Friend of a friend is hunting it and he sent me that pic. Got an arrow in it but hit him high. The pic was taken the day after the shot. 
I was over 8 miles from the TH... on foot. It's wilderness area so it's limited to foot or animal traffic only. For the record, I never once thought "man, I'm relieved I didn't find this dude". I'd have taken another week off work if I thought it would lead to a recovery. I've had a strategic "haul out plan" for several years.NRD09 said:
Sucks, but coyotes gotta eat too. Sounds like you made your best effort to find him, sleeping on the blood trail is dedication. Also think of all the work you avoided, sounds like you were a loooong way from the truck!
Were you bumping him do you think or did he just decide to get out of there when he started bleeding? I have screwed up and bumped an elk 4 miles that would probably have otherwise laid right down and died if I'd let him.
Great detail, definitely mission accomplished from the trip. I also liked the screenshot from your wife. I can identify with that one.agingcowboy said:
After camping for almost 2 weeks I woke up in my own bed in the middle of the night yesterday feeling the edge of my mattress wondering why there was so much extra room. I also woke up thinking I was in a boat at one point. I was out on the deck today grilling and I saw something in the trees in the greenbelt behind my house. I instinctively reached for my bino sthinking they would be in my harness on my chest.
agingcowboy said:
One of our guys had his truck and trailer in Anchorage (with generators and freezers). He drew the short straw and is driving our meat and antlers back. All 1800 lbs of it.
agingcowboy said:
A couple of my hunting companions and I had this dream to hunt moose in western Alaska. Over the counter tags, DIY, no guides, no drop-offs or pick-ups, etc. We found a likely spot where a small town that was also a freight hub bordered a very huntable river. Our plan was to launch from the town and motor upriver as far as we could get. We would then set up camp and hunt up and down the river for 2 weeks with the goal of bringing home 3 moose. One of our group built a boat that could come apart in 5 sections. The sections were each smaller than the last and could "nest" inside of each other. We tested the boat this summer and it worked pretty well for our purposes. We packed all of our gear into a crate that we put in a trailer along with a generator and some chest freezers. We then convinced someone to drive the trailer to Anchorage for us. We covered their fuel and flight back (for him and his wife). From Anchorage the crate was shipped to the town we had selected.
(Our crate with all of our gear packed inside.)
(Our inspiration at the airport in Anchorage)
(We didn't even have to go through security to board this plane)
(A reminder from my wife about how far away I was)
A week after our gear crate had been delivered, we showed up in Western Alaska; none of us having ever set foot in the state previously. We learned some important lessons within hours. The majority of the population of small towns in Alaska are natives. Many natives don't particularly care for outsiders. They are happy to take your money but will hate your guts nonetheless. They consider the big game and other state resources their own personal property despite state game laws. This new knowledge notwithstanding, we unpacked the crate and rented a truck to ferry everything to the dock on the river. At the dock we got our boat put together, got the motor mounted and packed our gear into the boat. We filled our fuel cans and got ready to launch. We ran into a group that had been dropped upriver in rafts and had floated down hunting moose. They had scored one moose among their group of 3. We gathered some intel from them and it was all good stuff; lots of moose up where we were heading. Kinda funny, in talking to one of the guys he said he was from Texas. I said me too, what part? He said Austin area. I said me too, what part? He said, SW Austin. I said me too, what part? Turns out I had gone all the way to Alaska into the middle of nowhere and ran into a guy that lives about 7 miles from my house. We got on the river about 5:00 pm. It doesn't get dark until almost 10 pm so we had a little time to motor. It takes about 26 river miles to get off the tribal lands into land that we can hunt. We saw a couple of cows and a decent bull on the tribal lands. We made about 40 miles upriver before we had to stop and make camp. We set up camp on a gravel bar. In the fading light a bull moose approached our campsite. I didn't have much time to get eyes on him. In retrospect he was probably a shooter, but he caught us unprepared. We made a quick hunt up some of the ridges the across the river the following morning. Saw a couple of cows, but no bulls in sight. We broke camp and kept motoring upriver.
(Unpacking the crate)
(Staging our gear and putting the boat together)
(More boat pieces)
(some scenery)
(Motoring up)
We set up our 2nd camp about 60 miles upriver on another gravel bar. The further upriver we got the less boats we encountered which was our goal. As we were finishing setting camp a boat came by. There were 3 (native guys) who were probably in their 20's. They all got up and glared at me as they motored by. I waved trying to be friendly, they slowed down long enough to yell at me to eff off and showed me their middle fingers. Not very pleasant. We crossed the river that evening and hunted on some of the ridges across from camp. This is where I got my first introduction to the soggy tundra I've heard referred to as Muskeg. Imagine walking on a field of soggy mattresses of varying firmness. One step holds your weight and the next swallows you up to your ankle. Walking on flat ground is exhausting, trying to go uphill in the stuff could kill you. I'm a pretty experienced elk hunter and I can hike all day on flat ground. I kind of figured we could cover some miles while trying to locate moose. Spending an afternoon in the muskeg convinced us that we would have to change our plans and make sure we didn't put a moose down more than a half mile from the river or we could literally spend a week just packing it out.
