Moose... a BOB story

This year was a moose priority year. That means my main priority for the hunting season was bringing home a moose. As a result, my focus leading up to the season would be on optimizing my chances of filling the freezer with moose meat.

Unfortunately, this would be the first moose priority year where I didn’t draw a moose tag to increase my chances. No worries though, I had a plan for getting into some really good moose hunting areas using BOB (our freighter canoe). Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to scouting these areas over the extremely busy summer. This meant that the moose hunting prep would have to rely solely on computer research and planning… something I’m good at doing though.

Kevin would be accompanying me on this year’s moose hunt. He was a huge help in the months leading up to the hunt with getting BOB ready for our hunt demands. He also was super flexible and understanding with my busy hunting and family schedule. For example, we were wanting to leave for the hunt on a Saturday, but due to me returning less than a week prior from my sheep hunt, needing to turn over and pack hunting gear, and spending some quality time with the family, we couldn’t leave until Sunday (which meant Kevin was already packed and going crazy waiting to leave).

We decided to take advantage of the freighter canoe and surface drive capabilities and hunt a new area. Prior to the hunt, Kevin and I studied maps and resources like crazy. We tried to get as prepared as possible for entering a new hunting area with little knowledge of the actual area. One of the main issues was where we were going to launch. The local residents had a bad reputation on how they treat outsiders. Apparently, they are known for vandalizing vehicles and equipment owned by unknown people. This reputation scared us and forced us to look for other safe options. One option was to launch at a public area on a river outside of our hunt area. This would prevent the outsider fear and also likely save us driving time, but it would add multiple hours and many miles of boating to both ends of the trip. It would also result in the potential of getting stuck on the dirt road to the launch because after bad rains and weather, it is virtually impossible to travel, especially if towing a trailer.

Our other option was to park the truck at someone’s house nearby that we knew. The only problem was that we didn’t know anyone from this remote area. Luckily one of Kevin’s friends went to school with one of the teachers in the area. He put Kevin in touch with the teacher and they agreed on terms to allow us to park at their place (moose meat and student trip donations). We decided to go this route because it was far less hassle to deal with compared to the river launch. Besides, launching from the teacher’s house meant we were closer to our ideal hunting area too.

Day 1

The night prior we had Kevin and Britany over for packing, pizza and maps. We loaded up the truck and trailer, stuffed our faces, and solidified a hunting plan after review maps and potential good areas.

The first day was a driving day. We knew it would take an entire day to get to the launch. We wanted a full day to boat into the swamps and find a hunting area, so we planned on driving to the boat launch, staying the night in the truck, and getting up early the next morning.

We didn’t leave too early to allow for a little family time after the kids woke up. The drive was rather uneventful. The most eventful part was probably seeing a massive porcupine scurrying along the side of the road. Other than that, the roads north of Fairbanks kept us on our toes due to how rough and crappy they were. The further we got away from Fairbanks, the more beautiful the scenery got too. This was the first time I ever drove past Fairbanks so it was exciting to see the new terrain and how much land truly existed for the legendary monster moose of this area to live in.

We arrived in the launch a little after 7PM. To our surprise, the area was rather busy with trucks and trailers, most of which obviously were not owned by local residents. It was fairly inviting and did not have any suspicion of living up to the rumor of vandalism or ill intent. Regardless, we got ahold of Cassie. There was some fairly large miscommunication on how to locate her, but she eventually met us at the boat launch. We followed her to her place to see where we could park. Unfortunately, the truck would be very far away from the launch and we were expecting to possibly return and retrieve items out of the truck a couple times. This would mean a very long walk and time consumption if those return trips did occur. As a result, we decided it would likely be best to simply park at the boat launch since the rumors appeared false that apparently continue to haunt local area (which to us, was very friendly and welcoming).

Instead of sleeping at the launch, we decided to drive down the highway a bit and park/sleep in a small pull out area. We had some time to spare before it was time to go to bed, so we watched a movie, Without a Trace, on my phone. I had no idea what the movie was about and thought it was a horror film, but it got good reviews so it made the cut to add to my phone. Apparently, this was an independent film and the good reviews came from those type of people that connect with a movie, plots, story and can interpret the million meanings a movie is portraying and how it impacts or represents society as a whole (gag). Well that was a waste of time, but hey, we had nothing else to do so it wasn’t that big of a deal. 😊

We went to setup the cots in the back of the truck but it wreaked of gas from an accidental spill that occurred when we were loading the night before. Sleeping in there would have been a health hazard so we opted for the discomfort of the cab. Kevin would take the front seats and I would take the rear. I think I got the short end of the stick because he could sprawl out and recline the seats while I was unable to recline my seats and my overhead room was reduced from the front seats being reclined. It didn’t matter though, it was going to be an uncomfortable night regardless… and it was!

Day 2

We got up early in anticipation for the day ahead… but mostly because we were uncomfortable, in pain, and couldn’t pretend sleep any longer. On to the boat launch we headed.

Once at the boat launch, there were a handful of boats being loaded up to go hunting. Probably the most interesting boat was a large, aluminum flat bed boat that had a tripod field stand welded on to it, resulting in the stand/seat being far above the boat and the ability for an individual to get a great vantage point without leaving the boat. Other boats had ladders mounted to them. These modifications clearly told us that seeing fields and other areas from the boat would be difficult.

It took us a while to get everything loaded into BOB and the truck/ trailer parked, but once we were set to launch, we pushed away and began our adventure. The morning was oddly windy. There is a ton of open water near the launch and this meant large waves. Large waves are something BOB was not meant to deal with, and as a result, we got fairly wet from splashes and spray. We were prepared though decked out in our waders and heavy duty waterproof jackets.

The first thing we noticed once on the water was the amount of ducks swimming, flying, resting, etc. They were EVERYWHERE!!!! I heard this was a great duck hunting place, but I never imagined how good. Someone could easily get their daily duck limit for the day with little to no effort at all. Some ducks were so tame they didn’t even bust or fly away when we motored right by them.

