Moose in the thick of it. ID Moose 10_16

[SoylentGreen1019]

I've never draw a tag like this. But now I had, so it was time to start. I got plenty of help from some kind Rok Slide members that I've never met, so I thought it was only fair to post the outcome of the adventure here. This is a long post so I'll have to break it up.

I had a little over 4 months. Crew was already pretty much set. Father in Law, Brother in Law and buddy Adam.

We would camp in the northern Idaho panhandle. I started making lots of phone calls. I spoke with the DWF agent. I spoke with the USFS agent, I spoke with the State parks officer, I spoke with the Wildlife biologist. I found a guy who had the same tag last year. I checked google maps almost compulsively. Many times a day. I took notes and notes and notes.

I ordered maps, ordered MREs for 4 guys for a week. Set up "camp" in the back yard. Loaded, re-loaded, handloaded, and packed. Finally, we loaded the truck and headed to Idaho. It was pouring rain. This would be a very common theme this entire trip.



Driving over the Columbia plateau we finally passed through some decent weather. "I can see for miles and miles".



Deer season opened on the 10th. My hunt dates would be from the 7th to the end of the moose hunt on the 14th. this would be a hunt through the rut, so we were very excited to call in a bull moose. I practiced in the truck on the way to work. I practiced in the garage. Youtube videos on moose calling? I've seen them all.

Heading over, I was worried that we would get to the campground on the Friday before deer season and find it full. Where I wanted to be there were only 6 spots in the little public camp ground. So we left Friday at 03:00 hoping to get there before anyone from Spokane could get off work and fill up the campground. We got there around 11:00 Friday and were the only truck in the entire campground. The fact that it was pouring rain and 40 degrees probably had a lot to do with that.

The camp was not ideal. It is a very low swampy area. there are no facilities besides a vaulted toilet. No potable water. We picked the highest camping spot, which had a large reflection pool to help set our serene mood:



After 3 hours, the camp looked a lot like a refugee processing center. We had everything hung and tarped. We added more tarps and covered spaces as the week went on



We were joined by my in laws who flew into Spokane and joined us. the plan would be to moose hunt hard until the 10th, then hopefully have a moose down and switch to filling everyone's deer tag. I committed to not tagging a deer until we had a moose down. Success rates on this hunt were 70+% in the past decade, but then dropped to "only" 50% last year. No one quite knew why.

But how hard could it be?

I had been warned that this part of the Selkirk mountains was very, very thick. Limited opportunities (if any) for glassing. No problem, I had always said. We hunt Rosies on the Oregon coast. "Thick I can handle."

What I was not expecting was that the rain and fog were constant. So even glassing one clear cut became very, very challenging



On our first day we covered some low swampy ground. Found some good clear cuts that I had marked on the topo maps. And just sometimes, the fog lifted enough so that we could see a big open clear cut.



After some initial scouting, the next day we would start in earnest.

 

[SoylentGreen1019]

We had scouted some places to glass, where we had an overlook. And actually, compared to the hunting we do in Western Oregon, there were plenty of places to get high and look from. I had marked a bunch of promising spots from the satellite images onto my topo maps.



We glassed from clearcuts across the creeks.



We climbed way way up high and glassed more.





I even drug my father in law up the drainages past the end of the roads and called there.





On this particular day I was reminded of being more careful with my truck. After this trip up the mountain we did not come crawling down in 1st gear, which is just not intuitive to me (or anyone who grew up in Florida, I imagine). We got to the bottom and my truck brake was smoking. Woops! Lesson learned. I should have gotten a picture but was more concerned with preventing the caliper melting to the drum 20 miles from town up a logging road.

By opening day deer season, after 3 full days of hunting, we had seen zero moose. None. I never had a call answered. And we had called multiple times a day, every day. Of course then it's impossible to know if your calling is just terrible or if there are no moose that can hear you. I was very happy to have deer open if for no other reason than it would liven the mood in camp, I was sure. And it did.

This was a hair tag and we had no intention of having tag soup. And after three days of glassing trees and deer only there would be no selectivity on the whitetails. So Adam popped this doe first thing.



My in laws struggled with jump shooting deer. This is of course a lot different than shooting from a tree stand or blind where you have lots of time, which is what they are accustomed to. And they just couldn’t quite get it to work on moving targets in heavy cover. Not for lack of trying. But we had a deer hanging in camp, and spirits were higher.

We also ran all the way to the end of the unit to a totally different area. On our first trip down there, we cut a very fresh cat track.



Then I looked up and saw the first moose of the trip. Then many more. All cows, but at least moose! On day 5 it was 6 cows and day 6 we had 8 cows/calves and one bull. He was not a giant but it wouldn’t have mattered as he was 2 miles away right at last light.

