An Atypical (Unsuccessful) Moose Hunt

Earlier in the year I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to hunt this fall. I turned 40 in January, yay me, and with that I decided to join an old man’s league for basketball. Being 40, I was the youngest guy on the team. I was still dunking and unfairly more athletic than everybody. As you can imagine with my history, I got hurt, of course. During one of our games, I was going up for a rebound and somebody sideswiped me at the knees. All the tendons in my left knee exploded. The patella tendon ruptured and my patella was up in my quadricep. The quadricep tendon actually ruptured as well so the patella was pretty much just floating. I ruptured both of my retinaculums, the connective tissue on the outside and inside of the knee that holds tendons together, needed for knee stabilization. I also tore my meniscus too. I had emergent surgery at the end of the January with a long recovery ahead of me. It ruined many plans and I spent many hours in rehab and not being able to do what I wanted over the spring and through the summer. However, I dedicated enough time and hard work to getting better that the doctor allowed me to schedule a moose hunt for the fall, under one condition, that it wasn’t a humongous hike and I wouldn’t be carrying a lot of weight. That likely wouldn’t be a problem, because we hunt the swamps. The boat-based hunt makes it easy to not have to hike very far. If you shoot a moose anyways you don’t want to be hiking a long distance. Kevin would be there to help if we did get in a physically demanding situation but we would be smart to hunt carefully where it wouldn’t really impact me.

Before planning this hunt, I settled with the fact that I likely wouldn’t be able to hunt this year. I knew that our freezer needed it but that we would likely be OK if we didn’t go hunting this fall and could likely squeeze another year out of our meat. Not being able to hunt black bear over the spring also made the freezer les full. Once the fall came, I was shocked at how long I was and how little we had left. It was very important to get a moose in the freezer this year because next year I likely would not be able to hunt due to work priorities.

Kevin didn’t need a moose, he actually still had all of his moose meat from the prior moose hunt that we went on. That was good, because that meant I would get first shot and dibs if there was only one moose to go after.

Prior to the hunt, we had a little bit of a change with our transportation situation. Our trusty motor on the freighter canoe took a dump on us at the end of last year. Because of this, I had to order a new motor. They were not making Copperhead Motors anymore, so I had to get a different kind, and I settled with a mudskipper. After having it shipped up here and assembling it myself, there were a handful of nuances and bothersome things that we didn’t like about it. This hunt would test our patience with the new motor and really give insight into whether it would be a good replacement or not.

Day 1

We did our normal packing, planning, and loading routine, getting ready to go the night before with an early departure time for a full day of driving the next day. The weather was great on the drive up and the forecast was supposed to be amazing for the hunt. This was a welcomed change because in the past hunts where we go it has been raining just about every single day.

The drive was rather uneventful except for one situation that happened after we filled up gas. A new item that we have found invaluable on this hunt is a jet sled. We had the jet sled in the back of Kevin’s truck on top of everything. Little did we know that the topper could open from the inside if a certain button is touched or hit just right. Apparently, the free moving jet sled shifted and bumped this particular area on the topper lid which then popped it open. After driving for quite a while with it open, we realized it wasn’t closed. When we pulled over, we simply closed it not comprehending that the jet sled had flown out of the back of the truck and was likely somewhere along the road. It wasn’t until we were unloading all our gears later the next day and putting it into the canoe that we found it was missing and then connected the dots.

The long drive was killing my knee. Due to the injury, I cannot stay seated or have my knee bent for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time without it starting to ache in pain. Instead of pulling over every 20 or 30 minutes I would simply stretch out and straighten my leg inside the truck and just be in an awkward plank position in the front seat for a few minutes. Driving was actually easier than riding because there is more space for your left leg to extend. It was a big relief when we finally got done driving and I could get out and walk.

The roads were in great condition on the drive up, even the last part closer to Minto. We made such good time and the weather was nice enough, we decided to stop by a friend’s plot of land that they had staked to put a cabin on. We checked out the land and it looked to be pretty promising for a nice cabin in the future.

We made our way back to the place we typically sleep along the road the night before we head in on our hunt. This year, we were shocked by the number of grouse all over this last stretch of the road. There’s typically grouse here and there but this year it was different. There were so many grouse that a car coming at us would scare away all the grouse along the road, but as soon as a car would drive by, grouse would then backfill the spooked grouse almost instantly. We wanted to hunt the birds, but we didn’t have a good way to preserve them until our hunt was over, so we left them alone. We decided that we would get them on the way out once our hunt was done, hopefully they would still be there.

We settled into our normal sleeping spots for the night. We got our dinner out, reclined our chairs, and started our traditional dinner and a movie the night before our hunt. I could tell during the movie it was going to be a miserable night of sleeping for me since my knee was already screaming at me and I wasn’t even trying to sleep yet. Regardless, there’s nothing I could really do except try to tolerate it or stretch out every 30 minutes or so. We went to bed anticipating great weather and a great hunt to start the next day.