We were a little lost at first due to the vast amount of water available, but we quickly got back on track as the lakes and swamps faded to a more apparent river system. We had our goal destination in mind. We were hoping to get to our Plan A location which we called Schnauzer and Middle Finger Lake. These were lakes at the end of a very narrow creek/slough that we suspected BOB could potentially get to… and no other boat would be able to access.

BOB did amazing! His surface drive motor tore right through the tall grass and lily pad infested waters we had to motor through (something a jet or prop could not do). We even had to ramp many beaver dams (without getting out of the boat) in our journey to Schnauzer and Middle Finger Lakes, something I was not expecting it to be able to do so easily.

We were planning on BOB being able to navigate skinny and shallow water overgrown with plants, but we were not expecting cat tails to be so difficult to navigate. Unfortunately our plans were foiled by an endless field of cat tails along our desired path. We were able to cut them down and stomp on them to get through a short distance, but many miles remained to get to our destination lakes and we deemed the path impossible due to these hardy water plants.

As a result, we had to abandon our hopes of Schnauzer and Middle Finger Lakes being the perfect location for a moose hunt. We turned around and decided to explore the side creeks and channels of the river valley on our way to our Plan B area far up the river drainage.

During our side channel exploration, we uncovered many amazing duck hunting and pike fishing areas. Ducks were flying everywhere and fish were feeding in a frenzy in many places. I made note of the most active areas and I can’t wait to return for some good cast and blast sessions.

Along the main river, we saw a handful of boats and many moose hunting camps. This is not where we wanted to be because although our boat could navigate the river fine, it also meant the bigger boats with large motors could also access the same area. Unfortunately, our Plan B was also foiled by an extremely large log jam that looked like it had been accumulating for the last five years. We could not cut our way through it, nor could we possibly drag the boat around it. In fact, there was an aluminum boat tied up to the log jam but unlucky for him, the boat took on water and was partially submerged.

It was about 6PM by this time so there was no way we would be able to turn around and achieve Plan C. There was a small side creek that water was diverting to from the log jam and we decided to check it out to see if there was a possible camping area nearby. We got out of the boat and searched for a descent flat area for us to setup a tent temporarily. While searching, we noticed a large amount of moose sign in the area. There were tracks everywhere, very large bull droppings, moose beds, and trails galore. This was exciting to see and although we found a good, temporary tent area on some dry grass, we decided we might as well try hunting the area for a day or two before moving on to Plan C. We unloaded everything and setup camp quickly so we could call a little before it got too dark.

We found a good central spot to call and watch over the terrain from. Imagine a large square area a half mile long and wide. The west half of the area was a large lake with tall grass ranging from three to six feet tall as a wide bumper between it and the trees to the west and willow brush that spilt the area in half to the lake’s east. The lake was fed by a small but deep creek that started at the log jam on the river, which was the middle of the far east side. Essentially this area was split down the middle by the creek that connected to the lake, perpendicular to the willow brush that split the area in half from north to south. This is where we positioned ourselves, in the very middle of the square area on the south side of the creek. The SE corner (south of the creek and east of the brush) was a small swampy area that was very open. We camped in that quadrant, close to the middle of the entire area, next the willow brush and creek. We would later find out that the NE corner (north of the creek and east of the brush) contained another small lake surrounded by tall grass and then trees.

There were about 45 Tundra Swans, dozens of geese, hundreds of ducks, an infinite supply of mosquitos, and one very large beaver on the lake and creek. The swans and geese were VERY loud and made calling and listening for response fairly difficult.

We called until dark in hopes that a bull heard our cow mimicking and would mosey (or should I say “moosey”) our direction for some next day action. We didn’t see any moose that night, but didn’t really expect to either.

We retreated to the tent after dark and prepared dinner. We were a little discouraged from an extremely long day of traveling and already crossing off both our Plan A and Plan B for the hunt. Regardless we were a little excited seeing that we thought we stumbled upon a great hunting area.

As we laid down for the night, Kevin commented how loud and annoying the birds on the lake were. Little did we know at the time that their activity would actually be reflective of moose activity, and I now welcome their commotion (although somewhat bittersweetly). I think his main problem with them was how loud they were and it impacting his sleep… I call that payback because Kevin snores really loud and that was more sleep disruptive then vocal water fowl! Actually, even more than snoring, a beaver tail slap ended up being the most sleep disruptive sound (until a couple nights later, to be discussed later).

Since this was likely a temporary camp, I chose not to setup the stove to see how cold it would actually get at night. I was hot in my sleeping bag, but unfortunately, Kevin got cold (after multiple nights of him being cold, he finally figured out that the sleeping bag was inside out!).

The plan was to wake up super early, call, and hunt the AM. We would then possibly explore during the day when moose are normally not too active and bedded down.

Day 3

Kevin set the alarm for 4:30AM. That proved to be way too early. We snoozed the alarm until 5, 5:30, and then finally 6AM, which turned out to be better for pre-sunrise preparation. Unfortunately, a full moon was out in full force overnight. This meant that nocturnal movement likely occurred with the moose and less day time movement would be likely, especially from the larger moose.

Before sunrise, we made our way to our calling and look-out location in the middle of the area. We called for a little bit and sat hoping to see some movement coming toward us. Instead of both us, each with a moose tag, sitting in the same area, I decided to cross the creek on canoe and glass the area from the middle of the north side. Kevin would then call from that single location and I would watch from a different angle about a quarter mile away.

After watching for only 30 minutes, I noticed movement across the lake, closer to Kevin near the SW corner. Kevin noticed it too and we both saw a bull appear above the tall grass. It was clearly a smaller bull as the rack was obviously small, but it wasn’t a tiny bull either. From my angle, I could not tell if it was a legal bull or not. A legal bull in this area at this time meant it had to be a spike (one point) or fork (two points) on one side of the rack (which generally equated to genetically suboptimal bulls with stunted racks), OR had a rack that was wider than 50” wide, OR had a rack with at least three brow tines on one side (a brow tine is a point that typically points forward along the front part of the rack). I knew it wasn’t a spike/fork and it definitely wasn’t 50” wide. The only remaining hope was that it had three or more brow tines and by the width of the rack, I had little hope for three brow tines.

