Were heading back in 2016 with Papa Bear... Here Goes!
Scott
Thanks for sharing.
Good luck, Robb
You just reminded me to TAKE MORE PICTURES:) Nice stuff.
Good luck this year.
Great pics above from many friends and people I know. I guess we all suffer from moose deficit disorder!
DJ
Kevin great pics!!!
Kevin, I know I told you this but good luck and enjoy! Bring us back a hunt recap. Watch out for Nick, he is prowling around F Banks!
My very first moose. (Taken in the late Pleistocene!)
I've stood in the floats of that plane before. I'll try to find my pics from back in 2002.
DJ
Best of luck, Mike...you frickin' crazy! ...and inspiring.
cubdrvr....love that picture. There's something about big moose and longbows that just fits.
Ahawkeye....your comment is quite appropriate when you walk up on one in the water ....Sh*t, now what?
Jake, Did you guys butcher him right there, or did you get him closer to the shore?
I would have given up my food for the day if we could have gotten him closer to shore....that sucker wouldn't BUDGE. We butchered him right there.....what really got me going was that my hands got pretty cold, and I dropped the knife once (or twice) and had to roll up my sleeves and reach down into the cold water to get the knife.....soaking parts of my upper torso.
Very good eating!! It still amazes me how thick their hide is on their shoulders (withers).
How about a rope-along?
A come-along would've been nice but there wasn't really anything close that we could have hooked onto, plus, I don't know if we could have shoved a branch or anything else in the ground & have it hold. I could see where it could come in handy though. Seems I read on here something Kevin posted once about utilizing some pulleys on his moose hunt, but don't remember how or where he utilized them, maybe just for hanging the meat.?
Jake, I was fortunate that the pond where my bull died in wasn't all that cold. I'll bet that the river sucked the heat out of you guys pretty quickly! Was the bull still warm while you were butchering him or had he been dead for quite a while? If still warm, I'll bet that at least helped to keep your hands from getting cold.
It's amazing how your fingers & hands don't want to work very well when they get cold.
When butchering that animal, the water was everywhere we needed to cut. I don't remember ever feeling any warmth from the animal. I just remember that initially we tied the raft to the moose and as we cut him up, we put the piece in the raft. Eventually we pulled the raft to shore and offloaded some of the meat....but as the carcass got smaller, the "drag" of the downstream raft (and the rope kept getting in the way) prevented us from using it anymore....so we'd carry each remaining piece of meat to shore.
We had grizzly sign in the area before we killed the bull, so I slept very lightly that evening, despite being really tired. The bull died about an hour before dusk, so much of our work was by flashlight, in the dark, in the cold water....I remember thinking that years later, when I would be sitting in the comfort of a warm room, it would make for one hell of a memory.....it has!!
I know what you mean about how thick their hide is, but I was also impressed how well my Havalon Bolt did cutting thru it.
It looks like in the pics that you were only wearing leather boots. Is that correct? Also, how many times have you looked up at your moose on the wall & grinned reading this thread!!?
I somehow missed that one before. Yeah... I guess that bull wouldn't hold much air! lol
I once had an elk client decide to hunt out to the trailhead on the last day instead of throwing in the towel and riding. He killed a 6 point bull 15 minutes from the truck after hunting hard all week! There is nothing like last minute success is there.
Nice pics and stories. Paul
My rubber boots had gotten destroyed back at the main camp in a freak accident that no one was to blame for.....since I had a pair of 18" Kenetrek's with me, I just slid the liners inside of garbage bags, and then put them into the outer boots....it worked for a while, but eventually , you know that the water was going to find a way in.....
Regarding how many times I have looked at the moose rack....it's been a few, for sure....