Day 2

Sleeping, or attempting to sleep, was horrible. I could not straighten my leg all night and my knee hated it. This combined with certain sounds coming from a certain individual made sleeping impossible. I actually came prepared this year with ways to sleep next to somebody snoring but it was packed away in the hunting gear ☹

It was a very foggy morning; you could barely see 100 yards. This is pretty rare for the area. I have never seen it that foggy before. Regardless, we made our way slowly down to the boat launch. As soon as we got there, we were shocked to see how high the water was. Water here raises and drops quick and dramatically at times, but we have never seen it that high since we started hunting here… the water was over the road. This was surprising too because I was watching the weather for the past month and didn’t notice much rain there. There must have been a bunch of precipitation up in the mountains that drained down into the swamp to make it this high.

We were the only ones at the boat launch this morning. The fog started to lift a little bit while we were unloading and getting the canoe ready to launch. It was still fairly thick still when we pushed off to head towards our hunting area. Typically, we can see far enough ahead of us to know what channel to go down or side of the islands or trees to go around; the fog made us rely heavily on our GPS systems. The high water combined with the fog made navigating to our desired areas fairly difficult since nothing looked like it should.

We had a new plan this year. We were going to a new spot that looked very promising during map scouting. We never haunted this area before, but we have boated next to it, so we were a little familiar with the surroundings and what to expect. When we got there, we were surprised at how high the water was in this area, further up the bank than we wanted. I had a pin drop on our GPS on where I thought we could camp; when we got to that exact location, there were two moose there as if I knew where they were going to be.

I didn’t get a good look at them since I was driving, but Kevin thought he saw a third moose with a big rack further behind the other two in the brush. This got us excited so we turned the boat around, found a place to land, and came up with a plan on how to potentially circle around him and maybe get a good shot. The brush here was extremely thick, very swampy, and scattered with obstacles making it very difficult to walk or navigate, especially quietly. There was a little peninsula of high ground from where we landed the boat that pointed out into the swampy brush area away from the waterway we came from. The moose were to the side of this along the water. We decided to have Kevin walk to the end of that peninsula and wait while looking across to hopefully get a shot at the bull if it appeared. My job was to circle around and try to find the moose by walking the shore. I would take my gun and shoot if I got a shot but since it was so loud, we thought that it would likely spook them into the open area where Kevin was ready for a shot.

We set off on our separate ways. It’s a good thing I had my waders on because there were some extremely deep spots I had to cross. This was the first true, field test for my knee since I had the injury. I was walking on unstable ground, off balance, and through water and over obstacles. My knee held up pretty well; it allowed me to hike better than I thought, especially with a walking stick. I was extremely loud but it didn’t scare the moose as much as I thought it would. It took me about 20 minutes to circle around where they were and I did locate them about 30 yards deep into the brush from the water. I spooked them as much as they spooked me, and they took off running towards Kevin’s direction. I could only see a cow and a calf, I never saw a bull. I continued to follow them in the direction they ran until I believed it was too far past where Kevin was standing. I never heard a shot so I made a beeline back towards Kevin. I couldn’t go straight to him because of the gap of the swap between the two of us so I had to circle back down towards the water, around the shore to the boat, and then to him. Kevin said he never saw the moose that I scared off and we never got a glimpse or confirmation that a bull was there anyways.

We studied the area hard and decided it was not worth hunting due to the high water. With the water being up two feet higher than it normally is, the swampy area was impossible to walk through. Normally, this entire area would have been dry in what we thought would be a good corridor for moving moose. However, due to the high water, everything was soggy and there was no dry ground for camp. We had to resort to plan B.

We turned around to head back to go down another river system. Once we got in a large lake, we needed to adjust something in the boat so we tried to kill the motor. This is when we found the kill switch no longer worked. I didn’t know why, but there was no way to turn the motor off. The key in the off position and removing it did not turn the motor off either. Nothing we did stopped the motor from working. We decided to pull the gas line and let it run out of fuel so we could work on it. I was surprised how long it took after removing the gas line from the motor for it to stop running, but it eventually died. After quite a while of diagnosing and running through different items, I couldn’t figure out why it was doing this. During this time, I also realized that this motor guzzled way more gas than the prior motor. That wasn’t good because I did not bring enough gas for how thirsty this motor was. We had enough gas to get us to our hunting spots and back to the truck, but we likely didn’t have enough gas to further explore areas we have never been before. The motor still worked so we hooked the fuel line back up and started it up, continuing on our way.

On our way to the Plan B spot, we came across many areas where huge pike were rolling in the water either feeding or frantically trying to get away from our boat. We marked these spots on our GPS to hopefully come back and catch one of them at a later time.

I witnessed one of the most amazing things on this boat ride. At first, I was annoyed with what I thought was just random spider webs floating everywhere and getting in my face. But the closer I looked at these random strings of spider web, the more I realized what their purpose was. Upon closer examination, spiders were actually windsurfing. The annoyance turned into complete amazement! Around every turn you could see a long string of spider web glistening sunlight bouncing off the fog droplets it collected. Attached behind them was a spider on the water surface. There was no wind but there was a gentle breeze light enough to carry the web and pull the spider across the water. Spiders were navigating the high water by using their webs for transportation in the air. Nature is amazing!