The bull paralleled the south side of the area and worked its way toward where Kevin was calling from. I took a video of the bull until it disappeared behind some trees and beyond my view. As soon as I put the camera down, I heard a loud BOOM, and then another one two seconds later. Unlucky for the bull, he had three brow tines.

It was 9AM on the first day we were truly hunting, and we dropped our first bull. I hurried over to meet up with Kevin. As I crossed the creek on BOB, I met him waiting for me. He was remorseful for shooting the bull because it wasn’t the giant he envisioned in this area and the monsters people were filling his ears with. But true to his word, if a bull was good enough to shoot on the last day, it would be good enough to shoot on the first day, so he pulled the trigger. I’m happy he did too because I would have dropped the same bull in a heartbeat. Filling the freezer is priority, not putting a rack on the wall.

We made our way over to the kill site. The bull dropped in a great spot! There was grass everywhere and no mud at all. The grass was completely dry too. This would make cleaning the bull super easy and if any meat touched the ground, it would pick up grass and not dirt or nastiness.

We flattened out the area to get a good working zone established and to aid in better pictures. We snapped a couple quick pictures, stuffed ourselves with food and drink, unpacked our bags of gear, and got to work. The weather was beautiful… partially sunny/cloudy, cool, breezy, and dry. We took our time cutting up the moose, making sure it stayed clean and enjoying the amazing weather.

Once we were done cutting up the moose, we then had to hike the meat through a quarter mile of swampy grass. It took us each four trips to get everything out. The meat felt extra heavy to me and my shoulder was really hurting during the pack out. I would later find out that my shoulder relief strap was broken and the weight was essentially baring down on my shoulders instead of my hips. I was able to fix my pack later that day.

Since we setup a temporary camp in the middle of the swamp with no cover or trees nearby, we had no place close to camp to hang the meat. We were forced to find a good place to hang the meat that was away from camp. We found a descent spot among smaller trees next to the creek nearly all the way back to the log jam. We quickly cut a meat pole, cleared brush, and affixed the hanging pole to two trees, and hung the meat. We didn’t see any sign of bear, but since we were hanging the meat away from camp, we setup the electric fence around the peremeter of the meat pole to discourage a possible curious bear that may wonder into the area.

While we were away from camp and had the boat, we decided to collect water out of the main river (as far away from the beaver as possible with flowing water). The river water had a brown tint to it, and even after filtering, it was still yellow. Despite the color, it tasted great. We used a 4L gravity filter for our main water supply. This thing worked amazing and all we had to do was fill the 4L dirty bag, connect it to the gravity filter and clean bag, let gravity do its magic, go do camp stuff, and later come back to four liters of clean, drinkable water!

By this time, it was about 7PM. We were pooped but we knew it was the golden hour for calling and we needed to some cow calls in the air to hopefully fall on the ears of any new bull moose in the vicinity. Shortly after we got to our central calling and look-out spot, we heard a boat pull up directly behind our camp from off the river. They were very loud and then started cow calling and raking from the trees on the east side of the area. They could clearly see our tent and camp, yet they didn’t care and continued to call. I returned to our camp to see three people across the open area along the tree line. One was a child, one appeared to be his mother, and the other person appeared to be the mother’s father. I stood, waved, and stared at them for a while; it took a surprisingly long time for them to turn around and leave.

It was now getting close to dark so we retreated to our tent. Even before the sun was setting, it was starting to frost everywhere and get really cold. I was tasked with getting the stove setup and Kevin would get our Mountain House dinners cooked. In the middle of me setting up the stove, I hear Kevin inside the tent curse loudly and groan in pain. It turns out the Jetboil was overfilled with water and when it started to boil, Kevin reached to turn it off but at that exact moment, it boiled over and the scalding hot water poured on his hand. The skin on his finger that received the direct impact peeled immediately. It was a very bad second degree burn. I felt bad for the guy… it had to hurt like crazy!

I was in charge of packing the first aid and I was prepared for a burn. We didn’t need to clean the area because it was fresh with removed skin and nothing made contact with the exposed layer yet. That was a positive note because cleaning it would have been extremely painful and not very effective. We gathered the triple antibiotic ointment, appropriate bandages, and tape. Kevin applied an ample amount of ointment to completely cover the area. He then bandaged the wound and wrapped the heck out of it with tape. The goal was to make a complete seal to prevent anything from getting to the freshly exposed tissue. I also offered him some good pain meds that I keep in the first aid kit, but he said he didn’t need them. *Spoiler – the wound stayed clean the entire hunting trip, he was able to continue to use his hand, and it heeled up well without any infection… SCORE!

We ate our Mountain Houses, enjoyed the newly erected stove, and settled in for the night. Prior to laying down, we heard what we thought was a bull scraping in the woods where the three people were calling just hours earlier. We soon realized this wasn’t scraping but people setting up a camp. This baffled us. It was past sunset, yet somehow a boat was able to land in the dark and undetected by us. We attempted to shine lights and whistle at the people to let them know we were there. We didn’t want someone spending hours setting up a camp directly behind us only to find out we were already established and hunting the same area because at this point, we were now anchored to hunting this area.

We decided we would make our way toward their camp in the morning and have a little chat… after AM hunting hours of course. They likely wouldn’t be up that early seeing how late they were establishing camp.

Day 4

The alarm went off at 6AM and it was raining. This led us to snooze the alarm for an hour until 7AM. It was still raining but we felt compelled to try our best, despite our knowledge that nothing was likely moving. The birds should have been our first clue because they were dead silent and not flying at all that morning. Regardless, we did a bunch of calls in hopes of a bull hearing them and deciding to check them out once the weather does clear.

We got soaked during the AM session and decided while we were out of the tent that we might as well get some chores done. We checked on the meat to ensure it was staying dry, drained the boat of water, collected a bunch of firewood, cut the wood into stove appropriate sections, and setup a freestanding tarp to give us some external rain shelter and make a dry entryway into the tent. We then decided to fill up our water again and chat with the new camp that was setup behind us on the river.