(Muskeg sucks)
(More scenery)
We glassed up some nice bulls that evening, but nothing close enough to go after. We filed some future hunting locations away in our minds and headed back to the boat. Back at the boat we discovered that someone had stolen all of our fuel. We had maybe one gallon left in the can connected to the motor. The other 25 gallons and gas cans had been stolen. Eff thieves, we assumed it was the guys that had so nicely greeted us previously. At $6/gallon it was already a big loss, but worse yet we were stuck 60 miles upriver with no fuel. We headed back to camp pretty distraught. A little later a boat motored up to our camp. We prepared ourselves for a fight, but it was the (native) guy that we had rented a truck from in town. He just stopped to say hello. He had his wife and son with him and had just shot a nice moose upriver from us. We told him about our fuel situation. He said he would motor back to town and get fuel to bring back to us, but that we would have to pay for his fuel (round trip) as well. In all we would be looking at a $500 bill, but we had come this far it seemed a small price to save our hunt. We agreed and he said he would be back up with fuel in a couple of days.
(Friendlier than most locals...)
The next day we had to hunt close to camp because of our fuel situation. Our morale was low and got worse when we didn't see anything all day. The next day we were expecting to have fuel delivered around 3 pm. So we decided to burn the rest of our fuel motoring upriver. We figured we could just float back to camp. We got to a spot where a bluff rose up out of the river. We parked the boat and hiked to the top of the bluff to glass. A cow came out into the river right below us. Across the river on a ridge we spotted a big bull feeding along the ridge top. I ranged him at 1100 yds. We figured we could close at least 400 of those yards by crossing the river and heading up a small slew on the other side. If we could then close another few hundred yards on land we thought that maybe we could get within rifle range. Much to our dismay the intervening ground was a giant bog. I was wearing my Kenetreks and gaiters up to my knee. At one point I sunk in mud over my knee filling my boots. For a brief, terrifying second I thought I was stuck. During this commotion we bumped a big bull moose just 30 yards in front of us. Given our exertions extricating ourselves from the bog we couldn't even get a shot off. We persevered and eventually got up on the ridge where we had originally seen the big bull, but he had vanished. We were starting to realize that we knew nothing about moose hunting and were obviously doing it wrong. We also recommitted ourselves to staying close to the river because the muskeg and bogs were nearly impassable.
We floated back down to camp and our guy showed up with our fuel which, while expensive, was a huge relief. We had an uneventful evening hunt, but as we were coming back to the boat we heard someone whistling. Not like to get your attention, but just leisurely. A lone guy came floating around the bend in an inflatable raft. We chatted for a minute. He was hunting by himself with his bow. He had been dropped at the headwaters and was floating back to town and hunting as he went. He had a monster moose rack in the front of his raft. He said he would slow down at each bend in the river and cow call. If a bull moose grunted a reply, he would pull over and hunt him. He had had about 5 such encounters with bulls when he decided to shoot the one he did. Apparently he butchered the thing solo, packed it into his raft. He had the cape draped over the top of the raft to dry and he was now leisurely floating back to town. This was his 4th year to do the same trip and he had scored monster moose every year. What a freaking studnew bucket list item created!!
(scenery again)
(Camp 2)
The next day it rained hard almost all day. We managed to get a little work done in camp. Namely, getting a meat pole built and covered with a tarp. We did get out for an evening hunt. We spent most of our time huddled under some pines against the rain. We did see a couple of bulls: one nice one about a mile away and a dink that we could have shot but passed. We were starting to get a little anxious. We had 3 guys and 3 moose tags. We were now 6 days into our hunt with nothing to show for it. We had planned to hunt a full 2 weeks, but even so we started to feel some urgency to get moose on the ground. We decided the next day we would motor about 10 or so miles upriver. We would float back to camp and cow call at every turn.