Finally, on day 6 we had a bull answer my cow call. I never saw him, but my father in law and I both heard the "Erumph" after my call. He had come in behind us and we never saw him. But he was there.

At this point we were on the right track, but just couldn’t get on a bull. We made a plan for the next day to maximize hunt time without long trips in the truck: just pound the swamp, call and move, call and move until something happened.

 

[Graves14]

And?!?

 

[SoylentGreen1019]

It was not an easy decision to leave the area where we finally started seeing moose. But glassing cows and calves from a mile or more away was not doing us any good, and there had to be moose in the swamp. And we were simply running out of time and this was our last full day to hunt. On day 7 with no opportunities at a bull, of course any bull would work. Perhaps we could hunt Friday morning (day 8) but what would we do if we got one? The guys were flying out Saturday morning. Plus we were burning a lot of time getting up high, and what if we didn’t see anything? We drove from camp only about a mile and parked at an old skid road. I would grunt and Adam would rake brush, then we’d sit for 20 or 30 minutes, walk a few hundred yards down the road, and repeat. Over and over. Then move to another skid road and start again. It rained on us all morning and through the afternoon. And beating brush in the rain just makes everything even wetter, of course. Adam said the stick he was using to rake brush was lucky, so he carried it all day.



By lunch we had seen no moose, never had an answer, and had even stopped seeing deer. We were moving very quietly in the rain through the old roads and trails and everything seemed right except that there were no moose. I decided that at least today I would try and tag a whitetail, so we did one more long hike and then got back in the truck and drove around to the area where we had seen so many deer earlier in the trip. We were soaked, the truck was soaked, all of it, everything was wet. Driving up the same old road that we had driven down any number of times, we came around a sharp turn to the left with a small cut to the right. There, in the middle of the clear cut, stood a bull moose and his cow. Not 100 yards from the road.

I slammed on the breaks and put the truck into park. I had the rifle riding unchambered between adam and I. Have you ever done that thing when someone hits the unlock button while you try and open the door at the same instant? The door looks open but it’s still locked.

I threw the truck in park and pulled the door handle. Nothing. I push. Door would not open.

“I can’t get out?!?”

Adam says, very calmly “I cannot help you with that”. I realized what I had done and cycled the lock and of course the door opened. Half of me was ready to kick out the windshield and the other half was ready to crawl over Adam. I got out of the truck trying to think clearly.

Calm down or you’ll screw this up

Bull is still standing and turns to look at me. I throw up the rifle.

Nothing. Solid gray. My brain is not processing how this is possible. I open both eyes and see the bull very clearly.

The scope fogged over when you got out, dummy.

I mash a dripping wet thumb into both lenses and shoulder the rifle again. The bull is now starting to move towards cover slowly. I find him through the drops and smears on the lenses and center and fire. There is no reaction at all.

You should fire again

I cycle the bolt and find the bull again and fire. I see water fly off his hide this time but there is again no reaction. He takes another step towards the cover

Until he’s down

The third shot rolls him.





So after hiking miles and miles every day for 7 days, I shot one right off the skid road. I would have mixed feelings about doing this early in the trip, but at this point am just grateful for having an opportunity at a moose, any moose. It is now maybe 45 minutes before dark. We all but gave up on the last afternoon off our hunt and now in less than 30 seconds the entire trip has turned around in a moment. And an interesting thing happens at this point. We are all high fives and wooping and hollering. The cow does not move. She has wandered a little way towards the draw in the back of the cut but goes back to eating. The heavy butchering gear and game bags are in the other truck, and we will need help. We have no cell signal and can’t get Rich and Steve on the radio. I ask Adam to go get the other half of our crew and rush back. He asks about the rifle. I tell him to take it as I don’t want it to sit in the rain and mud for another 3 hours. He takes off.

I start the skinning and the cow moose comes back over to me. I notice she moves across the cut much, much faster than I could. I stand up on a stump and clap and jump up and down. She pins her ears back and hisses at me

You probably shouldn’t do that.

The irony of camping in grizzly country for a week without incident but being stomped to death by a cow moose makes me laugh just a bit. If I ignore her she seems willing to ignore me. But each of us are always looking over our shoulder at the other one:


I'm kicking myself at this point for asking Adam to take the rifle, but go on starting working on the moose with one eye on the cow. Finally the rest of the crew gets there and again it’s all smiles.


Head comes out last! Pictures at this point were pretty hard as the steam coming off of us makes using a flash almost impossible.



It takes three hours for four guys to get the moose into quarters and recover all the brisket, loins and rib meat as well. We again send Adam ahead and have him call the little motel in town and decide we can all spring for a $70/night room so we can hang up the rain gear and shower. There was a lot more work to do the next day and processing the moose was not nearly done. I’ll keep that final update shorter.