We didn’t see much else on our trip to our Plan B spot except a swimming shrew and another cow/ calf pair. When we got to our spot, we were lucky to find the most amazing place to put our tent. This was not an established camp and we have never landed here before, but the trees were clear and the ground was flat and dry in a large area. Usually, it’s difficult to find a place to put the tent in the forest, but this was a no brainer. We immediately got to work transporting our gear from the boat to our camping spot. It was quick and easy work to set up the tents and shelter due to the amount of space and zero clearing we had to do prior.

Our scouting prior to the hunt resulted in us marking a couple spots for calling in this area. Our main focus was a location half a mile away near a couple lakes and points of trees. It was close to 4:00 PM and we decided to head out to that spot to establish a calling base there. We hiked the half mile to the spot and it looked promising. We did check this spot out last year, and comparatively, it was way better last year. The high water ruined all the dry spots that we thought would hold moose moving between different areas. We were now scared that if we shot something in this area it would be a nightmare to cut up and get out, but likely worth it.

We brought a light tree stand with us knowing we needed some elevation to get a good lookout over the meadow and the lakes at this location. We set up the tree steps and tree stand, trimmed the trees of obstruction, cleared an area below it for us to hang out, put our Bertha (our cow moose decoy), and then called for a little while. The first thing we noticed immediately was the amount of boat traffic we could hear. Although we were about a half mile off of the water, we could easily hear any boats coming down or up the river from miles away. Granted, this wouldn’t really scare a moose, but it made us keenly aware of how many hunters and people were moving in and out of the area.

After making a bunch of calls and waiting a little bit, we hoped a bull moose herd us and would be excited to come in to that location in the near future. We left with the intent of going slow back to camp while creating a trail to follow. We broke brush, bent twigs, and got branches out of the way to hopefully make it easier to follow the trail in the morning when it was dark. It took well over an hour to hike the half mile back but it was time well invested. Our plan for the next day was to hunt that calling spot for the entire day. It looked promising and we were excited to commit to an area and not abandon it.

Day 3

Overnight was the first time I used what I am calling the snoring deterrent device or SDD. I purchased ear buds that were super thin to where I could lay on the side of my head and not feel them or have them dig into my ear. This Bluetooth set would then play white noise in my ears all night, or so I thought. They only lasted about four hours, at which time I had to suffer for the rest of the night. At least I got a good four hours of sleep.

We were using a new tent this year, a smaller arctic oven tent that I used on Kodiak with Daniel goat hunting. We had the propane heater set up but it wasn’t needed. Small camping cots underneath of us provided insulation from the ground. It was cold when I woke up but nothing our sleeping bags and the current sleep set up couldn’t handle. My pillow somehow popped overnight so I needed to improvise for the rest of the nights.

It was 38 degrees in the morning when we woke up at 6:30 AM. We were used to getting up at this time during prior hunts but the difference with this hunt is there were no clouds this morning and we had to hike for a while. This resulted in us getting to the stand later than we wanted with it being brighter than desired. It was difficult to follow our trail that we created so we knew we had to make some improvements on our way out. When we got to our hunting spot, Kevin was soaked. Branches were wet from dew and Kevin’s non waterproof pants happily transferred the moisture.

We always hope when we get back to a spot that we’ve called at that a bull moose is sitting there waiting for us, wondering where the cow is that he heard the night before. There was nothing there for us when we arrived. After hours of calling, we heard what sounded like a horn coming from the river. The more we listened the more we realized that it was actually a cow moose that was making some weird sounds, however, it was very close. The was likely detrimental for us because if we are both calling at the same time, a bull moose would likely know the cow’s call is more genuine than ours.

I brought an audio book with me this year with hopes of listening to it as time passed waiting for a moose to come into our calls or walk by. The book was called Habits of the Household; it was a book about parenting and how powerful God related habits in your household can be on your family and its wellbeing. I would be lying if I told you it was a good book; because it is one of the best books I have ever read or heard. This book had me crying with how meaningful and impactful the stories and lessons were. Although I listened to this book multiple times during the hunting trip throughout the many days we were there, I’ll only mention it during this day of the recap. Because of this book, I consider this hunt one of the best hunts of my life. It opened my eyes on how I have been parenting, the needs of my children, my purpose in life, and what I need to do in the future to better align my priorities. I’m not even joking when I say this book changed my life and as a result the hunt was life changing as well.

Kevin and I would alternate in the tree stand every hour. One person would be in the tree for an hour at a time, glassing everything around. The other person would be in charge of calling. The calling person would be on their own time frame and do what they wanted when they wanted, but essentially, they would be calling every so often, raking, grunting, and trying to get a bull moose to come to our location.

Surprisingly, there was no boat traffic the entire day. I have no idea why that is but we hoped that would be the norm. The day was actually gorgeous; The sun was out, it wasn’t raining, and we were comfortable. That’s also probably why we didn’t see a single moose all day. When the weather is nice the hunting usually is not. The weird moose calls we heard in the morning was the only moose activity all day. We spent a good 12 hours at that spot and hit the trail back to our camp before sunset so we could improve our path, making it easier to find our way in the dark.

We were comfortable and well fed, but disappointed we didn’t see more during the day. Oh well, there’s always the next day.  It was a warm night, about 62 degrees in the tent; We definitely did not need the heater again. We went to sleep with the plan of doing it all over again tomorrow.

