Showing posts with label Moose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moose. Show all posts

Friday 4 June 2021

Moose Short Rib Japanese Curry


Japanese curry is something I was introduced to years ago and it has since become one of my easy favourites.  It is basically a spicy stew with a thick gravy.  You can buy the Glico Japanese curry blocks at most grocery stores these days, usually in the Asian food aisle.  

Ingredients

- 2-3 lbs of short ribs or cubed meat
- 1 pack of Glico curry.  (mild is shown here, but there is medium and hot as well)
- 1 pack of baby carrots
- 1 pack of mini potatoes
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- 2 cups of Japanese short grain rice

Steps

1) Medium dice the onion and garlic.
2) Line the bottom of the slow cooker with the onion and garlic
3) Put the meat into the slow cooker
4) Half the baby carrots and potatoes and add to the slow cooker
5) Cut the curry blocks into small pieces and add to the slow cooker.
6) Fill slow cooker with water until the ingredients are just barely covered.
7) Turn on slow cooker on low and wait until it is ready (10-12 hours)
8) Once the slow cooker is finished cooking, make the rice.  First, rinse the rice until the water is clear.  Then add it to a rice cooker with 3 cups of water. If you want to make less rice, just remember the proportion of about 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water.















Wednesday 31 October 2018

2017 Moose and White Tailed Deer

In July 2017, in spite of our group’s diminished odds due to our draw successes in 2015, one of our friends managed to get a moose draw while putting in solo.  There was no hesitation in deciding to go with him to Vanderhoof so that we would be there to help in case he managed to clip his tag. 

On the way to our spot near Vanderhoof, we would have to pass through a number of areas which are open for what I have now termed “Complicated moose” as well as 6 point elk.  “Complicated moose” as I have now taken to calling it, means spike-fork, 10 point, or tri-palm moose.   This is the ministry’s way of letting you still get out moose hunting in spite of wanting to limit the number of moose taken from an area by creating a relatively low chance of success.  Anyways, I bought all the tags I could reasonably think I might punch and started prepping for the trip.

Just like in 2015, we headed up towards the area so that we would be there and ready for when our friend’s tag became valid on October 1st.  However, unlike 2015, there would only be the four of us headed up there this time, compared to the 10 who went on the trip in 2015. 

When we got to the campsite, it was just as I had remembered it.  There were already a few people camped there, so we took a spot a little further in than we had on the previous trip.  Once we finished leveling the trailer, there was still enough time to go out for an evening hunt.   I decided to join my friend who had the tag, so we hopped in his tracker and burned out of camp. We headed to the spot where my father in law and his friends had been successful on past trips, the same spot where I got my first moose in 2015.  It’s is clearly a hot area.



As we started approaching the turnoff to the hot area we slowed to a crawl.  The tracker was as nimble as an ATV, and had no trouble with the dips and climbs.  As we slowly approached the spot where I got my moose in 2015 our eyes scanned the hill sides and valleys for any sign of moose.

We continued on a few hundred meters and around the final bend to where the trail ended.  We slowly came to a stop and by buddy shut off the tracker. As we sat there in the fading light he rolled down his window and gave a moaning cow call.  “MOOSE!” I exclaimed as we both saw the unmistakable movement in the bushes.  My heart was pumping.  Were we really going to punch a tag on the first hunt of the first day?

Quickly we realized it was a cow, but we were off to a good start.  We stayed there for a while longer and continued to call every 15-20 minutes.  Eventually we decided to make our way back to camp.

When we pulled back to camp we were greeted by the others who were camped there.  One was a family with two small daughters, probably 5 and 8, and the other was a father and son and their friend.  As we chatted for a while I noticed the two little girls we each holding a grouse.  Their mom was showing them how to clean their grouse using the standing on the wings trick.  I watched with amusement as these two girls got right in there, gutting and cleaning their grouse.  They weren't squeamish at all.  Very cool.

