. Jimmy pulls up his binos as I grab my clip and rifle while trying to open the dorr at the same time. Door flings open, clip goes in, round loaded, lay down with bipods out, steady my scope on the bigger of the 2 young bucks and with a squeeze of the trigger the deer flinches and turns into the bush. A cloud of dust blocks my view as the road dust flies up with the wind my rifle makes. I take a look toward the truck and he says good hit with a thumb up in the air. I hop up and make my way to where the bucks were standing. I head in and see the 2 point laying passed away. Tag out and a quick gut job, get him in the back of the truck and back off to camp we go. Not a moose but still grouse for dinner and a nice young 2 point hanging in camp, not a bad first day.

[tinhorse]

Grouse and Deer https://imgur.com/a/DQUGxVw

[tinhorse]

Sorry only feathers, feet and guts in the grouse pic

[tinhorse]

Back at camp we never did get a siesta in. I stead our time was spent cleaning the grouse, hanging, skinning and cleaning up the buck, cutting firewood and getting a bite to eat. It was now 4:30 and off we went for the evening hunt. That evening we checked out some new cuts, and roads and for the last 20 minutes sat and called at our go to spot. It then that we saw what we had come for, a moose and a decent on at that. The problem on that first night was where we were glassing from was over 800 m away with a slight breeze blowing right at where the bull was feeding out to. With light fading fast I decided to call it and back out in hopes of meeting up with him another day. Off to camp for dinner, beer and a GOOD night's sleep.

[tinhorse]

Day 2: we decided to head back to where we saw the bull the evening prior, instead we saw and heard nothing...it was like a ghost town, not a sound to be heard, no movement, not even a bird chirping..it was kind of eerie. We waited in high anticipation for the moose to come out feeding but alas after an hour we decided to go for a little hike. As we walked along a trail that lead us to our 2018 bull we hear a distant BANG, BANG...shotgun maybe?? It seemed far off and it was now 9:00 so we didn't think it was possibly the bull we saw the evening before. Back to the truck around 9:30 as we pass a couple familiar spots that looked promising in years past. I had my window rolled down as we slowly rolled past a over grown willow blowdown swamp when a distinct cracking caught my ear. Quickly my hand goes up and Jimmy pulls the truck to an immediate stop. Out of the truck I go as Jimmy grabs his binos and rifle and creeps around behind me. I slowly make my way into the blowdown opening while Jimmy moves back down the road. The cracking and crunching gets louder and suddenly Jimmy drops to the road, binos up flagging me to come over, As I turn and run toward his position a large bull breaks out from behind a small patch of pine and quickly makes his way across a 20 yard opening roughly 120 yards away and slips into the 12 year old pine block and out of sight. No shot could have been made but man was it ever nice to see a bull in the daylight and at a distance close enough to shoot.