Day 4

Overnight I was prepared for the SDD to stop working after 4 hours. I had earplugs ready to swap out at that time. When the SDD went dead I put in the ear plugs quickly and I was tired enough to be able to fall back asleep right away even though the earplug only muffled the snoring. Regardless I think I can say I slept great overnight and I was well rested for the next day.

It was a warm morning, about 50 degrees. The only difference this morning was the rain, however, there was no fog. We got to the stand well before shooting light with the help of the new clouds in the sky. Kevin brought a little tarp that we set up so the person that was not in the tree stand could stay dry while they were calling and waiting for their turn in the stand. We set it and put a little chair underneath; it was a perfect shelter.

The same cow moose was making the weird horn like sounds again this morning. She called for a brief 15 minutes from the same spot as the day prior and then never again. I was in the tree during her calling but we still could not see her although she sounded very close again. Toward the end of that shift in the tree I looked to my left and noticed some movement across the clearing along the edge of the trees. Upon further examination I could tell it was hunters. This shocked me! Where they were means they had to walk over a mile from the river to get there. We heard zero boats this morning coming in or leaving and that distance of a walk to hunt moose is considered borderline extreme, especially since it was a father and young boy combination. They likely heard us cow calling and came to check it out to see if we were a real cow or hunters. They definitely knew we were there because we could see them looking at us through their binoculars. I told Kevin where they were, got down to let him take my spot, and he kept an eye on them.

I then began calling from the ground and doing my normal routine there. Immediately after my series of calling we heard a bull grunt. The bull grant was then followed by the squishing of footsteps through shallow, swampy water. This commotion was coming from straight ahead of us and to the left a little bit but Kevin could not see the bull that was making the sounds. The bull seemed to be about 500 yards away behind some high brush. We weren’t the only ones to hear the bull respond to my call… Kevin said soon after the bull was responding, the hunters started walking along the edge towards the bull’s direction. They were in a perfect spot on the correct side of the clearing to intercept it.

The bull only made his grunts and steps audible after a few calling sessions; we thought it bedded down and became quiet. We were hoping it would come check out the cow calls later in the day. A bedded bull wasn’t ideal because the two hunters were walking towards it, even though we had been hunting this area the entire day and it obviously was responding to our calls. Unfortunately, that was the last time we heard the bull or saw the hunters. We don’t know what happened but we assumed the hunters spooked off the bull and didn’t even get a shot at it.

Kevin was casually looking along the horizon and he noticed some movement at the furthest spot possible, directly across the clearing a couple miles away. After looking through his binoculars he said he saw two bulls for a brief moment before they disappeared behind trees. They were too far away to hear our calls. I actually saw two moose in the same area on my next turn in the tree stand too. They were too far away and moving too quickly for me to identify their sex. This gave us further hope that the moose were moving through our area and would eventually hear our calls.

Towards the later half of the day, the rain finally stopped. The wind appeared in the place of the rain and it was hard to project efficient moose calls or hear any responses. The wind eventually died down as the sun was dropping below the horizon. We were about ready to call it a day when we heard raking and snorts a few hundred yards to our right. This is the thickest part of the area we were hunting, so any moose there could easily be hidden among the short trees and brush. We responded with a few cow calls and got a couple rakes and grunts in return. The moose didn’t seem too interested; it was more of a response than intrigue. Even though he grunted about four or five times, He didn’t really seem like he was coming towards us. We thought he was likely circling, which bulls normally do as they are close to a cow call, but we were unsure. Regardless, it was getting too dark to do anything anyways. We had to get back to camp and couldn’t stay out any longer. We snuck out as quiet as we could to try and not spook him. We didn’t know where he was, and we don’t know if he heard us or not. It’s most likely he did hear us since it is very loud brush and swamp like ground with loud slushy footsteps.

The trip back to camp took longer than normal because we had to be quiet and walk softly. It was nearly dark when we got to camp, but as we got closer to our tent, I noticed something dark underneath of our tarp where we kept our storage totes… It was a black bear! The damn thing was eating our food! We got closer and screamed at it to go away, and it ran about 25 yards and just stood there and looked at us. He refused to go any further because he knew about the delicious food that we just pushed him off of. We waited for quite a while and he didn’t budget no matter what we were saying or trying to do to him. We knew he wasn’t going to leave us alone and he would be coming back for that food later. We had no choice; we had to shoot him. I didn’t even have to ask Kevin if he wanted to be the shooter; he was already on his knees with the bear in his sights. Kevin blasted the bear and it ran about 15 yards and died. This was the first black bear I have ever seen killed that didn’t release a death moan.

Killing a black bear was not ideal because we had to harvest the meat and take care of the hide and skull. It was already dark, we were hungry for dinner, and we needed to get to bed early so we could get up and hunt moose early in the morning. Regardless we took the time needed to clean the bear properly and salvage all the meat we could. Neither of us wanted the hide so we didn’t care too much about cuts in it. Not caring about the hide makes getting the meat out a lot quicker. It didn’t take us long at all to get all the meat in game bags and ready to be hung. It probably took us just as long to get a meat pole set up with a tarp and bear fence, which we should have had up earlier.

