Sorry about the repost, I moved the pictures for the original and now they dont work.
I had real "partner problems" this year and for a while it looked like my yearly
canoe hunt wasnt happening. My wife felt bad enough for me that she finaly relaxed her strictest rule and let me go alone. The river section I had chosen even made me a little bit nervous though, it was both technical enough to kick a guy's butt if he made a mistake and remote enough that if I lost the
canoe there was no way out. Getting help in an emergancy was unlikely. I played with the idea of doing a different river and hunting elk but because all my meat went bad during the Slave Lake fire I realy needed to shoot somthing. I knew my chances of getting a
moose were much better so I decided to do the original trip.
As I made the final preparations though I lost my fear and just got pumped, for me the potential risk in some of these hunts is part of the apeal. I cant say for sure but its probably the same for most people who do wilderness hunts. Although I sometimes feel some tension leading up to a trip once I get going I relax. Its just the simple acts of making sure your gear is waterproofed properly every morning, your
canoe pulled up on shore securely every time you get out, and taking a compass reading whenever you leave the river etc that get you home safe. Even though I was paying $25 per hour to have a guy drive me to the starting point with my truck he backed out about 2 hours before I was supposed to leave, thats about par for this year. My gracious wife drove me to the put in so a big thank you to her for making this trip happen, probably against her better judgement. Saying goodby to her and my 21 month old daughter at the riverside just broke my heart though, it was much more emotional than saying farewell at home and driving away.
The first day out I didnt see any
moose but I did find this guy.
Last year when we went after elk I felt that one reason that we didnt connect was that we spent too much glassing and poking aroung on the river instead of calling and hunting the shore. This year I was determined not to make the same mistake. The guy who I was supposed to go with this year has a rule about elk hunting "hunt where the elk are", well I found an old burn where you couldnt spit without hitting
moose sign. The
moose were there and so thats where I hunted. I still hunted and called in that burn for 2 days. The wind in the burn was perpetualy swirling and though my calling got some distant, half hearted responses I couldnt seem to make any progress. One evening I had a cow watch me from across the river for the better part of a hour.
I was unloading my
canoe, setting up camp, chopping wood, and in just making a general racket. Despite the noise she continued to feed within 100 yards of my camp, she even winded me and blew a few times but did not leave. Finaly I fired up my camp stove and it scared her off. I found it ironic that after all the noise I had been making a product named the "Whisperlite" was what finaly spooked her. Just another neat experience that reminded me why I go to all this trouble just to shoot a
moose.
I'd finaly got frustrated enough with that burn that on the fourth morning I loaded up the
canoe and headed downriver. It rained all night which obscured the full moon and the tempature had dropped so I figured there was a pretty good chance of seeing
moose on the river bank at first light. Right off the bat I scared one into some willows, I pulled up on the opposite bank and tryed to call him out but he wasnt having any of it.
A little further down it happened! I'm not sure how I even saw him, with the light and the background all I could see was the light tan parts of a
moose... the strip along the top of his back and a little on the top of his head. Somehow my brain picked this up and said
MOOSE! I looked through my binoculars and sure enough a little over 100 yards away was a young bull
moose looking straight at me. Since I needed the meat I had already decided I would shoot the first bull I could find. The wind was blowing downstream towards him but wind in a pronounced river vally behaves much like the water. It blows down the middle and swirls off in eddys on either side. By keeping deciding which shore looks most likely and hugging the oposite shore the hunter can often buy enough time to get a shot. He couldnt smell me but he had spotted me so I had to act quick. I could see him tense up through the scope so I gave a reasuring grunt and then shot him.