(Meat pole getting ready to do some work)
It was cold that morning with a light mist and a heavy fog. We motored up about 10 miles at first light. We pulled off into a little slew and cut the motor planning to get our hands warm for a minute. We let out a cow call and what do you knowwe heard a grunt. My brother and I bailed out of the boat onto the river bank and John stayed with the boat. We hiked up to a bend in this side channel calling but didn't get any further reply. Through the mist I could just make out a set of antlers in the mist moving along the opposite bank away from us. After the bog incident we both had decided to wear our chest waders from then on, so we cut through a marshy area to be able to see down the side channel a little further. There he was on the opposite bank looking behind him. It was tough to keep my optics clear with the mist and the fog but he looked like a pretty good bull. Only 2 brow tines on one side and 3 on the other, but they had a lot of mass. We did some quick calculating using my rifle scope and figured he had to be at least 50 inches. It was a quick decision, but given our previously mentioned anxiety to get a bull down I decided to shoot. It was 120 yards without a rest, but my first shot seemed to hit him pretty hard. He ran down into the river in water half way up his front shoulder. I was sizing him up for another shot when I see movement behind him on the bank and out walks another bull moose his same size or even a little bigger. I stared dumbly for a second processing what was going on, my brother turned and asked for my rifle. The next thing I knew, BOOM. The second moose was hit and then finished off with a second shot. At this point my moose had gotten back to the bank so I hit him again and he lay down. We got our bearings for a second, and then my brother headed back to the boat to get John. I watched my moose for a bit and his head was still up. After 20 minutes he tried to get up, so I steadied up and finished him off with one last shot. Within minutes we now had TWO fifty-plus inch moose (and a lot of work) laying on the river bank within 30 yards of each other. Our best guess is that, with the rut in full swing, these two were squaring up for a fight in response to our initial cow call which would explain why the second one kept coming despite our shooting. The shooting was done by 10:00 AM and we started working. It took us all day to get them skinned, quartered, neck meat, rib meat, back-straps and tender loins loaded up and back to camp and hung on our previously constructed meat pole. I bathed in the river that evening. It was cold but felt good after 10 hours of heavy labor. Slept like a baby that night.
(My bull down)
(Boat with 2 moose)
The next day Joel stayed in camp to work on capes and take care of meat. I went with John and we hunted upriver again. We saw so much wildlife: bald eagles, beaver, lynx, black bears, grizzly bears, river otters, but no moose. I about called myself hoarse on the float back to camp. For lunch we cooked moose tenderloin over a fire. It was awesome. I like elk, but it still has a little gamey after taste .This moose had none, it was like delicious lean beef. Best game I've ever eaten. I'd take it over beef. We ate a whole tenderloin for lunch, one loin probably weighed 6 pounds if you can imagine. That evening John and I motored back upriver and called our way back again. At one turn in the river we got a moose to grunt in response. We tied up on the river bank and called back and forth. I raked to trees next to us and grunted back. The moose seemed to get pretty jacked up at that. He was grunting back to back just seconds apart. He would seem to get closer then fade away. We played this cat and mouse game for about 40 minutes. It sounded like he was just upriver from us and we kept hoping he would show himself on the opposite bank. Then he went silent. It was almost dark so we decided to motor up around the bend and see if we could see anything. We got up there and killed the motor. I let out my ****tiest cow call and this bull immediately started back up just upriver from us. I turned around and he came busting out of the trees and charged part way into the river. John looked him over from the boat and decided he wanted to try to take him. He bailed out of the boat and got propped up with his back against the river bank. I bailed onto the cut bank nearly losing the boat and gave another call. The moose was almost to the our side of the bank when John shot. He ended up shooting 3 times (all sounded like good hits) and then the moose was out of sight. We got in the boat and motored up to him. He was still alive and John finished him off. Another 50 plus inch bull was down. We had a quandary now, because it was almost dark. We hated to leave him but the river isn't easily navigable in the dark. We decided to head back to camp and get a fresh start the next morning. Unfortunately, we ran out of fuel on our way back to camp and so it was almost 2 hours after dark when we finally floated back. (We had more fuel in camp, we had been stashing our extra fuel away from the boat since the theft previously).
(Floating back)
The next morning we all headed up and got John's bull squared away. We got all of the meat hung, stripped and cleaned game bags and put on fresh ones, worked on capes, skull capped antlers and got ready to start motoring out the following day.
(Moose Processing)
(Meat pole, fully loaded)
(3 Moose, mission accomplished)
We got up early the next morning and broke camp. We loaded up all our gear and all of our meat. The trip back was going to be interesting because we were loaded down with 3 moose. We had a separate inflatable that we used for meat and gear. Our motoring speed was about 5 MPH. It was going to take us 2 days to motor back. We left the boats loaded and camped right on the shore that night and made it back to town the following afternoon. This is already long enough so I won't belabor the rest of the details of getting our cargo loaded up and getting back to Anchorage. Luckily, return freight from these small towns is way cheaper than freight to them so we got all of our meat and antlers and gear back to Anchorage without any major issues.
(Packing up)
(Fully Loaded)
(Camp 3)
Overall, it was a pretty epic hunt for me. I learned a lot and got my first experience with Alaska under my belt. My plan is to go back sometime in the near future and do a float trip like that solo guy and hold out for a true monster. After camping for almost 2 weeks I woke up in my own bed in the middle of the night yesterday feeling the edge of my mattress wondering why there was so much extra room. I also woke up thinking I was in a boat at one point. I was out on the deck today grilling and I saw something in the trees in the greenbelt behind my house. I instinctively reached for my binosthinking they would be in my harness on my chest. I'm glad to be home and see my family but I still feel like a caged animal sometimes and still long to be OUTDOORS.
TLDR:
Three idiots flew 3,000 miles then motored upriver 70 miles into the middle of nowhere in a home-made boat in search of moose. They DIY hunted and killed 3 moose.
