moose camp - story and pics pg 4

[4dogs]

[wingnut]

We are back after a great hunt but no trad bow kills so there won't be a story here.  

Mike

[Friend]

Certainly am hopeful you and the team enjoyed a wonderful experience.

[23feetupandhappy]

Originally posted by wingnut:
We are back after a great hunt but no trad bow kills so there won't be a story here.  

Mike

Surely theres a pic or two you could share of the scenery  

[ron w]

Did you have a good trip........?????  

[Soonerlongbow]

There's gotta be pix!!!

[rastaman]

Dang Mike!  I just stumbled over this post and I always look forward to your stories...give us some details.  I know there had to be some "almosts"!    

[John Havard]

As always we had a great trip.  I had hunted dall sheep a bit further up this drainage back in the early '80's and felt it would be a good place for moose.  It is.  Since the young man with us (his first hunting trip to Alaska) did not take his bull with a trad bow then we'll stop there.  But we saw lots and lots of dall sheep, a wolverine, a grizzly, a HUGE black bear. and had three close calls on bulls with trad bows.

[Soonerlongbow]

Still sounds like an awesome trip. All this time I never realized y'all (most of y'all at least) were in Weatherford Tx. A coworker and his bride live there.

[wingnut]

We had a great trip and as John said Tyler got a bull but not with trad equipment.  So I'm going to show some pics of the area and camp and tell what story I can.

Well shortly after my last post before we left.  We are on the plane headed to Seattle.  Time to get a couple of hours of shuteye.

 

[wingnut]

Two days of retrieving gear and organizing.  Headed to Bass Pro to pick up licences and tags.
Soon we were headed off to Tok and the next morning headed to moose camp on the Cubs.

[wingnut]

Jason and Tyler and one gear load headed directly to the gravel bar while I boarded a 206 with our other gear headed to an intermediate strip. They landed, unloaded and looked around.  Here they are on the ground in moose camp.

[wingnut]

Looking down stream from the strip.

[wingnut]

I arrived and we got to work.

In order of priority:

Shelter, water, fuel

 

[wingnut]

No pic or filtering water but the gravity filter works great and goes directly into the 10L dromedaries.

We left a few rounds from last year stashed above high water and cut a couple of dead snags.

Here is a pic from camp across the gravel bed.  It's about 300 yds. to the far treeline.

 

[wingnut]

Here's one looking up steam.  There are Dall sheep in almost every one of the basins shown in the pics.  

 

[wingnut]

Got everything taken care of, had a bite to eat and took a walk down stream a mile to see if we could find a place to cross if needed.  Last year the stream (river in Texas) was way to deep and swift to try to wade.  This year we had about 1/2 the water and found two possible spots.  If we need or want to hunt the other side we can.  Good to know.

Back to camp before sundown and had some dinner.

It was a restless night.  I bet I woke up 20 times looking at my clock to see that we weren't late getting up.  

Before daylight we were up, coffee made and a breakfast of bagels and honey/butter consumed.

Our plan was to head out above camp, traverse the 3/4 mile across the flat and climb to a glassing point to see the area.  We made it maybe 400 yds.  Stopped and gave out a cow call.  A bull answered to our right.  John and I had played with a bull in that spot last year.  So we moved to a better spot downwind of the bull and called again.

Another answer and another bull up hill of us grunts also.  He's closer so we move to get the wind and cut the distance.  We cow call again.
He is now grunting on every step and headed our way.  Jason and Tyler are forward and spread out with me on the butt end of the "T".

The bull sounds like he's about 200 yds out but we haven't got our eyes on him.  This area is 50" minimum or 4 brow tines on a side.  The bull hangs up and starts moving to our left.  Then another bull #3 appears up hill about 400 yds out.  He's legal for sure.  We are now surrounded.  And then the wind switches from down stream to up stream and it's over.

Not a bad first 2 hours!!

[wingnut]

With the bulls moving uphill into timber and downstream, we decide to check the beaver pond that I shot my bull on last year.

Upon arrival we find that the water level is down 50% from last year making shots much more friendly to trad equipment.  We decide to build a small ground blind directly across from where my bull ended up before.

I've got a great pic from the blind but it has Tyler's bow in it.  too bad.

We applied a bottle of Cow in Heat around the pond, cow called to "prime the pump" and moved back towards camp.  

On the way back we ran into a couple of grouse and Jason made quick work of one with his recurve.  Lost the hero pic but here's one of him cleaning it in the water.

[wingnut]

That afternoon we hunted into the wind downstream to an area we'd seen from the air but hadn't explored before.  Found a small pond and had a bull grunting at the end of the day. Chased a snowshoe around the thick willows and found a set of sheds on the way back to camp.

 

[wingnut]

Back to camp for dinner as the sun was setting.  And that was Day 1 of the moose hunt!

Mike