The Alberta Moose and Elk Hunt

[mountainman]

Well tomorrow is the start of a hunt for a couple bull elk and a bull moose here in the Grande Prairie area for me and a couple close friends.

Started with a bang this morning with a trip to the QEII hospital for a freaking barrium swallow which left me cancelling the planned goose hunt in the morning (hate my job).

Got home at 4pm and started getting gear ready to go in the boat for a few days.

I'll update this thread as we move through the hunt. We still may hit a goose hunt tomorrow then Sunday onto the river for elk.

[srupp]

Sorry about the BARIUM BREAKFAST Joe...hope it all flows smoothly from here on "

Good luck on the hunt and take lots of photos of the big game success...BIG M O O S E......and big elk....make Springers look small..oops..


Play safe on the river and take care of that boat.....

is Connor going along ??

cheers

Steven

[Springer]

Yes Good Luck Joe.Looks like there have been some great Elk taken out of Alberta this year. Look forward to hearing about your adventure, That Jet Boat should get you into some areas not normally harrased by other hunters.
Sure go ahead shoot a bigger one than me,just have fun getting the mount through the front door. Sugar Creek Taxidermy (Marco) is putting posts into the Antlers so I can. It will look awesome in the Billiards room.

[Leaseman]

So Joe....
How is the hunt going??

Hope you gave the boat a work out!!


Mike

[mountainman]

Well I finally sat back down at the computer. Still not done cleaning up as we got in yesterday afternoon from the final hunt.

Alot of work went into the two different hunts, went out on Saturday and set up camp on the river stayed there till Tuesday, broke camp and came into town. Switched everythong over to the trucks and went south and set up camp fro moose and elk.

Ont eh river the hunting was fairly slow with only one bull being seen and only a couple answers. Highlight of the trip was actually the last evening and calling ina cow to about 10 yards. That was cool and made the trip for me.

After the river we went to the area where I had the moose draw about a hour south of G.P. We set up camp and went for a quick hunt. No elk around that night. Opening morning of moose we go for a drive and try some cutblocks to see if we can get a response from cow calling moose, no go there. We headed back to camp for lunch and to finish setting up. Around 4 p.m. we headed back out teying to find a better spot for moose, while driving around seeing tons of mule deer and whitetails (only does and small bucks) we thought we would drive towards a drilling rig (something I usually stay away from) low and behold a moose walks out of the willows so we stop the truck hop out and get into position for a shot.

After 3 shots from the .280 A.I. from 250 yards we have a bull moose down. We drag it from the ditch to the side of the road and gut it. Then comes the fun part of getting it on the trailer, seems they really don't like that part. After about 45 mins of struggling and discussing how we are going to do this a truck pulls up, a guy gets out and comes up to us. So we ask him if he happens to be with the driling rig up the road, so to make a long story short he brought the loader down and we had a moose loaded the oilpatch way Turns out he is a hunter from Saskatchewan.

Next morning into town we go to skin and get the moose into the butcher. It was raining anyways so the hunting was going to be a crap shoot for elk. We headed out for an evening hunt to see if anything was moving, one truck one way the other the other way.
So about 7p.m. the old cell rings all I gett is Elk hit and directions to where it is, so back to camp for the quad and trailer. Then I get another call and after a whole bunch of cursing about bad shooting Turns out it had just turned and rolled to the bottom of this big mound it was standing on . To make that long story short it was 12:30 by the time we got back to camp and one heck of a mess with the mud.

My one friend had to head home for the weekend so we broke camp the next morning and headed for town.

The moose on the hook was 705lbs and the elk was 315lbs was a good trip, good friends and good hunting!

[Springer]

Hey Congrats Joe, I was wondering how you were making out. Two Tags filled on two fine animals!! Sure makes for a lot of work once the trigger is pulled hey.
Looks like your freezer will have have that very full feeling.
Is that Moose Rack going on the front of the garage in your posh neighbourhood....
Cheers

[mountainman]

I don't think the wife will let me put it over the garage but you should have seen the looks I got while washing off the elk in front of the house Got a couple thumbs up from strangers pulling in with the elk and moose on the trailer.

[todbartell]

good thing you kept the hide on the elk

[srupp]

WOW!!!GREAT job Joe!!! I was wondering what would ever get you to SMILE??? A EXELLENT MOOSE HUNT, ELK HUNT..some great eating there....congradulations buddy.....our moose hunt starts in the AM hope we do as well as you "Alberta natural born killers "

cheers

steven

[mountainman]

Good luck with your hunt Steven!! They were rutting pretty hard here, this guy was pretty beat up