As we motored to the river, we found out that there was no boat or camp directly behind ours where we expected to see it. Instead, we noticed that the submerged boat was now floating, the water was removed, and the hull was high centered on top of some logs. Across the river from where we thought the camp was setup we noticed a couple items sitting on the river shore and a guy that was moving them further into the woods. Apparently, this was the guy that we heard last night. We came out of the woods from the other side of the river and was loud from moving his gear and trying to float his boat.

He was a very nice guy and we chatted for a while about hunting in the area. Kevin was attempting to fill bladders with a pump filter while I chatted. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was portaging gear to the river just past the log jam. Apparently, this group of guys cut a short path to the river (it bends back at the log jam) and they have a boat that stays on that side of the river. They bring all their hunting gear on a large river boat and carry it to the smaller river boat for moving further up river and away from people. This sounded like an amazing way to get away from people and I have to admit I was jealous. I would later hate the fact that this portaging occurred at this location because their group was large and had frequent daily trips with long and loud loading/unloading episodes.

We parted ways and wished each other luck on dropping a moose. We attempted to finish pump filtering water but regrettably the new filter broke and it wasn’t working anymore. Good thing we had the gravity filter and now rain water to collect.

Since waking up that morning, I had a killer headache that I could not kick. It didn’t feel like a dehydration headache, but more like a lack of sleep headache (despite getting plenty of sleep every night so far). The headache was so bad it started to make the rest of my body hurt and feel generally ill. I decided to retreat to the tent and lay down to take a nap. I was so tired that I neglected to remove any of my wet clothes or binoculars. I simply moved my sleeping stuff out of the way and laid directly on the bare ground and fell asleep.

The rain finally decided to clear up while I was napping. Once a long rain cedes, moose are often mobile because they are tired of being cooped up as well. Kevin knew this and got to calling right away. He immediately got an aggressive thrashing response from a large bull moose coming into the area from the NE corner, across the creek. The thrashing was so loud and aggressive it woke me up from my nap.

This got our blood pumping hard. We had a big bull moose within a couple hundred yards of camp, but we couldn’t see him. I prepared the shooting tripod in an area where I thought we would see him emerge. He continued to thrash about the brush and trees across the creek. It was so loud we thought he was only a couple feet from the edge of the brush. This continued for about 30 minutes, and then the bull went silent. At this point, we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know where he went. Calling was not resulting in any further activity on his part. He could still be there, but waiting and watching… we didn’t know because we never saw him.

Instead of simply waiting for him to poke his head out, we had a hunch that he may have went a different direction and I wanted to try and cut him off before he left the area completely. I decided to cross the creek and attempt to locate the spot I last heard him from. I ended up crossing and tying up the boat about directly across from the meat pole. I slowly made my way through the brush and small trees and to my surprise, on the other side of the creek and brush in this north east corner was a small pond with tall grass (we originally thought it was all brush and trees in this area). I immediately noticed a cow and calf as well as a solo cow in the pond grass. After I noticed this, I heard soft thrashing in the trees behind the cows… the bull was now outside our immediate hunt area. I was confused at first why the bull would act so aggressive and then turn 180 and head the other direction, but then I realized I was staring at that reason. We were making cow calls to entice the bull to come to us, and on his way he just so happened to stumble across a couple cows that we didn’t know were there. That made for a very lucky bull and unlucky Kevin and Adam! Apparently the cows weren’t too interested in him though.

It was now bedding time and the moose laid down. I decided to sit there and wait to see if the bull would come out once the sun started to set and the moose became more active again. While waiting, I heard a large pack of wolves howling in the distance (Kevin didn’t hear them). Close to sunset time, there was a bunch of boat traffic on the river by the log jam. I still don’t understand why it seemed like these hunters were always making the most noise and moving around during the prime hunting time. At the same time, we could hear the sounds of cow calls coming from a different part of the lake. It appeared someone found their way to the north west corner of the area by the lake and was attempting to call from that spot. Kevin then mimic called everything they did and waved to get their attention and make them leave.

Shortly after all this commotion, the cows stood up and started to feed. This is when I noticed that the solo cow also had a calf with her but it was hard to see in the tall grass. Just because a Cow has a calf does not mean they will not mate… so this didn’t discourage me too much. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the bull who I thought may hang out in the trees waiting for the cows to open up to the idea of his dirty intentions. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that night. It was too close to dark by this time so I was forced to retreat to camp and leave the moose for the next day.

Despite the crazy evening and near shooting of a second moose, none of this helped ease the pressure causing my extreme headache. Hopefully a night’s rest would help resolve the pain.

It was a nice night. Owls were flying everywhere and hooting like crazy. We went to bed hopeful to get a glimpse at the bull attempting to court the cows.

Day 5

Once again it was raining when we were planning to wake up. The rain puttered out at about 7AM and we got up to hunt. Lucky for me, my headache was starting to feel a little better. Again we decided to split up. Kevin would call from the center area and I would return to the outskirts of the small pond where I left the moose the night prior.

I immediately spotted the cows, but the bull still was no where to be seen. The weather was finicky, raining on and off with extremely dense fog sitting and raising throughout the morning. We sat in our spots all morning with Kevin doing his typical calls. It was a long morning of no activity and no bulls. Perhaps the most exciting part of the morning was hearing the pack of wolves howling in the distance again, but still far enough to not feel threatened.

We checked on the meat and had a plan to fix a grommet that broke (Kevin accidently kicked a guy-line and it ripped the grommet out). I needed a rock to tie a hold on the tarp but believe it or not, there were no rocks to be found anywhere. Instead, I used a fireball jaw breaker as a makeshift gromet hold to be able to anchor the tarp without a usable grommet. IT worked fairly well… until I kicked another line the tarp was tied to and it pulled the Fireball out and shot it to who knows where! Luckily we had a piece of butterscotch candy on us, and that was then used as grommet hold. You can call my MacGyver. MacGyver will now pack high visibility line and not green colored line to prevent tripping over it!