 

[Ridge Ghost]

Great story! Way to stick with it and be persistent

 

[BackcountryMT]

Way to go! If you don't mine me asking, which unit? Looks a lot like where I grew up.

 

[realunlucky]

Pretty awesome it all come together for you guys. Memories you guys will never forget

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[907to406]

Congrats on your success! it sounds like it was a great hunt with great people! Just out of curiosity what where you shooting caliber and bullet wise?

 

[backfencer]

Nice job! Good story. I filled my Panhandle tag 10/1. Nothing like moose for dinner!

 

[Randle]

Great story and Congrats. My 76 yr old dad drew the Nov 1 _14 tag last year we hunted as hard as he could and never found a bull to shoot . Put the sneak on the only one we found but it didn't workout . It is a tough time of year to find a bull. Way to go

 

[Snyd]

Way to go. Good eats there. Those moose can soak up some lead. A double lung shot will still take about 60-90 seconds for em to bleed out enough and bp to drop. They're dead on their feet but don't know it. The only shots that will knock em over are cns or heart. Well, shoulder. I've hit a few of them in the heart and the tend to do a backflip. That's quite a sight.

 

[SoylentGreen1019]

Those moose can soak up some lead. A double lung shot will still take about 60-90 seconds for em to bleed out enough and bp to drop. They're dead on their feet but don't know it.

I had heard this and was anticipating it but not to the extent that it happened. At that range I couldn't imagine I was missing but I expected some kind of reaction. He didn't react at all until tipping over.

Great story and Congrats. My 76 yr old dad drew the Nov 1 _14 tag last year we hunted as hard as he could and never found a bull to shoot . Put the sneak on the only one we found but it didn't workout . It is a tough time of year to find a bull. Way to go

Many thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry you guys didn't get on a bull. It was a MUCH harder hunt than I had anticipated.

 

[SoylentGreen1019]

Thanks for reading along through the long story. I feel that I'd be remiss if I didn't include a few words on "after the shot". At this point the "fun" part was over and the work started

None of the four of us had ever dressed a moose. We got him broken down and into bags and headed back to camp. We got the quarters hung and then headed into town to get to the little motel who Adam did get a hold of and they left our rooms unlocked for us. To our amazement, the little bar in town was still open at 21:30 on a Thursday! In we went, in full camo and dripping wet. There were maybe 4 old guys hunched over their beers and the one guy behind the bar. He smiled when we walked in.

"When do you close? Thank God you're open."

--When the last drunk stops spending money

"Deeeed you git the Moo - Use?" The guy next to me slurs all over me.

Guess they'll be open for a while

the kitchen was closed but they had one fryer that was still hot so they served us fries and chicken fingers and we had the most refreshing beer I've had in forever. Then another.



The next day we butchered for 8 solid hours. We cut and packaged and got all done in a day. The quarters stayed dry hung up on the ratchet straps.



And as we cut steaks we made huge piles of meat.



Rich and Steve took all the packaged meat that evening to Spokane and packed it in 60 pounds (!) of dry ice. They took their share and left the rest at the hotel for Adam and I as we passed through. When we got there it was hard frozen.

Driving home we got tons of rubber necks going down I-90 and then actually a few folks honked and gave us a Thumbs Up going through I-84 and back
onto 26.



I couldn't help but feel just a tiny bit sad that it was all done.

We feasted on moose steaks last night and it was delicious. I promised to save the tenderloins for when we are all together, maybe over the holidays. There is plenty to celebrate and be thankful for.[/QUOTE]

 

[SoylentGreen1019]

Congrats on your success! it sounds like it was a great hunt with great people! Just out of curiosity what where you shooting caliber and bullet wise?

Thanks for this. Ruguer M77 in .338 win mag. This was my dad's dad's elk gun and is easily older than me (and then some). The handload is named the "Stop Button": .338 barnes 210 grains over IMT 4350 at 2950 FPS.

 

[907to406]

Thanks for this. Ruguer M77 in .338 win mag. This was my dad's dad's elk gun and is easily older than me (and then some). The handload is named the "Stop Button": .338 barnes 210 grains over IMT 4350 at 2950 FPS.

Sounds like it did the trick! I drew and filled my Montana moose tag last month and used a 270WSM with 140gr accubonds at 176yards. after my first shot and no reaction I sent a second and again no reaction then he casually turned and started walking away and I put the 3rd round into his spine which rolled him (I was shooting down on him from an elevated position). My partner said it took no more than 8 second to fire all 3 shots and upon inspection my first 2 shots were perfect lung shots and he was dead on his feet after the first shot but boy they are a big animals. Even with both lungs being jello he acted unphased.

 

[Shrek]

Congratulations ! Thanks for the great write up too !

 

[cumminsbassguy]

great read and good bull man!!