After we took care of the bear, we finally had time to get back and assess the damage. The darn bear ate pretty much all of my food and barely nibbled on Kevin’s. Luckily, he left our tent alone. Fortunately, Kevin is known for overpacking and he had plenty of food to share. Instead of going on a diet for the next few days, we would now split and ration all of our food to make sure we had enough to last us.

It was a well-deserved dinner that night since we were overdue and burned extra calories. It was another warm night where we did not need the heater. When our heads hit the cot, we I fell asleep immediately. It rained hard that night even though the forecast wasn’t really calling for it.

Day 5

It was very cold when we woke up the next day, about 40 degrees It was sprinkling and a little windy so the combination of low temperature, sprinkles, and wind did not make us look too forward to that day coming up.

When we got to the hunting spot, our concerns were validated. The air was moist and the wind cut right through you. It wasn’t too bad under the little shelter, but the hour in the tree stand was pretty miserable. We didn’t see a single moose or anything the entire day; we just froze our ass off. It felt like a wasted hunting day, but I personally made significant progress on my audio books and the self-reflection they demanded.

One thing I noticed was the lack of mosquitoes where we were hunting. It wasn’t just because the day was cold, it was every day. For some reason there were no mosquitoes here even though there were swamps everywhere. I wasn’t complaining, but its more common to be carried away by mosquitoes anywhere in this area. Another thing I noticed was the complete lack of waterfowl. In prior years, every puddle, pond, and body of water was overflowing with waterfowl. This year was different. There were a couple lakes that we could see from our hunting spot, but none of them had more than a dozen ducks at any given time. Typically, there would be so many ducks on each lake that they were annoyingly loud and space on the water was hard to come by.

Returning to camp for a long day of freezing made hiking very difficult. We got back and discovered that Kevin had a hole in his waterproof boots. After a quick bush fix, we retreated to a warm tent with the heater blaring.

Day 6

We woke up to another morning similar to the prior morning. It was just under 40 degrees out, sprinkling, with a slight breeze. We hoped that this day would be a little more exciting than the previous one.

Prior to leaving we prepared ourselves a little better. I set up the collapsible bucket to collect rainwater for us to get our drinking water from. We packed extra clothes to keep us warmer and a thermos of hot soup (Ramen noodles chicken flavored broth for the win).

We got to the stand and it was windy like we thought it would be but it wasn’t as bad as the previous day. I’m guessing the thermos of soup is the main reason it was better because that was clutch! I have no idea why we didn’t do that sooner.

This day turned out to be another memorable day for me personally. While Kevin was in the tree stand, he received a text on his In-Reach from Brittany. He signaled over to me to catch his phone because he wanted me to read something on it. Initially, I was a little frustrated because I don’t like being contacted while hunting and purposely being disconnected from the outside world. That frustration quickly disappeared when I realized the message on the phone was important to know instantly. Brittany texted Kevin to tell me congratulations because I made promotion and became a Captain (O-6) in the United States Public Health Service (the peak ranking of my career). I was screaming on the inside because I couldn’t on the outside. I did a million fist pumps and air humps and probably looked like a fool, but I was super excited. I was glad to have reached that career milestone in the middle of the moose hunt. I told Kevin he was lucky he wasn’t on the ground with me when I read that because I probably would have jumped on him and slapped him silly.

We saw and heard nothing up until 1:30 PM. At this point I pitched splitting up to Kevin. I wanted to head back to camp and go across the river and check out some areas on the other side that looked promising on the maps. He agreed to stay at the tree stand and let me go explore a little bit by myself. We each took a radio to use in case we needed to reach each other while I was trying to find an elusive bull.

On my way back to camp, I had an emergency poop situation. I couldn’t make it to camp, and I had to divert from the trail for a pit stop. I don’t want to gross anybody out, but it was probably a record poop that came out of my body that day.

I got back to camp and made myself a warm drink. Little did I know before I took off, my radio was left on my seat underneath the tarp. Not wanting to spook any moose that may be in the area, I paddled the canoe across the river to the other side. I tied up the boat and decided which way I would go. To my surprise, there were tracks and poop right on the river’s edge. Conversely, there weren’t any tracks or moose poop on our side of the river. About 50 yards off of the river a highway of moose traffic emerged. Although it looked like they traveled here a lot, it was not a good place to hunt due to it being thick with very little openings for shooting lanes.

I slowly made my way to the glassing spots I put on the GPS from my map scouting a month ago. I was disappointed to see that these spots were absolutely terrible. Like everything else, they were underwater and not suitable for hunting. There were tracks around most of the places I looked too.

I decided that I would set up by the river hopefully in a spot where I could hear Kevin calling from his stand. I hypothesized that with the high water, traveling was likely different and more difficult for moose with the added feet of water and places that it shouldn’t be. This made me think that moose were likely traveling along the river more often where higher banks were common and dry ground was prevalent (easier walking). I walked the river for a little bit until I found a bend in the river where either moose can go across the river or they can go back where they came from. A moose likely doesn’t want to do the latter, so these parts of the river are a good choke point for targeting moose, especially ones that are following the river more due to high water.

