Today’s story is a Moose hunting adventure from the coastal mountains of British Columbia. Let’s get into it.
It was early October in 2011. At that latitude the moose are in high rut and have only one thing on their mind. This is my favourite time to hunt moose. I love all types of hunting from hiking to horseback to ATVs to just driving around in your truck, but hunting from a boat in the middle of prime Rutting season is my favourite. The Rut is when you can call them in, hear their replies, see their mating practises. Find rubs, wallows and tracks everywhere! there’s just so much action, so much happening in the Moose world. It’s the greatest time to be out in the bush, looking for a moose.
Hunting by boat is my favourite transportation for so many different reasons. Floating downstream at the very first light of the day as you pull the boat upon a sandbar and sneak into a Riverside Meadow… Heaven, perfect. I love Boats so much better than a horse that bites and kicks and tries to run away. Hiking is great but too much of it is a drag especially with 125 pounds of meat on your back. No sir give me motorized transportation any day of the week if it wasn’t a boat, I’ll take an ATV. The modern day horse and let me tell you, I’m thankful for them. Don’t get me wrong. I love animals and I love horses, but caring for those horses on the trail is too much of a job on its own. And honestly they bite and kick.
So here I was, the perfect job, working for a Hunting outfitter, running 10 miles of river, flanked by Willows, Dogwood, and open swampy Meadows.
This year the outfitter was granted seven Moose tags to sell as complete hunting trips. Some years he’d have more and some years he’d have less. You see here in Canada the conservation fish and game department monitors very closely how many tags were supplied in a certain area, and how many moose were harvested. Questionnaires are sent out every year to all hunters. This is just one of many determining factors that the department then uses to allot how many Moose can be taken from said area, each year. Seven was a good number for us, and we were happy to have that many as some years it can be only two. The areas are generally small, and we are happy to have this type of active conservation. I will say that sometimes the area can have multiple different habitats. This area consisted of a small portion of mountains and rivers reaching out mostly into rolling hills and plateau of the Chillicoten area, that’s what it’s called, although the Moose population could seem low in the range land, it was very high in our remote fly in only mountain valleys. So unfortunately the lower moose hunting success of the ranch land would affect how many tags we were issued over in Moose heaven. Anyway, conservations not the easiest thing, and we we all work together to make it as best as we can for ourselves and of course the coming generations. Honestly, no one is more in favour of conservation than us hunters.
And so are adventure, began with a few days prep work before our first client arrived: a husband and wife team all the way from Italy here to enjoy our beautiful wilderness. Well, that was one Moose down and happy to get it, though it was in a torrential downpour as the river rose and floodwaters approached. In the coastal mountains of BC at that time of year, you’re guaranteed to get rained or snowed on.
How much you can’t be sure, but for sure you’re gonna get wet and cold. But that’s not so bad when you return each night to a hot meal, a shower, a sauna, and a nice cabin to sleep in. Whew, thank God for a little civilization out in the wilderness. The next week saw four clients come in: a husband and wife, their friend and nephew from the good old US of A. Experienced hunters they were and an absolute joy to be around. They’ll be a link above, if you want to hear more about one of their exciting hunts.
Each one of them got a moose and after one week we loaded them up into the plane and off they flew to return home… Wait a minute 4+1 that’s five and I thought you said you had seven tags? That’s right we did and those were part of our payment. Our guide outfitter gave both me and the other guide Nathen Tags of our own so after two weeks of hunting and five moose taken we were ready to start our own hunts. We had two boats and decided to split up so that we could cover more territory and increase our odds as we only had two days to fill our tags. Day one found me watching a beautiful Meadow close to the lake when in the distance I heard three shots, boom boom, boom the shots rang out so close in succession I thought, that couldn’t be my partner? He shoots bolt action not a semi automatic? There can’t be anyone else here? I thought as I hopped in my boat and fired up that goofy mud buddy long tail outboard. With the engine, screaming, and water flying everywhere from that prop sitting right on the surface, I headed as quickly as I could towards the gunshots. Well sure enough it was my friend and coworker Nathan he had the good fortune of finding a moose right on the shore of the lake. The moose was standing on high ground with nothing but acres and acres and acres of waste deep swamp all around him. Well, my friend did not want him to run off of that one little piece of high ground and put three shots into his chest faster than you could say – “three shots” and I praised him on how fast he could reload a bolt action rifle. His reasoning was sound, though, as that bull was easy to skin on dryland and with the boat right there no difficult packing had to be done. Now antlers are nice but we had two days to get two bull moose and we’re meat hunters, meat eaters all the way. We wanted to fill the freezer, of course we would never turn down a big set of antlers, but our main objective was food for the year. This was really nice of our outfitter to provide as part of our pay as not buying meat for a year really saves you money.
