The Porky:
He scraped periodically and SLOWLY worked his way toward me for the next 45 minutes. But I never saw him. Not even a glimpse. I stayed until waaaay after I should have, and never heard him leave. Must have smelled me I guess. I walked out of there in the dark-dark, one hand on the .40. Oh yeah, did I mention the bear tracks on the way in that weren't there the day before?.... Got out of there and hit it again the next night. This time it took about 20 minutes and then off to my right, across the meadow in the thick brush.... CRACK!....sounded like a stick the size of my wrist broke. Here we go again... I called and heard movement for the next half hour. Only about 60-70 yards away, but inside a wall of brush you can't see ten feet through. Finally, I heard a sound that made me cringe...a long, wailing COW call. What the?.... I was 'punked' by a cow. "At least", I thought, "I have bait now.....". But again I called until dark, and nothing with bones visible made an appearance. The next day Sam would arrive, though, and we would get to start off by hitting it hard Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday morning, we headed to the 'Monarch' meadow, where Sam and I had one of our "Close encounters" last year on our first trip out. This time though, we saw nothing, heard nothing. There were fresh tracks and a few rubs, but the spot just didn't look like it had in the two years prior. After calling for a few hours we headed across the river and tried another spot. Same thing. heard nothing, saw nothing. The sign we saw there was more promising, but not a productive morning beyond some useful scouting. Saturday night continued with more of the same. We heard moose, and saw a cow here and there, but no bones. Saturday night we decided to stay close to home, and went across the river to a creek that runs quite a ways up from the Yukon. As we cruised in up the creek, we puttered up to within about 60 yards of a cow that was on the bank, drinking water, before she saw us. Gotta love how quiet those Honda four strokes are... ;) Threw in a beaver set at one of the lodges in the creek and then headed to the trail in. We set up in another looooooong meadow, overlooking a shallow lake in the middle. Here's the view from the cluster of stunted willows we called from:
After about 10 minutes of calling, we heard some brush cracking off to our left front. Then some more. Then silence for a while. Suddenly, I looked up, and screened by the willows across the meadow, was a moose. Coming right at us. As is often the case, I have no idea how it got there, so far from the treeline without us seeing it, but there it was. And I saw a light colored blob above its head for an instant. I quickly whispered to Sam, "There he is!...I think it 's a small bull!". "It looked like it has horns!" And so we stared, straining our eyes. And we stared. And stared. And the moose that had so quickly appeared.....disappeared. And we didn't know where it went... Finally, Sam whispered back and pointed, "There he is!...I saw a butt going into the clump of trees right there!..." This was quite a distance from where I had seen it...but there it was...only there wasn't one. There were two. A cow and calf. :) Dang it! She had grey-looking ears, but needless to say, no horns. Just another reminder to make sure before you shoot. At anything, :) We enjoyed the pair for a while, watching them walk along the trees on the far side of the meadow, working their way up to the long end of it, in the direction the lake runs.
After they got about 350-400 yards up, they crossed the water and worked their way toward the brush to the right of the meadow.
I continued calling, hoping they would have either been in the process of being chased, or else would help us lure in a bull. Little did I know that in the meanwhile, a bull had been approaching from the exact direction they were going. As we were talking about them and how great a sight it was to watch them for so long, I glanced back in their direction. And suddenly the blob at the far end of the meadow looked AWFULLY big - even for a cow and calf. I half-heartedly threw up the binocs and hissed, "Holy S___ Sam, it's a Bull! and he's a good one!". All I saw was him trotting straight away from us in their direction, head thrown back and paddles bouncing as he covered ground. He was a 50-incher for sure. The cow and calf wheeled and ran in a U-shape, right away from us and into the brush, heading straight away. And they were a long ways off. No chance for a shot, and they were only picking up speed as they went, the cow wanting nothing to do with him, obviously. We quickly discussed our best plan of action and decided that we would stay put and let them be, hoping for something else to show up and then come back in the morning if nothing else transpired. Nothing did. We waited until dark and worked our way back to the boat, spooking another moose on the way out. It was so dark that we couldn't see it, even though it was within bow range. We did see the skylighted trees shaking when it bolted, though. Cool stuff, and at least we had gotten the blood flowing.