We decided to use this day as an exploration day. Since it was rainy and the mid-day bedding time was upon us, we figured it would be best to explore some other areas instead of sitting and doing nothing while the moose were inactive. The first thing we did was check out the trail the hunters were using to portage their gear to the river on the other side of the bend and log jam. It wasn’t too far at all. The trail was about 10 feet wide and 100 yards long… easily doable for portaging… and a consideration for the future.

We then headed back down the river and the motor wouldn’t start and run consistently. I figured it was a gas tank issue since we just ran one dry and switched to another six gallon tank. After filling up the first gas tank with gas and switching the tanks back over, the motor fired up and ran just fine.

We explored every possible small creek along the river. We were able to get into one lake via a small stream, but unfortunately it wasn’t too far off the river to get away from other hunters. Another creek looked very promising. It had trees fallen across it. Unfortunately, neither of us brought our saws with us and we were unable to cut our way through the creek. I was able to lift one tree up and hold it while Kevin pushed the canoe under it, but subsequent trees were too large to do this with. We planned to return the next day with a saw to see how far back in that creek we could truly get.

One creek we were hoping to explore turned out to be completely unnavigable. Instead, we attempted to walk the outskirts of the creek to see what kind of terrain it led to. The area looked amazing and had a ton of moose sign, but the adventure quickly became regrettable due to the swampy mess and brush busting to get anywhere. Instead, we decided to return to the boat and call from a ridge for a little while in hopes of peaking a bull’s interest. This proved unfruitful and we soon retreated to camp to hunt the evening hours.

We split up again this evening. Kevin would stay at the central calling and look-out location and I would head back to the middle of the north side of the area. Shortly after I arrived in my spot, I heard branches breaking and a large animal moving in the woods behind me. The moose sounded so close that I got my rifle ready to shoot from my hip if needed. Luckily, I didn’t need to shoot from the hip because a few minutes later, a cow and calf stepped out of the woods about 50 yards from me and headed toward the small pond. After they appeared in the open, a bull started thrashing the trees a couple hundred yards away just inside the tree line. Once again, I he was out of sight. He only completed a couple quick thrashing sessions, and like last time, he went silent and disappeared.

As I was watching the cow and calf tread through the pond and eat water plants, I heard cow moose calls coming from the same north west corner as the night before, except this time, I was only a quarter mile away. I looked through my binoculars in that direction and I was shocked to see three different groups near each other (a group of three and two groups of two). I made sure they could see me and that my presence was known. Hopefully they would get the hint this time and realize someone was camped on the lake they kept trying to hunt during the evening.

The ironic thing about one of the groups is that we could see a moose about 200 yards away from them. I’m not sure if they saw it because it was along the same tree line and in the 5-6ft tall grass, but Kevin and I are pretty sure it was a legal spike/fork bull. I was exactly 500 yards across the lake from the bull at this time, and I could close it to about 300 yards to shoot across the water if needed. I was waiting for Kevin to confirm the legality using the spotting scope and then give me the signal to shoot it, but somehow it vanished as quick as it appeared and we never got another look at it that night.

As it was getting dark, I left the cow and calf parading in the small lake with an intention to return tomorrow in the AM to keep an eye on them in case the hidden bull decided to finally show himself. I met Kevin back at camp and we discussed everything that happened. We chatted over our overdue victory beers that I packed to drink after we dropped a bull. We also discussed the importance of proper meat care. It was now a couple days after the kill. We agreed that five days hanging at 50 degrees or less was adequate meat care conditions and we would plan to head out after day five to ensure the meat would be in optimal shape for consumption. That means the clock was ticking for us to drop a second bull!

Day 6

It was about 1AM, and I was sound asleep when I heard Kevin telling me to wake up. He quietly indicated that a moose was outside our tent making a ruckus. I groggily processed the information, but it really sunk in as soon as I heard the moose myself. The moose was going absolutely nuts!

The moose was about 20 yards away from us in the muddy part of the swamp. It was stomping like crazy seemingly in the same place or in a circle as if to create an obvious massive crater, bed in the mud. At the same time, it was rocketing off medium pitched whines of varying lengths from 1 second to 5 seconds long. Snorts were frequent as well as medium to high pitched mumbles and gargely sounds. It almost sounded like the moose was pissed at something and was trying to stomp it into the ground. The sounds did not resemble our cow moose calls we have been showering the area with, nor did they sound like a responding bull moose. There were frequent moments of silence followed by about 1-2 minute vocal sessions.

We just laid there in the tent as we listened intently forming images in our heads of what we believed was actually going on outside our tent. It was a full moon and clear sky again tonight, so active moose like this overnight was expected. We contemplated opening the door of the tent to take a peek, but decided against it fearing we could possibly spook it. I attempted to record the sounds on my phone, but the quality didn’t turn out too well with people moving in the tent and under sensitive microphone. I tried to compile some of the clearer sounds below for you to listen to, but the best and loudest moose noises were communicated prior to me starting to record.

Shortly after starting to record audio, the moose grew tired of making a ruckus. It seemingly got scared by something as it let out a startled squeal and sprinted off in our direction. For a second, we thought we were going to get trampled by the moose since the sounds of the heavy, suction smacking steps of running in the mud sounded like they were getting louder and coming directly at us. Luckily, the moose took a hard left and ran through the brush just feet behind our tent.

At the time, we couldn’t decide if it was a bull or a cow, but I was later convinced it was a cow with how vocal she was and the absence of the low pitch grunts throughout her crazy midnight tirade. Kevin made the comment that he was fine with it… free advertising!

Needless to say, our adrenaline was pumping prior to the dramatic ending, but now our hearts were beating even faster. Of course, this made going back to sleep a little more difficult. Instead, we talked about the encounter and changed our hunting plan for the morning. Instead of splitting up, we would now stick together at the point since it seemed the calling was working and moose were coming extremely close to our calling point and look-out area. We also wouldn’t do our early morning loud calls since moose were clearly in the area and did the real calls for us. We were hoping the moose bedded down in the middle brush and their midnight tirade would also bring other moose into the area.