It was a comfortable spot but I really couldn’t see much beyond 30 or so yards. I made sure the moose highway was in front of me in case a traveling moose decided to take it while I was there. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew nothing was happening at our tree stand spot, so this would at least be just as good. As I was sitting there between calling sessions, two boats zoomed by in the river. They went up a few miles and stopped. I’m not sure what they were doing but I could hear them chain sawing and cutting a bunch of stuff down. About 10 minutes after they stopped cutting, a huge explosion was heard in their vicinity. I don’t know what the explosion was or if it was on purpose. About 15 minutes after the explosion, the two boats we’re zooming back down the river and left the area.

I spent about four hours on that side of the river and didn’t hear or see anything. I wasn’t disappointed because again it was the same kind of action we had on the other side, at least I got some exercise and saw some new terrain. As it was getting closer to dark, you could feel the cold moving in. The rain started to fall lightly and that’s when I decided to head back to the boat and to Camp. I got back to the tent and tarp right when the rain started to dump really hard. Unfortunately, Kevin was still in the field and likely getting soaked. This was going to be another great night to crank the heater in the tent.

Kevin got back and he was in good spirits, like always. He didn’t see a bull, but he said he saw a cow at the point where we thought we heard the bull a couple days ago before the other hunters likely spooked it. He said the cow hung out in the area for about two hours; he was hoping a bull was paired up with her. She didn’t seem like she was going to leave the area and appeared to bed down and hang out for the night. We were hoping she would be there tomorrow and the hidden bull would show itself at some point too.

The cold was already there but the forecast was calling for it to be below freezing overnight and into the next day. Although that sounded miserable, we were welcoming the cold because it would hopefully push the moose to do something different and/or move around a little more. We stuffed our bellies with hot chocolate and jumped into bed preparing for another cold day tomorrow.

Day 7

It got very cold overnight. When we woke up it was only 36 degrees; everything was wet but there was no rain. It didn’t snow at our elevation, but the mountains and hills were covered. Luckily, the bear didn’t eat our soup mix so we had plenty to keep us warm with.

We got to our hunting spot early again. We got our wish, the weather had changed a bit, the wind direction changed too. Instead of the wind blowing our scent out into the field there was now a gentle breeze coming in from the field. It was super quiet and perfect for calling moose a long ways away. The cow moose that Kevin spotted the day prior was still at the point of trees that jetted out into the field about 500 yards in front of our tree stand. We saw her on and off throughout the day as she moved around between feeding and bedding down. We continued the hope that she had a bull with, but that never materialized.

In about the same location and at about the same time that we previously heard the horn type sounds that we thought were coming from a cow moose, we clearly heard a cow broadcast call. Like previously, it only happened a couple times early and then it never happened the rest of the day.

We were camping on a portion of the river where less than a mile past us was a huge log jam that blocks the river. This essentially ends the possibility of boating up the river, however, a trail exists at the end where people are known to portage or move things back and forth around the jam. For some reason, that was a hotspot for traffic on this day. There were boats zooming up and down all day past our camp doing something at the end by the jam and trail. I’m not sure what impact this has on moose, if at all, but it was annoying when you want to be out there hunting without other people around.

The long periods of time without hearing or seeing anything at this point in the hunt resulted in us starting to question ourselves in what we were doing. Was sticking to one spot the best idea? Was hunting this far off the river a better alternative than hunting closer to the river? Should we try to find a new spot? Should we try to find the cow that keeps calling behind us? Should we split up? Should we hunt out of the boat? Should we abandon all smart hunting tactics and leave a place we have called so heavily? Do we stop calling so hard? Do we call harder and more? Why haven’t I seen a bull moose yet? Will my freezer remain empty if we don’t do something else? Despite all those questions second guessing your decisions, generally, the best answer is to stick to your gut and stick to your plan. We invested a lot of time and effort in this spot and we were committed to hunting it hard for the entirety of the hunt.

Most of the day was more of the same, calling, waiting, scanning the field, switching spots, doing something on our phone, hoping to hear something, and being impatient as the time slowly creeped by. It got a little exciting towards the evening when we heard some really weird moose sounds; it sounded like a mad, farm bull, snorting and hollering like it was pissed off. This sounded like it was coming from our camp area, but we couldn’t tell for sure. It was a quick spurt of about 20 seconds and then it never happened again. We’ve heard this sound before once during a previous hunt in the middle of the night outside of our tent when a bull moose decided to leave his scent on the ground next to us and then storm out there quickly. This may have been what another bull mouse was doing, but for the life of us, we couldn’t call it in.

The day ended like the others with it getting almost too dark to see, so we headed back for a repeat of the prior nights, collecting water, refueling our bodies, doing some chores, and then headed to bed ready to hunt the next day.

Day 8

It got really cold overnight; it was upper 20s when we woke up and there was frost everywhere. Our water was frozen and the skies were crystal clear. It was going to be a very sunny day because of the high-pressure system that settled in.

It was looking like a perfect day to hunt moose, one of those days where it’s super cold in the morning and moose are moving to warm up from overnight. Then it gets hot during the day so they’ll bed down and then move again towards the evening. It was dead silent at the tree stand that morning with zero wind. Getting into the stand quietly was difficult, but that meant bulls would be able to hear our calls for miles.