Next morning, we headed back to the meadow before daylight. Though it was another great fall morning, nice and still and cool, even if a little wet, we only got to hear moose once again, and didn't see any. After about an hour or more of calling we headed back to the boat and I decided to cruise up a ways and check some other meadows. But we didn't get too far and things got interesting... As we rounded one of the bends in the creek I looked out ahead about 200 yards and it seemed like there was a dark blob on the bank. My brain started pulling that trick where it keeps telling you that something is not right with what you are seeing, but it refuses to tell you what the something is.... and then, all at once both of us realized what it was. I said, "Is that a...." and then we both at nearly the same time said, "Bear!". Both rifles came up in an instant and we began looking it over. I remember Sam saying, "Do we want a bear?". It didn't look very big, and we went back and forth awhile while we assessed the situation.... Just as a background, here in Unit 18 Black bears are doing very, very well. Their numbers are high - in fact, each hunter that wishes to pursue them receives 6 tags.... six! - and there is no closed season on them. They are a very common sight - at least, that generally means when you don't have a loaded rifle in your hand... And so, without much further thought, I said, "Yeah!". Meanwhile we had moved into position for a shot with the bear walking steadily toward us, its attention focused on the stream bank and whatever tasty morsels it expected to find there. Sam steadied his rifle and squeezed one off, and immediately the bear hunched and let out a roar. Then it turned and headed for the brush, disappearing behind a huge dead log as I had pulled up to squeeze off a shot. After a few seconds of hearing and seeing nothing, we moved in. There, halfway behind the log, was the bear. It hadn't gone more than 15-20 yards from where Sam hit him. Or her, should I say, as it turned out...
His shot cleanly struck the heart (at upper right) and the bullet passed on through the liver (at left center) before exiting. Very quick kill, and as it should be. A 'different' kind of picture of the hunt, but its all part of it.
Sam quickly field dressed the bear and we loaded it onto the front of the boat. With blood on the ground, we headed further up the creek to try out a few spots, calling as we went. Again we did not see Mr. Bull (was it the scent of bear that we were wearing? :D ). After waiting things out for a bit, we decided to head home for some lunch and dry out our soaking wet clothes the morning's rain had provided us with. On the way home we did score two ducks (teal) and a spruce hen. After a bit of something to eat and waiting for Warren to wake up from his afternoon nap, we showed him the bear...here's a link to a video of his reaction - crank the volume up for his imitation... :)
Sam opted out of this picture, but Warren posed for the camera :) Background is a front quarter of Forde's moose, taken a few days prior to the pic. (for those not acquainted with the size of a moose, that is just one front leg's worth of meat - and its behind us, and so looks smaller) Ahh, scenes of Fall here in Russian Mission....
We hunted Sunday evening, hitting some more new spots, giving the 'creek meadow' a rest. Again we crossed path with moose, but again it was not the kind with horns. We found the most extraordinary moose rub I have ever seen, however. The tree this brute ripped and shredded was nearly the diameter of my leg. Sam is 6'4", 270, to give you an idea of the pieces he is holding! The bark was just corkscrewed around and around, splinters and limbs were spread around like shrapnel, and the stomped down grass just reeked of a Bull. Definitely inspiring.
Two days of hunting dark til dark, and not a piece of bone showing. It was back to work for me on Monday, and then that evening we headed out again. This time we took a trip up one of the larger tributary streams a bit downriver. We planned to go a few miles up and then on the way back out we would fish at the mouth for sheefish at dark. We worked our way in and wound our way to a few meadows I had marked on the gps, covering more new ground. As darkness was falling and we were thinking of heading back out, I spotted a moose crossing way out in front of us, about 300 yards up. We once again raised the scopes to check it out, but quickly learned it was (I'll give you one guess).... a cow and calf. Could not buy a horn, even though we were right in amongst 'em just about every trip out. We got out to the mouth and beached the boat to try our luck with the fish. Sarah had hooked a big shee earlier that day, but for us it was not to be. Sure did get to enjoy a nice sunset though. Here's a shot of Sam enjoying the evening:
On the way back for the night we noticed some bobbing headlamps beating a path on the banks of the Yukon close to home. One down for somebody....