We were up at 6:30AM and the weather was surprisingly clear and nice. Unfortunately, the temperature was not as cold as we wanted. This entire trip we were wanting the temperature to be colder. Ideally, it would drop below freezing every night and in the morning there would be a very cold, crisp feel to the air that would burn up as the day progressed. This is the best kind of AM weather for moose to move in and these conditions seemed to never develop. Besides, this ideal weather would also knock the mosquitos down, and they were already out in full force this morning.

We made our way to our calling and look-out point. We completed some routine calling sessions with the goal of simply letting moose know other moose were still here. It was nothing fancy and we didn’t want to be too vocal or portray too much excitement since our friend overnight let most of the area know moose were also in the area.

Kevin remained at the look-out spot while I retreated to the tent to make a warm breakfast for us (Mountain Houses… nothing fancy). We ate our breakfast as we overlooked the pond side of the area and listened intently. The birds were crazy with activity that morning and the sun even decided to tease us with a subtle hint that it may make an appearance that day. Regrettably, everything took a 180 relatively quickly. The birds started to quiet and hunker down, the clouds rolled in, and then the rain started to trickle in.

Kevin retreated to the tent to make some hot chocolate while I maintained look-out duties at the point. I began to say my AM prayers while in the middle of them I was interrupted by three consecutive bull grunts coming from the direction of the small pond and the cows over there. The bull was still there! The rain seemed to immediately get heavier and the bull didn’t make any more sounds. I finished my prayers and Kevin appeared with the hot drinks. I let Kevin know what I just heard and we sipped our drinks hopeful to hear him again. This appeared to be the same bull that was thrashing days earlier and remained in the area to purposely drive us crazy.

It was raining hard now so nothing was moving anyway. We decided to retreat to the shelter of the tarp. We were stuck for the time being, so we prepared our lunch and settled in for a long wait. Kevin decided to take a nap in the tent. I wasn’t tired so I hung out under the tarp and got cozy with many cups of hot chocolate and rum to keep me warm.

It rained hard until 4PM. The weather then started to lighten up a little and the conditions appeared to be mirroring those of the day the bull started thrashing aggressively. Regrettably, conditions turned out to be different because instead of clearing completely, it continued to rain on and off the rest of the evening. We decided to split up again, so I crossed the creek and walked the quarter mile to my look-out spot and Kevin resumed the central location. This time I decided to call from my area as well. The idea was to portray multiple moose in different spots of the larger area, and hopefully a bull would come to my calls too, especially this stubborn bull that kept making his presence known but never showing himself.

Well this night turned out to be a bust. Absolutely no moose were seen, likely because of the rain that continued to damper animal activity. On the plus side, there were no other hunters on our lake area trying to compete for moose. Perhaps they finally got the hint that we had the lake and surrounding area on lock down.

As I returned to the tent, I noticed a medium sized pike in the grass along my path. Something was fishing and pulled it 50 yards into the grass to feast on. It likely was a rodent of some kind, but the sight of the fish made me regret leaving our fishing poles in the truck since fish activity doesn’t stop with bad weather or mid-day bedding. A fishing pole in the boat will be a must next time!

Of course, the rain stopped as we got into the tent for the night. Tomorrow was going to be the last full day to hunt. It would be day four for the hanging meat and the following day would be the fifth day. It was getting well below 50 degrees at night and it never got above 50 during the day. The meat was more than likely fine for greater than 5 days since meat can be aged for weeks around 36-40 degrees, however, with the wet conditions, we didn’t want to risk any spoilage and optimizing the table fare quality was priority.

We went to bed without a real plan for the next day, but we knew we weren’t going anywhere and were hunting this area the entire day. We would decide on an exact plan when we woke up and saw what kind of weather we were dealing with.

Day 7

The 6AM alarm woke us and not surprisingly, it was raining again. This resulted in a lazy morning. We slept in, played games, snacked, napped, and then repeated.

Around 2PM, Kevin decided to check the meat while I was still napping. Like last time I was napping and Kevin was out, he heard moose sounds again. This time, it was a cow nearby. We knew the sounds originated somewhere around the SE corner of the area, but couldn’t tell exactly where. We tried to pinpoint the exact location of the sounds but the cow wasn’t too vocal after we were queued in on her and we didn’t want to spook the cow out of the area by trying too hard to look for her.

The rain had puttered out a little, but it was still windy and gloomy. We decided to get to the center calling and look-out spot to also make cow calls since real cows were currently calling too. After a few calling sessions, we split up once again. I headed back to the canoe to cross the creek and make my way to my typical spot.

After crossing the creek, I heard a boat scoot around the log jam and putter up our creek area. It turns out it was the guy we met and spoke to the other day when we were filtering water. He asked how our hunt was going and if we needed any water. Apparently his hunt was over and he was headed home… so he was checking in and offloading things he didn’t use or need. We swapped information and intel. It turns out their group only dropped a single small bull all the way up the river isolated from all traffic (this was surprising to me).

We didn’t chat for too long because I was in hunting mode and needed to get to my glassing spot. We parted ways and I walked into the brush. After I was out of sight, I could hear his boat leave our creek, then return. It was very suspicious but he didn’t stay by the canoe or our tent for too long before he soon left for good. I later found out the reason for his return was to leave a bag of oatmeal cookies on my canoe. It was a very nice gesture, but unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of oatmeal cookies.

I made the quarter-mile trek by 4:30PM soaked in sweat due to the humidity and layers I had on. I stripped off my clothes to cool off and evaporate the sweat. After about 10 minutes I started to cool down, so I put my layers back on and the rest of the warm clothes I had with me.

I decided to call from my spot again; I changed it up too. My plan this time was to rattle off some hardcore cow calls and not do any bull grunts or scraping. It was the last night of hunting and if I made it sound like a big bull was in the area, smaller bulls like the one we shot or the spike-fork we saw the other day likely wouldn’t be interested, and large bulls would still respond to cow calls. My first cow call session lasted longer than any calling session I have done during the hunt.