It wasn’t long before we got a response to our calls. At about 8:45 AM, we heard multiple grunts coming from an area close to the river near the location that the weird cow call was coming from the previous mornings. After three sets of calls and responses, something disappointing happened; a gunshot came from the same direction. Three other gunshots followed immediately after. Our hearts sank knowing we had a bull calling and somebody on the river intercepted it. It was very quiet that day, and we have no idea how hunters got there without us knowing; we should have heard them on the river.

This missed opportunity was even more heartbreaking because this day could have very well been the last day to hunt. The forecast was calling for some heavy precipitation the next day which would prevent any good hunting from occurring. We can and do hunt in the rain, but if it’s bad weather moose don’t usually move so it’s not worth beating yourself up sitting out in nasty weather if moose are barely moving.

Like predicted, it got sunny and warmer for a little bit during the middle of the. There was a ton of boat activity on the river because it was a gorgeous day. Who knows, it could have been busier than we thought, at this point we were questioning if people were using E-boats since it appeared hunters were getting into our spot without us even knowing.

We saw a cow at the same spot where a cow was days prior, near the area trees went to a point in front of us towards the swampy middle. Again we were hoping for a bull to be close behind, but that did not happen. Today, this cow decided to leave the area. She took a path neither of us were expecting too. Instead of this cow walking on dry ground or around the lake, she decided to swim straight through it. This wasn’t a normal swim to cross from one side to the other between the two shortest points; this moose literally could not have chosen two further spots to swim between. It was fun tracking and watching her, but ultimately we wished it was a bull instead.

There wasn’t much excitement for the day except towards the end. At around 6:30 PM we could hear what sounded like cow calls coming from our camp area. They didn’t sound real; they sounded like hunters calling. Similar to this morning after hearing moose sounds, gunshots rang out. Two gunshots followed the fake cow calls in what we could only assume was another dead bull off the river shore. We couldn’t believe how busy the river was yet how successful it appeared to be compared to where we were! There was no action the rest of the night so we headed back and repeated our nightly tail between the legs ritual.

I went to the boat to do the nightly chores of making sure it was secure and pumping out the water. I was surprised to find a little friend, a mouse, stuck in the bottom of the boat. He was actually on top of the battery container like an island with water all around him, scared to go anywhere. After completing the chores, I grabbed him and took him in to Kevin as a surprise.

The next day would be our last day hunting. We held out hope that the weather would cooperate and we would get a small chance at dropping a moose. We decided we wanted to try something new the next day too. If it worked, Kevin would go to the tree stand while I stayed back at camp by the river. I would call from the camp while he called from the stand, and if there was any moose activity at all, my job would be to aggressively pursue it. We went to bed listening to Wolves in the distance and hoping we would get a chance to try.

Day 9

It dumped heavy, wet snow overnight and well on into the morning. It wasn’t worth getting up early and trying to hunt in this weather; moose were not moving. We stayed in the tent until a little past 10:00 AM when it started to lighten. As we got out, we could see that snow and water was on most of our gear underneath the tarps (luckily the bear meat was dry). The weight of the heavy snow collapsed a lot of our shelter and the things underneath suffered from it. We fixed the tarp and tried to dry off all of our gear as best as possible.

It was still dumping wet precipitation too much for it to be worth heading out to the tree stand, so we got comfortable under the tarps and stayed dry. We waited for a couple hours for the weather to break. At this point we are hoping for a bottom of the 9^th inning walk off, home run situation. We were at the bottom of the barrel for our hopes and our food. We did not have any dinners left and we barely had snacks for the day.

Kevin took off for the tree stand around 12:30 PM. I couldn’t fathom sitting in camp calling and waiting all day, so I went across the river to explore a little bit and call from the spot days earlier.

While there, a boat pulled up and hunters got out in the same spot the bull was shot that was grunting at us a couple days ago. I radioed to Kevin that they were there and for some reason he thought I told him that a bull was there. That miscommunication then fueled different perspectives for the rest of that day. He thought I was going to aggressively pursue it, and maybe push the bull his direction. Excitedly, he kept calling hard trying to bring it in to him. He modified everything he was doing to prepare for a good shot on a bull that could potentially come from that direction including pooping in a different place, calling that direction, and focusing all his attention there. I, on the other hand, acted completely different knowing hunters were there and I needed to hunt elsewhere.

Neither of our approaches were successful. The day came and went like the others without a moose being harmed but with even less activity.

Back at camp for the last night we were sulking under the tarp when we heard a cow moose across the river freaking out. It was almost dark and this moose was going crazy trying to get a bull to come to her. It was great! We grabbed our rifles and went to the edge of the river trying to see the cow or potentially a bull with her. We could see through the scopes across the river for only about 10 minutes before it got too dark; we never saw the cow. If a bull was anywhere near this cow, he would have either been there that night or sometime next day. Unfortunately for us, this was the last day of the hunting season, and if a bull moose came the next day, he would be safe.

With heavy hearts, we retreated to our tents dreading the process of packing and leaving empty handed. The plan for the next day was to take our time and hopefully fish for pike in a couple places on the way out.

Day 10

We blasted the propane heater for the last night knowing we didn’t have to worry about running out. Out of food, we shared oatmeal for our last meal at camp.

