My first solo moose hunt!!

So I decided to document as much about my first solo moose hunt as possible.

I packed everything up and my pack weighed close to 85 pounds!!! (Way heavier than I really wanted it. Thank goodness I had a great pair of trekking sticks... those were life savers this weekend!

Well the regulations say you have to be at least 0.5 miles off the road before you can discharge a weapon hunting. Unfortunately, this means horizontally and not a straight line from the road system. i.e. you could not shoot a sheep if you were on top of mountain that went straight up just ten feet from the road, even if you were 2 miles above the road. That made for some tough trekking before I was within legal shooting distance, seeing that my chosen trail was basically all up hill!

Anyway, I set my GPS to alarm me when I was exactly .5 miles off the road system. You would have thought I set it to tell me where a bull and cow moose were laying because as soon as I reached the 0.5 miles mark, there was a cow and bull moose just waiting for me. (I didn't have my video camera going yet). The bull moose spooked easy (not typical of moose), but I was able to see that he was a legal bull. He was easily within shooting distance, but I would have never got a better shot than right through the butt (not an advisable shot). He trotted off along with my hopes of ending the hunt early.

Soon after, I arrived at a decent looking camp area... and I'll let the videos and pictures take it from here...



NOTE - I just now noticed that about EVERY video I took, I introduced the filming with an "alright". I apologize if this annoys anyone other than me :)

ANOTHER NOTE - You'll also notice I did not film during most of one day. This is because my battery was going dead and I did not bring any extra camcorder batteries with me. After I was content with my battery going dead on me, I started to film more (hence the last videos).

LAST NOTE - The zoom feature on my camera is not the best, so some shots are hard to see. I apologize for this as it is not ideal, but this waterproof camera/camcorder is the best thing since sliced bread and I don't typically need a good zoom feature.











Now I mention mile marker 2 in the following video... however... this is mile two of the trail, and it is actually a 1.5 mile hike to the trail head. Keep in mind the entire hike is straight up a mountain (as you can see from my scenic views).



































































So unfortunately I did not bag an animal. Although it may sound cheesy, this didn't bother me at all... as I learned A LOT while being out there (so much that I won't bore you with the details). It hard to imagine that I live in this beautiful area of the world. It's also hard to imagine that I can go to my local sporting goods store, tell them I want a black bear and a moose harvest ticket (regulations allowing in certain areas), and receive them for free to try my luck with. Simply amazing!

I will be taking a week off next week and then hopefully heading out for a week of mountain goat hunting with a buddy from the pharmacy. I'll let you know how that turns out!