My feet were killing me since I was hiking and hunting in my hips boots all week. I needed a place to sit down but since the grass was so tall everywhere, I couldn’t really sit on the ground. There was a downed tree with roots intact about 20 feet in front of the point I was hunting, buried deep in the tall grass. It was a little bit out in the open and left me somewhat exposed, but I decided to make my way to the fallen tree with a plan to sit completely still.

I got to the tree and to my disappointment, there really wasn’t a good place to sit on it while also keeping a good eye over the tall grass and pond. Regardless, it offered me a place to lean and take some weight off my feet. My plan was to stand here leaning on the tree and act like an owl… where I would rotate my head slowly as far to the right as possible and then as far to the left as possible, all while keeping my body completely still.

It was now getting later into the day; the sun started to get lower on the horizon and the weather started to clear a little. During one of my head rotations to my left, I was startled to see movement from something behind a small spruce tree only 50 yards from me. I soon realized it was a moose! I didn’t see any obvious horns, so I initially thought it was one of the cows coming out to graze. I suddenly caught a glimpse of what I thought was a point to a horn and after further inspection through the spruce tree, it was clear I was looking at a spike fork bull! Apparently, he heard the cow calls, and without the accompanying bull calls, he wasn’t intimidated to keep his distance. He literally appeared within a couple feet of where I was calling, and he did so with stealth-like quietness.

I didn’t have the shooting sticks with me because I figured I would be able to backtrack to them undetected if a bull were to appear somewhere in the field. I didn’t account for that appearance to be 10 feet from where the sticks were setup. In this grass, shooting sticks were a necessity because there was absolutely no viable rest and a free-handed shot would require the rifle to be held uncomfortably high to clear the grass. And that is what I was stuck with… an awkward, free handed shot holding the rifle up to my eye, instead of it resting comfortable on my shoulder with the ability to tilt my head into the scope.

I got my rifle ready and waited for the bull to clear the brush it was hiding behind. He was a little over 50 yards away by the time he cleared the brush and slowly walked into the tall grass, quartering away from me. I could only see the top 5^th of the moose’s body at this time. I steadied the rifle as best as I could while I centered my scope on his upper back just behind his front quarters. As I pulled the trigger, I could tell I jerked the rifle and sent a flyer bullet down range. It sailed north of the bull from my pull as well as the rifle being sighted high at that distance. The bull was confused by the sound of the rifle. He looked everywhere for the sound, then turned around and slowly walked back toward the trees. I quickly reloaded and reset my aim, this time my scope crosshairs were skimming the tops of the grass in front of me. I squeezed the trigger a second time and the bull dropped instantly!

Although the bull was a little over 50 yards away, it took me a good 15 minutes to find him buried in the thick, tall grass. It was now 6:30PM, so we were in for a long night.

I got all of my gear and cleaning items organized before making the quarter mile hike back to grab the canoe and get Kevin. He heard the shots and knew exactly what it meant because he was waiting for me on the other side of the creek with food, his cutting items, extra flashlights, and spare batteries.

We hurried over to the kill sight where we hydrated, stuffed our faces, and then cleared the area for photos and cleaning room. After pictures, we setup a lantern on the shooting sticks, dawned our headlights, and got to work. Lucky for us, the moose dropped in a dry patch and we didn’t have to deal with swamp ground while cleaning. We also lucked out with the weather since the skies cleared up and the rain left us alone. This was also the first time I ever shot an animal in the head, and I have to admit… it was VERY NICE. There was absolutely no wasted meat from blood shot or trauma.

After many hours of cleaning, we were pooped. We didn’t have a meat pole setup or even a good place to create a second one near the meat from the first bull. So instead of hiking the meat out that night, we decided move it to the trees nearby and hang it near the kill site. There were more trees to pick from and erecting a meat pole to hang meat on in the thick trees was relatively simple.

We hung the meat, covered the goods, and headed back in the dark. As we got closer to the boat, we could see our headlights reflecting off an object up head. We joked that it looked like two large eyes, since it looked like massive round circles with quite a bit of space between them. Whatever it was, we couldn’t figure it out… we didn’t know if it was the tent reflecting our light, something near the canoe, or the tarp on the other side of the river. Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving and kept us guessing until we got close. We got about 20 yards from the reflection and they disappeared! This shot goosebumps down our backs instantly as we also heard the crashing and breaking of something large attempting to run/swim through the log jam in the water.

We drew our rifles and slowly walked closer. Kevin was sure it was a bear since he was under the impression that moose eyes don’t reflect light. As we edged closer, our lights lit up a medium sized rack on top of the brown animal’s head 😊 It turns out a moose was staring at us that entire time, dead still. He wasn’t huge, but big enough to give us an underpants check. He ended up going around the log jam and swimming across the creek, running towards our tent. Luckily he avoided running into our camp and he trotted into the brush likely continuing his search for the origin of the cow calls we tossed in the air earlier that day.

We got to camp and quickly cracked open our victory beers. Those were soon followed by food, drinks, laughs, and full content. It was going to be a very cold night now that the sky was clear. The stove-warmed tent was very comfortable as we settled in for bed at 3:30AM. We set the alarm for 7:30AM to begin our long day of getting back to the truck.

Day 8

For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night from a gushing nose bleed. It dropped to 26 degrees during the night, so maybe the cold and dryness caused the bleed? I’m not sure. Either way, it made quite a mess and I woke up Kevin’s deep slumber trying to get it plugged. This didn’t really help us get a restful night’s sleep with the mere 4 hours of scheduled slumber already hindering us.

Once 7:30AM rolled around, the morning fog and clear overhead skies gave us hope that we were going to be blessed with an absolutely beautiful day. As we were getting our things organized for the morning, we noticed a bull was staring at us across the creek near where we had the encounter the night prior. Judging by the size of the antlers, it appeared to be the exact same bull we spooked. It was interesting to see how determined he was to find the cows he heard calling from this relative area.

The first task of the morning was to retrieve my moose meat. In preparation for transporting the meat in the canoe, we cut willow branches to layer across the bottom of the canoe to keep the meat off the ground. After there was about six inches of compacted branches on the floor, a tarp was laid on top of them to act as a water barrier. Both of our meat would be laid on this tarp with the ends pulled up and over, and a second tarp would be put on top to keep everything clean and dry.