I felt that the shot had been a good one but the
moose gave no sign of being hit as he ran off into the bush. I had my eyes locked on where he had dissapeared but just as I was nosing the
canoe into the bank somthing caught my attention. Downriver less than 500 yards there was a VERY large
moose standing on an island. Through my binoculars I could see that he was 50+ inches easy. "Just my luck" I thought, "if I were to be tracking one of the smallest
moose I've ever shot, only to find I'd missed him, while the biggest bull I've seen wanders off down the river." While I was watching the big bull I became aware of a heavy panting close by, the sound of a lungshot bull breathing his last and I started to grin. I'd come out here to fill the freezer and my freezer would be full of about the best meat Alberta has to offer.
The bull had died less than 30 yards from where I shot him, another one shot kill for my trusty .270. I found the 150 grain Fusion bullet under the hide on the far side. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get him in the
canoe, a personal record, and I didnt even need to use the packframe. I was still pretty tired by the time I had the
canoe loaded though. I am often asked how one gets a
moose carcass into a
canoe, first off a quality tripping
canoe is essential. I lay the quarters on the bottom, put a tarp over them, tie my gear on top, and use the rest of the meat and antlers to trim the
canoe out. One needs to be aware of how they lay the quarters or the
canoe will be off ballance and poorly trimmed. I usualy have the best luck laying one front and rear quarter in front of the center thwart, and the same aft of the thwart in a kitty corner fashion. The paddle home is always more fun when you have a nice hood ornament for your boat.
I was about two days paddle from the takeout so I started making some miles. With the
moose in the
canoe it handled sluggishly, running rapids consisted of lining up with the best looking chute and praying like crazy. From manhandling
moose around all morning my hands and forarms kept cramping up while I paddled. Finaly at four pm I saw an island that I recognized as the one I had celebrated my 28th birthday on 2 years ago while hunting
moose (see Fun With
Moose) so I stopped and fryed myself some
moose liver, the first food I had eaten all day.
This is where I met Mad Mike. Mike came roaring up the river in a jetboat, saw me, and pulled over. At first he didnt seem very friendly but after we chatted about the river, hunting, and
moose livers for a little while he offered me a ride home. I could tell that he'd been drinking but the offer was too tempting so we loaded some of the gear into the jetboat and dragged the
canoe full of moosemeat onto the jet boat and off we went. It was only at this point that I realized exactly how intoxicated Mike actualy was, in all the years that I've been river tripping this is the most scared I've ever been. The river was shallow and rock studded so Mike had to run it a full tilt and keep a sharp eye out. The problem was that most of the time he was driving with his knee, mixing himself a drink, loading his rifle, and keeping up a running conversation with himself complete with the facial expressions and hand motions of a truely drunk man.
When he was actualy paying attenting to where he was going he was trying to show off or somthing which was just as scary given his state of sobriety. We lauched off of a couple big boulders hard enough to crack the windshield and almost lost the
moose meat, another time we roared around the the outside of a sharp bend so close to the bank that I could actualy hear the willows on the bank hitting the bottom of the boat. I was sitting on the outside with the
canoe full of
moose meat between me and Mike and I knew that if he tagged the bank the
canoe would probably cripple me at the very least. I looked over at Mike and he was looking at me instead of the river, "YOU HAVE SOME SNOT ON YOUR FACE!!" he shouted over the roar of the motor and then tryed to reach across the
canoe and wipe it off for me! I'll handle the snot problems myself buddy, you just drive! Mike saved me a day but looking back I'd have much rather paddled it. Nice guy though, I offered to pay him for scaring the crap out of me but he refused.
I absolutely loved hunting alone, I probably didnt speak a word outloud for almost 4 days and I was more in tune to the wilderness saw more game because of it, the freedom was amazing. Although I didnt miss human company at all the lack of conversation and distraction made it easyer to dwell on how much I missed my wife and daughter. Periodicly a memory of them would come flooding back and I would laugh outloud or feel a pang in my chest. However, getting away from all the distractions of life and getting my prioritys back in order isnt such a bad thing either so in all I'd say I'm hooked on the solo
canoe hunts now.
Canoe hunt, solo for moose 2011.
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