I had off Tuesday and Wednesday, and the next morning we headed out at the usual time, and were greeted at the boat by one of the best sunrises I've seen here in Russian Mission:
It was another eventful, adrenaline packed morning...but not exactly the kind we were hoping for. Once more we were right in the mix but it didn't come together. Getting to see and or hear responding moose was becoming more and more common though...the switch had been flipped. That sunrise was the calm before the storm, however, and around midday it started dumping snow. As in, sideways, white-out snow. We hunkered down with Warren and Sarah and enjoyed our afternoon together indoors, and then back out we went. This time it was a return to the 'creek meadow'. As we were walking into the meadow, we were admiring the fallen snow and the eerie calm the evening had settled into, when one of the most frustrating incidents Sam and I have had happen to us took place. I will leave it at that, but trust me when I say that we will not forget it anytime soon....
Wednesday morning. We decided it was time to head back to the spot we had in mind from last year when I got my 52. It just has that feeling about it, and when you are walking in you just get a sense of confidence that something could happen at any minute. Kind of like steelhead trips down to Salt Creek used to feel. The stream could be in rough shape, and the weather could be all wrong...but you just knew that the fish would be there. And 9 times out of ten they are. Well, this meadow is the same way, and we had been there earlier in the week and seen nothing. It kind of 'felt' moosey. :) We would not be disappointed. This spot involves about a half mile walk in from where the boat hits the beach. We didn't make it 300 yards though before we spooked a moose off to our left. Feeling a little discouraged, I began frowning on our luck as we continued on. The meadow we were heading to stretches a long long way, and I still was harboring hope that we would get a glimpse of the escapee if we pushed in. When we got to the edge of the meadow, nothing was immediately visible, so I shrugged off the pack and was in the process of getting out the call when I heard Sam sharply whisper, "Stop, stop, stop! Do you hear that?!". Once I quit rustling with my jacket and held still, I did hear it. In fact, I couldn't HELP but hear it. A Bull thrashing a tree - and in, shall we say, a serious manner. Adrenaline flowing now, I fumbled the call out of the pack and scraped the willows, giving a few grunts. Straight ahead of us was an old cut trail, kind of like a logging road grade, grown up some with time. Nothing visible. The meadow was on our left but ran parallel with the way we were facing (the direction the brush hog-like noise came from). Sam drifted off to my left and he knelt down at the edge of the meadow, looking out. So I determined to stay put and watch the "road" (can only see down it in holes) and keep calling. Still nothing. Looking ahead, straining my eyes and ears, watching. Sam broke my silent concentration when he raised his rifle and said "There he goes!", pointing from left to right. "I saw the back end of him walk right into the trees out there!". So I thought, "He must be heading to the "road" in order to work his way toward us. " Excellent! But he didn't appear. I called again. Nothing. Not a snap of a stick, not anymore rubbing, not a grunt, nothing. My mind was racing now. They sure can come in slow, but this one (I thought at the time) would have to be going at the speed of a salted slug for us not to have seen him by now... I stopped calling, listening as hard as I could. And then once again Sam whispered something. I was focusing so much that I didn't quite catch it, and replied, "What's that?' He quickly gestured and repeated himself, "Come here!, come here!" I crossed the few steps to where he was and immediately I saw the Bull. He had re-emerged from the trees and was going back across the meadow from our right to left, ever so slightly quartering away. Thinking he must have came into the trees and got our wind and was making a hasty exit, I Immediately dropped to one knee, pushed the safety and tried to assess the distance. The damn things are so big that they sure can make distance deceiving when on flat open ground. I remember saying, "I think he is out there...175....no...he might be 200 yards..." Now, repeatedly throughout our moose hunting adventures, Sam has reinforced time and again that he wanted us both to shoot. "We just want the thing DOWN, right there", he would keep telling me. So long before, I had set in my mind that I would shoot after he did, provided we had the chance. I turned up the power on the Leopold and settled in, took a deep breath and let half of it out, and settled the crosshairs under the Bull's ear. And after a few fractions of a second that felt like an era, Sam's rifle barked, BANG! in my ear. It had the good, double report of a solid hit. The Bull hunched and stumbled, taking a wobbly step forward. I can still see the image of his excessively long dewlap flopping in my scope right then as I settled the crosshairs in again, right under the ear, and squeezed. The bull dropped like a sack of wet concrete and had almost vanished out of the scope before I had gotten done blinking......... In that whole second or so right after, (that adrenaline had slowed down to what felt like minutes), I thought, he did it! Bull down! I couldn't contain it and jumped up. " YESS!!!!! Down, baby! That's one that's not going anywhere!"
