Moose hunting with traditional gear is not for the faint of heart.
I fell in love with moose hunting a while back. In 2007 , I killed a nice three year old bull from 6 paces. It was my second trip for the biggest deer of North America.
I just returned again from another Moose adventure last weekend. I did not kill a moose this trip but if I rolled 30 years of hunting experiences in to just one, it would not come close to the excitement,thrills and scares last week held.
The hunt took place in northern Alberta just south of Lesser Slave Lake. Here is camp showing the guides tent/ kitchen.
On day 1 my guide Dave called in a P & Y moose but the moose must have had his ass kicked recently because he kept looking over his shoulder for another bull. He departed coming no closer than 75 yards.
Dave, the pied piper of Alberta.
Later that day we got into three different bulls all with cows. Down in an Alder thicket in chest high grass on the side of a beaver pond I thought for sure my life was over. On the drive up to camp I learned that there are indeed Grizzlies in this area of Alberta. Not many but enough that they are seen occasionally.
We had snuck up on a big bull and cow with calf and Dave had left me in a spot to try and see if he could get the bull to come my way. It was deathly quiet. Suddenly there was a very loud and menacing growl-bark and then a second. A bolt of adrenaline shot thru my body like never before. I had no idea what it was but was sure from the sound of it I was dead meat. I knocked an arrow.
Dave came around the corner just then looking unconcerned. I nervously asked WTF that
sound was. He said the cow was about 40 yards away and she wasclearing her nose and throat of the black flies! Whew!
Later that day we were trailing a cow and bull moose. They were inthe thick stuff but we were following the sounds of the cow balling and the soft grunts of the bull. We were trying to get a visual of the bull. Unbeknown to us they had stopped in the bush along side the cut were walking on and we had closed the distance to a few yards. Suddenly a loud crack alerted us to how close we were to them. There was a bright spot in the cut ahead of us, Dave was going to try and
call the bull in to it. I set up 10 yards off of it and Dave ran in to it and gave a call.Instantly the bull gave a loud grunt and branches were being smashed. Dave ran out of the opening into the
thick woods so the bull wouldn't see him. We both thought the bull was running to us. He actually was. But instead of coming into the open, he ran at us to get between us and the cow he was following and then he herded her quickly away.
The next day and the day after we went back to the same area where we had so much action. We got a few grunts in reply to our calls , but it appeared each bull was still with their cows. We did find several huge rubs.
On Day four we took the four wheelers and the meat or meat head wagon depending upon who was riding in it to an area deeper in the wilderness. Four wheelers are used to retrieve game and get deeper in the woods. We did not hunt from them . They were always parked a mile minimum from where we would begin each days hunt.
We didn't get into any bulls that day but did manage to shoot a few grouse and cook them for lunch.
On Day 5 we drove back to the newer area since it looked so promising. It was only 5 Km as the crow flies from camp. But the only bridge that crossed the main river had washed out forcing us to make a
25 KM one way trip to get there. Dave kept talking about the big old bulls that lived back there. He wasn't kidding.
Topic: a moose hunt not for the faint of heart (Read 913 times)
