This year I drew my antlered moose tag in a fairly remote area of Alberta. The plan was to pack in with horses and spend a week hunting with my good friend Jim. Last year while hunting sheep together I was fortunate enough to harvest a ram so this year Jim had the only sheep tag and would spend some of the time hunting them but the main focus would be my moose tag.
Big snow a couple days before we started out made riding in difficult but after 2 long days on the trail we arrived at our camp site.
For 10 days of our trip we never saw another person which was great...........no competition!!
During the hunt we would start out low in the valley calling and spotting and as the day progressed we would move to higher locations to glass up for sheep and down for moose.
Moose sightings were non existent but there were a few tracks so that kept up our interest.
We had set Saturday noon to be the absolute latest we could hunt and still have time to process a moose and be on the trail Sunday, Jim finally spotted a couple moose (from a high vantage point) over a 2 hour period on Friday. In spite of putting in a valiant effort to make it to his location before the moose vanished, I was late arriving on both.
That night we made a plan to go back to that area but call from lower down hoping to draw a bull to an easier spot for packing if we were successful.
The next morning we called for a while from the valley bottom but didn't draw any moose so we decided we would head back up to where the moose had been the day before.
After reaching the last location we could hunt from before we would have to end the hunt, we started calling, first from the end of the meadow and then moving up a couple hundred yards.
Shortly after 11 a.m. a decent moose finally appeared. At first glance he appeared to be a potential shooter but was fairly narrow. As Jim continued to call about 100 yards from me I watched how the bull reacted and had many opportunities to harvest him. I hadn't convinced myself he was what I wanted but another major consideration was whether we had time to get the moose back to camp so we could leave the next day.
After about 45 minutes the bull had circled to a position down wind of Jim and I knew it was now or never. I had shifted my position to allow me to see the back side of the bush Jim was using for cover. The bull popped out from the back end and stood still presenting a perfect shot.
The decision was made in an instant to take the bull............and then the worked started!!!
In the end we had to stay an extra day so processing of the moose happened on Saturday and we headed back with pack horses the next morning.
This was a real adventure.......we hiked hard and long searching for a bull and in the end I harvested the "1 and only" bull I saw. We also spotted some sheep but nothing worth chasing.
Total days away from the truck - 11
Total days not seeing other people - 10
Total trip days including driving - 13
Hope you enjoy the pictures.........and remember that hunting should be about the whole adventure not just the harvest!!