After some shoulder slapping and celebrating, I ran off for the pack and gathered up my stuff, and we walked up on the bull. I recorded most of our approach, but found later that the lower portion of the camera shutter had not fully opened, leaving a black line in the video for a good portion of it. As we got closer we saw the the bull was still kicking a bit...not going anywhere, but you just don't walk up on a bull moose when they're still moving, if you know what I mean. :) So Sam moved in for a final shot to the back of the head. Amusingly, right after he fired that shot with me behind him, I stepped in a tundra hole and went down sprawling, while still recording. Makes the video appear as though I've been hit with a ricochet! Still makes me laugh when I watch it. Even after that shot, there was still a surprise kick or two from Mr. Bull, nerves still twitching. The true 'kicker' of the morning only began right then, however....
That dang moose was 240 steps from where we had crouched to fire. The first two shots, the celebrating, and the long walk up to him, as well as the final headshot and me falling over had all taken place. And it was then and only then that Sam said "Look at that!" It froze me. I didn't know if he was admiring the horns, if the bull was getting back up (nawww....) or what...until I followed his gaze over to the treeline. There stood the biggest bodied Bull I've ever seen. Period. I would swear that he was bigger in body size than the Warren Bull...and that's saying something. And the coolest thing about him was that his entire body was light grey...no countershading like you normally see. This thing was Grey, period. Moose brown never even entered my mind. And as it melted off into the trees, we also noticed that there were bands of long, white hair tufts visible above his hooves. It was so stunning a sight that we both stood there, with rifles in hand (Hell, Sam's safety was still off, even) and neither of us ever raised a barrel at him before he was gone like a ghost. Neither one of us ever saw the horns, only from the shoulder on back as he drifted away with the eeriest of silence. Not that the horns would have mattered. That moose would have been a once in a lifetime kind of moose, just from what we did see of him. I couldn't believe my eyes, and neither could Sam. It was an image that will stick with us forever.
And then it dawned on me. My money says HE was the bull that thrashed the trees in the very beginning. Sam then saw the smaller bull heading into the trees to confront him, and the smaller bull realized the mistake he was about to make and was getting the Hell out of Dodge when he started back across the meadow. He might have taken a beating, but it likely would have been better than the beating we gave him. Sam's shot went right in through the bone, low in the shoulder, and passed through above the heart, lodging in the opposite (moose's right) shoulder. Mine entered right below and behind the ear, centered on the vertebrae. Cutting through the massive neck while removing the head later was comparatively easy. :) For a while, we just stood around and reflected, about the week, about the night before and the nagging frustration that was plaguing us that morning, and most of all reflecting about the bull at our feet and just as well the one that had glided away into the trees. What a morning! Here are some pics....later on I will get a few video snippets from the week edited and uploaded as time allows.
The man and his moose. Reflection, 101:
Smile!
Sarah's Nine-dollar moose call that she bought us and told us "Better Work!" after our first one blew out of the boat....(Yes, that's how much a bottle of Gatorade costs here in the village. It was the large-size bottle, but still...)
Me and Sam, with our new friend. (I think my beard must have got a little tangled as I picked my face up out of the mud and meadow grass...) :D
And then the work began, as it always does. It took us each three trips out to get the whole beast to the boat. Here's a shot of Sam disappearing down the trail with the head...or wait, is that a moose :D...
Taking a break. By the last trip (AK law says horns come out last) it is well-deserved.
Always nice to see meat hanging on the back porch:
And here's a hind quarter on the kitchen table, lower leg already removed at the joint...
Once back at the house, we got some more shots of Sam with the prize. Check out the character that spike gives him!!!!!!!
And from a little further back. This pic might give you the idea that some guys around here like to hunt moose....Now that's a backyard! In honor of micro-managing HOA commitees everywhere... :)
And lastly, a few pics of Sam's bullet that we retrieved from the off-side shoulder. Winchester Super X 180 grains have always performed well for me out of the Tikka .300 WSM, on deer, bear, mountain goats, and moose. This one was no exception.
Another moose hunt gone the way of the history books, as it is sadly, now over. I feel much gratitude for a week that had it all....lots of ups, some downs, a lot of laughter, memories to last a lifetime, and success at the end. And as a coping mechanism for seeing Fall come and go again - there's still a tag to fill in the winter season......