Packing up wet camping gear is the worst. It’s heavy and you have to set it out to dry when you get home; We didn’t have the luxury of packing dry camp. When we were gathering our things, we found out that a damn mouse had chewed holes in some of our dry bags. These weren’t just little holes; they were big holes. He was hungry for fake plastic for some reason, or he wanted to be a jerk and have all our stuff get wet.

We fished for pike on the way out trying different lures, spots, and techniques. For some reason, the fish were not biting. While fishing, we realized that this river drifted extremely slow and was capable of moving the boat without a motor and very little steering. Kevin and I thought this would be a really good way to hunt the river, covering quite a bit of ground while being stealthy, and having decent shooting lanes around the river. Maybe next time.

The boat ride out was pretty miserable. It got colder and windier as the day went on. Because the water level was so high, the swamp was basically a huge lake now, with no brakes or land to stop the wind or waves. Like typical huge bodies of water, they can get very windy which results in very big waves. This is exactly what happened on this day. The waves were huge and the canoe had a hard time traveling through them. I was drenched by the end of the trip out. Waves were breaking over the bow onto all of our gear and us every two seconds. The bilge was running non-stop and oftentimes I had to stop to allow it to catch up to empty water before we could proceed. This made for slow going, but we eventually made it, although we were frozen.

At the boat ramp, salt was rubbed in our wounds. There was another freighter canoe that was wrapping up their hunt too, except they were successful and we weren’t. We also talked to some other hunters who showed us pictures of their bull moose. They shot a couple of dandy balls the day prior, one being 65 inches with a collar. We were happy for their success, but sad we could not experience the same.

It started to snow on us while we were putting all our gear and the boat away. We got everything strapped down and started to pull out of the boat ramp. Toward the top of the small hill there were seven grouse running around on the ground. We were bloodthirsty at this point but lucky for them they were still in town. No worries, we would pursue their brothers and sisters In about five miles.

It started snowing really hard as soon as we left. I was thankful we got off the water before the wind and snow really pummeled us. Unfortunately, this made the grouse not want to cooperate either. Regardless there were still a few crazy grouse flying around in the weather. We ended up bringing home three of them and likely could have gotten more but we had a mission to make it home as soon as we could. It was going to be a long day because we were going to make the entire drive without stopping for sleep. We stopped once in Fairbanks to fill up on fuel and food, then hammer the rest of the trip out well into the morning of the next day, concluding our hunt with a safe return home.

Note – This entire blog entry was written through a recording. I’m currently unable to use my left hand due to a pectoral repair procedure leaving me in an immobilizer for six weeks. If my grammar and sentences don’t appear normal, it’s because this was dictated and not actually typed.

On the same topic of injuries, I believe my knee did fantastic on this hunt. I was skeptical about how it would perform, but other than the nagging, dull pain throughout the day while sitting, resting, or sleeping, it didn’t bother me a bit. I wish I could have tested it with heavy weight on my back, but that will have to wait until next year. 

Here is BOB, and all his glory. We are ready to voyage off into the foggy abyss behind us.

This is the new motor for BOB. I'm not really a fan but it will do for now.

This is a zoomed out view of the field and swamp we were looking over from the tree stand.

After setting up the stand on the first night and trying it out, we noticed something dark in the line of trees ahead of us. I was surprised to see a huge porcupine toward the top of a birch tree munching away.

Looking down on Kevin calling moose.

This is how high up the tree stand was on the Birch tree. Kevin is up there looking out over the field through his binoculars.

Kevin doing his favorite thing while hunting, napping and fondling himself.

This is a view from the tree stand kind of behind us and to the left. On the other side of that little pond is where the cow moose was calling on a daily basis in the morning, and where the bull moose was shot after it grunted at us.

This small lake was directly in front of the tree stand. It was a little over a mile away. It only had a couple swans on it and was surprisingly void of ducks most of the time. This is the lake the cow moose decided to swim completely across.

I took this picture for Ashton to show him a stick that had about 10 spears in it. He would have been impressed with how deadly it was.

This picture is from the tree stand looking down on the little shelter we had set up for the other person. That person could not see very much at all. The tree stand person had all the lookout responsibilities.

This is the aftermath of the bear that got into our food.

And this is all the food I had left after the bear was done.

And this is all the food Kevin had left after the bear was done.

This tent was amazing and I loved taking it whenever I can use it.

Our shelters were set up to keep as much dry as possible.

Bertha is in the middle of this picture. I'm beginning to think she's bad luck, because she really hasn't helped us get a moose ever.

You can barely see it but the mountains in the background behind the trees are covered in snow. There was no snow on these mountains the day prior. The snow was headed our way.

The closer mountains were starting to get snow now too.

Surprise! The snow found us. This was the only tarp that mattered and it stayed up.

This lovely swan family was on the lake behind us. Four kiddos and the parents hung out most of the time.

Then these jerks showed up. For some reason this couple decided to land on the pond that the family of swans was on, and fight every single one of them. It went on for quite a while; it was a good distraction for a bit.

This is the only picture of a moose that I got during the hunt. This cow moose is the same one that swam across the lake.

This is a video of a nearly 360 degree view from the tree stand. It was a great spot! For some reason, the didn't come in.