Thebear_78
Handloader
- Sep 30, 2004
- 3,047
- 669
After my earlier caribou hunt was cancelled due to my buddy nearly dying in a truck accident my wife and I decided to do a 5 day hunt for moose opening week.
This hunt seemed doomed from the start. My wife’s wheeler wasn’t running. I took it in to get a new starter over a month and a half ago. Come Monday morning it wasn’t ready. There had been a mix up and the parts hadn’t been ordered. Luckily they had a mech who was nice enough to get it working so we could take it.
The mud on our normal hunting trail was brutal this year. Really some of the worst I’ve ever encountered. My wife’s wheeler died, right in the worst of it. I ended burying my machine trying to get her towed out. We spent 5 hours stuck there. Finally a pair of guys came along and pulled us out. We ended up hunting with them all week. A great couple of guys. Over the week we all became great friends.
Mud and getting stuck was the daily struggle. It was rough trail conditions. The payoff was LOTS of moose. I’ve never seen so many. I lost track of how many cows and must have seen 15 bulls. At least 5 were legal.
On day one I get up early and my wife and I snuck up the mountain behind camp to do some glassing. While sitting glassing I noticed my scope base had come loose, probably from the hard riding. On the way back to camp we bumped a huge lynx on the trail. I’ve never seen on so big before. We had a 5 minute staring contest at 10 yards before he hopped away. Nothing can stare quite as intently as a lynx. Those intense yellow eyes boring into your soul. It was a cool experience. I tightened and remounted my scope hoping it wasn’t to far off.
On day two we found a nice double fork up high on a mountain. My new friends made the climb while I guided them in from the spotting scope. I have a system of signaling by holing up an arm in the direction the animal is. I watched the bull lay down right as they topped the rise.
I guided them to within 20 yards of the bull and it let them walk right by without getting up. They walked by intent on locating the bull and he slipped out behind them. I was kissing and waving violently trying to get their attention. They didn’t notice him until he had gotten out several hundred yards and missed a shot at him.
We found two fork bulls together high on a hillside later that night and got to within 430 yards. A nice broadside shot cross canyon. I was very tempted but didn’t trust my scope base fix for such a long shot. It would have been a brutal hike to get them out anyway. We came across a gray wolf. I couldn’t get my wife’s 270 out before it crested a cliff and got away.
We continued to see lots of moose but didn’t connect with any. My wife and I had to head back and loaded up to leave yesterday. While we were striking camp our nemesis friends got a nice fork bull.
My wife and I spent the next several hours trying to get her broken wheeler back to the truck. Once again mud and getting stuck plagued us taking hours to get back to the truck.
It was a rough trip but I got to make a couple new friends and spend a week in some of the most beautiful country on earth. Overall a great trip. I didn’t take many pictures. They don’t do the real thing justice. I’ve been meaning to pick up a phone scope.
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This hunt seemed doomed from the start. My wife’s wheeler wasn’t running. I took it in to get a new starter over a month and a half ago. Come Monday morning it wasn’t ready. There had been a mix up and the parts hadn’t been ordered. Luckily they had a mech who was nice enough to get it working so we could take it.
The mud on our normal hunting trail was brutal this year. Really some of the worst I’ve ever encountered. My wife’s wheeler died, right in the worst of it. I ended burying my machine trying to get her towed out. We spent 5 hours stuck there. Finally a pair of guys came along and pulled us out. We ended up hunting with them all week. A great couple of guys. Over the week we all became great friends.
Mud and getting stuck was the daily struggle. It was rough trail conditions. The payoff was LOTS of moose. I’ve never seen so many. I lost track of how many cows and must have seen 15 bulls. At least 5 were legal.
On day one I get up early and my wife and I snuck up the mountain behind camp to do some glassing. While sitting glassing I noticed my scope base had come loose, probably from the hard riding. On the way back to camp we bumped a huge lynx on the trail. I’ve never seen on so big before. We had a 5 minute staring contest at 10 yards before he hopped away. Nothing can stare quite as intently as a lynx. Those intense yellow eyes boring into your soul. It was a cool experience. I tightened and remounted my scope hoping it wasn’t to far off.
On day two we found a nice double fork up high on a mountain. My new friends made the climb while I guided them in from the spotting scope. I have a system of signaling by holing up an arm in the direction the animal is. I watched the bull lay down right as they topped the rise.
I guided them to within 20 yards of the bull and it let them walk right by without getting up. They walked by intent on locating the bull and he slipped out behind them. I was kissing and waving violently trying to get their attention. They didn’t notice him until he had gotten out several hundred yards and missed a shot at him.
We found two fork bulls together high on a hillside later that night and got to within 430 yards. A nice broadside shot cross canyon. I was very tempted but didn’t trust my scope base fix for such a long shot. It would have been a brutal hike to get them out anyway. We came across a gray wolf. I couldn’t get my wife’s 270 out before it crested a cliff and got away.
We continued to see lots of moose but didn’t connect with any. My wife and I had to head back and loaded up to leave yesterday. While we were striking camp our nemesis friends got a nice fork bull.
My wife and I spent the next several hours trying to get her broken wheeler back to the truck. Once again mud and getting stuck plagued us taking hours to get back to the truck.
It was a rough trip but I got to make a couple new friends and spend a week in some of the most beautiful country on earth. Overall a great trip. I didn’t take many pictures. They don’t do the real thing justice. I’ve been meaning to pick up a phone scope.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
