After our close encounter with the rutting moose, which honestly, had I possessed a little more experience, skill, confidence, and/or killer instinct would have resulted in a dead moose, meat on the table, and set of antlers too big to conveniently put on anywhere in my house, Kyle and I were eager to get going again. A record snowfall and work obligations kept us away till Thursday night. I managed to arrive with plenty light, finding the campground covered with wet, melting snow, the kind that gums up your tires (especially if you opted to put on the ones with less-aggressive tread, so you have a more cushioned drive on the roads). I paid for that desire for comfort instantly, as the truck slid off the gravel pad, into a foot of snow. Subsequent over-zealous application of the gas pedal, and city-driving skills got me out of the predicament, but not without ever so lightly clipping the little post that holds the camping permit, resulting in a busted tail light and bumper corner. I may have screamed and slammed some doors a little. There were no witnesses to that behaviour.
The first morning we glassed hard but could not find a bull moose. Early afternoon we tried a new property, a little further to the North, and a little higher. Reportedly teeming with moose. Perhaps it does; we never found out. After battling waist-deep snow for an hour, and not even having reached the ridge behind which said moose would be teeming, we decided that we really wanted no part of having to haul hundreds of pounds of meat that far.
Back at the Plan A area, we decided to explore the next valley over, and found it equally empty, until, closer to dark, one of my wailing cow moose calls was instantly answered by a grunt! Another wail, and we could see and hear a bull come down the other side of the valley, wasting no time doing so. Excited we got ready for an encounter, but instead of coming right into our trap, the bull appeared to hang up in the willows at the bottom. Emboldened by our success with using the rake-and-shake technique last week, we hit the surrounding bushes hard with the elk shoulder blade, and ended it all with resounding grunt. That did the trick! We could hear the bull smash bush as he approached the two-track mud slide behind which we had set up (some would call it a trail, but that would be too much honour to bestow upon what melting snow, cow hoofs and tractor tires had made of it).
We raked some more ourselves, and after demolishing the foliage of one more willow bush, the bull emerged, looking for love and a fight. Unfortunately, as bulls do, he started to get down wind of us, and I tried to bring him around with one more wail. He froze in his tracks, 35-40 yard away, with his on-side leg stretched backwards, and slightly quartering to us. I had fingers on the string but could see a double-lung shot only if I managed to place the arrow ever so tightly behind the shoulder. A little left and I might miss the off-side lung, a little right and the arrow would have to deal with the shoulder. Since my set-up is probably on the lighter end of the spectrum for hunting moose, I declined the shot. The moose continued on his way, and never presented another opportunity.
In this video I am to the right of Kyle making the angle a little different. In retrospect, I stick with my decision to not shoot, but I think I should have either called at him later, with the intent to stop him and shoot, or, have Kyle create a ruckus with the shoulder blade, while I snuck off to my right trying to get an open shooting lane there. In which case the bull would probably have turned broadside on the road, with me not in position. What do you think? How could we have played this differently?
The next morning we went back to the same spot, and called for a bit, but no moose answered. Once we hiked over a ridge into another valley and started glassing, it didn’t take long before we saw a cow moose climb out of the bottom, followed by a fairly agitated bull. He shadowed her, cut her off, pressured her, leading to the odd distressed wail by the cow. They moved up and over rather quickly, and the one or two cow calls I produced got duly ignored.
A little later, a smaller bull appeared and seemed to be following the same invisible trail. With a nothing ventured nothing gained attitude I started sending the neediest cow calls across the valley that I could conjure up. The bull was probably half a mile away, but once the sounds reached him he stopped and turned. A few more calls and he hesitantly started moving down hill. Two more, and he was running! Not counting on this success, we had to run too, to reach some cover, once the bull’s line of sight was blocked by a stand of poplars. We set up with arrow nocked, shoulder blade at the ready, and hopes high.
The bull never revealed himself. We don’t know what happened, or where he went. In the afternoon we spotted one other hunter below us and a small bull that we tried to intercept, but his long legs propelled him much faster and with seemingly a lot less effort than our stubby legs could bring us to the edge of cover from where we’d hoped to call him in.
On Sunday we hunted another property, saw lots of moose sign, and found a cow and two calves bedded under some aspens. Once they noticed us, they looked at us for the longest time before moving off down into the timber. Unfortunately we found no bull moose there. Kyle had to return to work in the morning, so he left after the evening’s hunt, allowing me all the living space in the tent, which I utilized by putting up a chair close to the heater, and reading Adam Shoalts’ latest book “Beyond the Trees” on his travels in Arctic Canada.
Read on: More moose hunting (Part 2)