It took us each three loads to get my moose meat back to the canoe. We loaded it on the branch/tarp and headed over to Kevin’s hanging meat to load it as well. We quickly added his meat to the pile and made our way back to camp. Since the load out was going to be close to 2000 pounds, I had to change out the propeller to one with a smaller pitch and increased torque. It didn’t take too long to change props, and we switched our attention to tearing down camp.

Breaking down camp took a while, and it didn’t help that I caught a bad case of the runs halfway through. Kevin was a trooper and he picked up my slack by carrying pretty much every load from camp over to the canoe. Once everything was next to the boat, we loaded it as even as possible. We weren’t positive the canoe could handle the load, but once under power, it was smooth motoring. The only difference with the heavy load was of course a slower speed (about 8 mph with an open throttle), and slower reaction time to turns.

On our way out, I left a note I wrote at the portage trail head around the log jam. I knew that the guy who left us the cookies had some buddies still there hunting. I wrote a note to tell him thank you and to share my contact information. Hopefully the note found it's way back to the friendly dude and I can pick his brain further about the area.

During our four-hour boat ride we saw many hunting groups, multiple cow moose, and tons of large feeding pike. There weren’t as many ducks on the way out, likely due to someone hunting them prior to us puttering through. Even with the sun out, it was a cold boat ride. We had to stop and layer up to stay warm. Luckily the backsplash and wind wasn’t an issue; we got lucky with perfect boating conditions.

As we pulled up to the launch, a local was fishing along the shore near the launch. We caught a glimpse at his stringer and we were impressed with the number and size of pike he caught simply casting from the shore there. He asked us if we wanted help. We declined any help, but he insisted and hung around until we could get things in order to offload. During that time, Kevin and I were bickering at each other from differences in opinion. The helpful local soon got tired of our nagging and decided to rescind his offer to help. 😊 The only thing more annoying than each other at that time was the crazy mosquitos feasting on us as we unloaded/loaded.

In order to get all the meat back home in a clean, cool, and dry matter, we planned to rig up a meat hanging system in the back of the truck using a Yukon Rack bunk cot system. This required everything in the truck to be unloaded. We simultaneously unloaded the truck, emptied the boat, and setup the meat transport system. After the meat was placed in the truck, we pulled the canoe onto the trailer and loaded all items into the canoe and on the trailer for transport home. This was an interesting endeavor, but with plenty of cinch straps, everything stayed secure enough to make the long journey home.

I changed my clothes and we hit the road before sunset. We were exhausted but determined to get home. Unfortunately, all that exhaustion and drive finally caught up to me on the way home. As soon as we got in the truck to head home, I caught a chill that I couldn’t kick. I put on multiple layers, my Carhart, stocking cap, and hoods all while turning up the heat to full blast. I was shivering under these conditions and could not get warm… the entire drive home!

We stopped for gas in Fairbanks and a quick two-hour nap. Kevin took over driving from here and he powered through while I was a pathetic mess and bad stay-awake driving partner. We pulled into Kevin’s driveway around 5AM. I helped him move his moose meat to the garage and told him I would bring his gear over the next day. We parted ways and I headed home to take care of my stuff. After I finally got my meat hung and important items cared for/ moved, it was already 7AM. Even though I was pooped and extremely sick, the smile on my kids’ faces when they saw me gave me a boost of energy to play with them for a while. Pretty soon I felt my body crashing, so I had to quickly retreat to take a shower and jump in bed. I finally laid down by 8:30AM, exhausted from an amazing week of hunting!

FOLLOW-UP

The chills and sickness didn’t go away. I was shivering and internally freezing for a week! On top of that, I developed bad chest pressure and an unproductive coughing. I let the meat hang for a couple days in the garage while I tried to sleep off my illness. Luckily (and unluckily) I had the entire week off work. I was eventually forced to butcher the entire moose by myself while I shivered, hacked up a lung (wore a facemask), endured a nasty headache, and felt nearly too weak to lift the knife. Needless to say, it was the worst butchering experience of my entire life, but well cared for and prepared meat is an absolute priority and no amount of sickness would keep me from letting the meat go bad.

I eventually went to the doctor on a Friday, five days after returning home. It turns out I somehow caught pneumonia while I was hunting and developed significant infiltrates in my lungs. I was started on antibiotics and given directions to postpone my Kodiak goat hunt (which I was leaving for four days later). Don’t tell my doctor, but I didn’t take his recommendation. Kodiak was happening… with or without half of my lungs!

Loaded up and ready to go

The hoard of resident Tundra Swans

My view from the North side of the area

This is the bull we saw on the first morning

And this is how that bull ended up

Another view of the lake from the kill site

A look at the true size of the bull's rack (before camera angle tricks)

The correct angle makes any moose look like a monster!

Moose selfie

Done field dressing the moose... getting ready to hike out the meat

Our boat dock for the week. The creek was also a dead end with the hundreds of downed trees clogging it.

Meat pole

This is overlooking the other small lake we didn't know existed... and where I found the cows the large bull was diverted to.

I blame these ladies for not dropping a big bull on the second day.

This is our campsite for the week. The Tipi tent did great!

I was able to rig up a tarp with trekking pole support system to create a dry entry way on Kevin's side and make a small area we could cook and stay dry.

Closer shot

This is the inside of the tent. It is a floorless tent. This was the first time I slept in a floorless tent and it was pretty nice. You could get in without taking your gear or boots off, which was a plus.

You can only see the ones in the shadow of the tree, but there was a huge school of whitefish swimming around.

Our tent is on the right, overlooking the murky field toward the river to the left.

Butterscotch grommets!

Meat protected from rain, sun, and bears

The tarp doubled as a way to collect drinking water... bonus!

This took the chill off

Another view from my spot to the North, panoramic style

Kevin's finger after taking a direct shot from boiling water. This was 10 minutes after the accident.

I had to drain BOB twice a day from the amount of water that leaked into the boat... that's a whole other frustrating story that I don't have the time or energy to type out.