Well now the pressure was on it’s up to me, but since my friend had filled his tag, we could now hunt together. Well, it didn’t take long as the very next morning we were in the boat slowly putting along the tail end of the lake, where it pretty much turned into a river. The water was high, running over the banks in some areas… and filling all low lying swampy areas to knee deep water. That water, grass and lumpy ground that you could not see made walking tuff and extremely difficult. Neither of us wanted to try it with 125 pounds of moose on our back. We were praying for the easy hunt: show us a moose and an easy moose with dry feet. Well, we could hardly believe our eyes as we came around the bend just after the spot where Nathan had gotten his moose the day before. There he was Mr. Bullmoose, standing perfectly broadside, staring at us across the swamp, some 300 yards away. Yikes, not a shot I like to take with no rest and certainly a shot I wouldn’t take from a moving boat, even if the boat is stationary it’s far too wobbly as the slightest movement here is easily 2 feet of movement 300 yards away. “On shore, put the boat on shore” I whisper yelled to Nathan. Not really sure of what I meant Nathen gunned, the boat towards shore, and then backed off and reversed it before actually getting onto shore. Well the moose heard the commotion and was starting to look nervous. “No, no”, I whisper yelled at my partner, “push us right up onto the shore”, I said, and that is exactly what he did, roar went the engine as we pushed up on shore, the bow lifting into the air, the stern sinking down as Nathan killed the motor I dove forward using the now steady bow of the boat as my rest. Luckily, I had my 3 to 9 variable Leopold scope cranked up to nine, and as those crosshairs came down to the Moose’s chest I seen him start to swing his head forward and his foot come up as he was about to leave. There was no time to take another breath and no time to think twice. At that very second, I let fly one single shot bang. The Moose continued his turn and walk away, one step, two steps, three steps, and down he went like a sack of hammers. Man was I happy to perform a great shot like that right in front of my friend one shot one kill virtually instant death at 300 yards away with one second to make the shot. Huhhh, Not too bad. The other advantages were we didn’t have to track them. I didn’t have to pack them out and of course the most important one the most died the quickest death he could’ve ever hoped to have. Every Moose in the wild is destined for a slow and terrible demise wounded starving being eaten alive by wolves. I never feel bad a bullet to the heart is a merciful kill. I had a young family at home and again this meat would feed us for a full year. We waited a good 10 minutes to ensure that the ball had bled out and wouldn’t be tempted or able to jump up when we approached him. The way he went down, I knew he had passed, but we gave it the time anyways. Nathan and I sat on the shore, greeting from ear to ear as we ate a couple of “eat-more” candy bars to give us strength for the field dressing process. Now, like I said, most of the Meadows were flooded to knee, deep or more water, and this was the case here as well. This time it worked to our advantage, though, as we were able to walk the floating boat 200 yards closer to the moose. We walked the other hundred yards and could see him clearly not moving or breathing. With the tip of the barrel, I touched him in the eye just to make sure. A double check that I always suggest. No blink, no movement, I was happy to know he died very quickly. I love a morning Hunt. The sun was out. The day was getting warmer, and we had lots of time to field dress this moose and get the meat out to the hanging tree. Being that the nights were not hard frosts yet, we did have to contend with flies. Now you know you do not want flies on your meat because they are of course there to lay eggs. Flies on your moose equals maggots in your meat. Here’s a great little trick that some of you may not know. Bring along a big bag of fine grind pepper yes, just regular black pepper, fine grind not the thick core stuff. When you’re skinning and cutting, liberally throw that pepper around, you won’t believe it but the flies actually hate it and it will keep them off your meat. Now, as soon as you can get those into Meet bags which are a cheesecloth type of bag that allows air to get through but not so much flies. Flies can still do some damage through that cloth, so the next step is to get the pieces high up in a tree where not only the Bears can’t reach them but also where there is a good breeze blowing to help keep the flies away. Well, that is what we did and that meat turned out perfectly, and I say, moose tenderloin, moose back straps, or even a cooked moose roast is an absolute delicacy. T\\hat night we dined on fresh tenderloin. We made an SOS text message out to the plane and the pilot flew in to retrieve us and our Moose the very next day. Whew, field dressing, seven moose, i’d had my fill. It was still a long, drive home and we ended up staying the night believe it or not in a town called Sicamous, which is hilarious because that’s exactly how I felt.
Folks that’s my story but I’d like to tell yours. You can send your stories to me via email to info@themoosewhisperer.com. Send them either written out or just an audio file of you telling the story. Send a few pictures too, and I’ll make a great video of your story. Thanks for watching, more stories to come.