The following day the father and son were successful and managed to get their moose.  As with everyone, they were cagey about saying where they got their moose, but it wasn’t hard to find the gut pile.  It was just up the road.  They mentioned that they had also been surrounded by wolves while they were field dressing the moose, so the son ended up shooting one of the wolves.  It was a huge wolf, a very impressive animal. 

That day my father in law and I decided to drive back to the hot area to see if anything was around.  As we hit the first deactivation, my father in law’s new winch dug into the far side of the ditch, causing the truck to come to an abrupt stop.  We chatted and decided that I would get out and direct him through so that the winch wouldn’t get hung up again.  As I got out of the truck and closed the door I heard what sounded like falling marbles.  That couldn’t be good.  My father in law heard it too and got out.  I watched as he bent down to pick up a shard of glass. That's when we noticed that the rear window of the truck had been broken.  So frustrating.  We patched it up with plastic and dock tape as best we could and continued on for the rest of the day, but saw no animals.

The next day we decided to all split up.  My father in law and I went up the road to see what we could, maybe get a deer or find the moose for our friend.

From that day forward, things pretty much blended together.  I hiked up and down hills and ridges, scouted new areas, and sat for hours hoping for animals to materialize from the treeline at dawn and dusk.  I could tell that the lack of success seeing moose sign, let alone a moose, was discouraging for everyone.  We broke up the days with a little grouse hunting, fishing, and had a fantastic grouse curry one of the evenings.

During those days we saw several whitetail does and fawns.  On one of the evenings out with my buddy we saw black bear in the distance, but in spite of having a tag, I decided it was not the time for me to clip that tag.  I didn’t want to risk the bear meat or the pelt while we waited for an opportunity for my buddy to get a moose.  It was pretty warm at that point and temperature was a factor, so I took a pass.

Another evening, while my father in law was out hiking, he ended up having a black bear come out of the woods at him.  As soon as it saw my father in law, it turned tail and vanished back over the bank.

The fishing at this spot is unbelievable and worth the trip just for that.  We caught a few and had them for lunch to add some variety.  We decided to catch our limits the day before heading home, so they would be as fresh as possible for the trip down to the coast.

After a few days the father and son left along with their friend.  Then rolled up "the colonel", as he became known.  A retired RCMP officer, who was nice enough, but just seemed to like putting us on the spot, sort of like he was flicking a switch and turning from chummy guy sharing a story to police interrogation.  Anyways, he was up there with his wife and she had the moose tag.  A few days later they ended up being successful too, but we never did end up figuring out if the gut pile we found belonged to their moose.  The location of the gut pile didn’t match their story… perhaps I would have made a good detective. Haha!

The next couple who rolled into camp was an elderly couple with a camper.  They came over and introduced themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses and we exchanged pleasantries.  They explained the husband had severe Parkinson's disease and had fallen a number of times recently. They also remarked that we had set up a shower behind a tree.  The front was hidden by a tarp, but the back and side facing their camp was open.  My buddy’s dad made a joke that we’d give them a good show the next day.  They said their goodbyes and retired for the night.  My buddy’s dad leaned in and said “Just you watch.  If they get a moose they’ll be the first one’s over here asking for help.”

The shower was a pretty fantastic addition to the camp that year.  We heated water with the wood stoves and our friends had brought a little portable shower pump that ran on D cell batteries.  We each used it a few times and it really made us feel fresh.

On one of the next days I returned to camp and saw my father in law working on his generator on the upturned hull of the car-topper boat.  The generator wasn’t working and my father in law was tearing down the carburetor.  At a certain point a few screws ended up falling into the grass and we managed to find all but one.  That generator was deemed to be out of commission and we shared our friends’ Honda 2000i for the rest of the trip.

For the next few days we drove, walked, hiked, and glassed.  I saw nothing.  If it wasn’t so much fun just to be out there it would have been very discouraging. 

A few days later we were returning to camp in the evening and saw our friend’s truck heading out of camp.  We pulled up to them hoping to hear that they got a moose.  There was a moose down alright, but it was the old couple who had gotten it, right in the middle of the road, and surprise surprise, they needed a hand loading it into the truck

My father in law and I decided to go along and help as well.  As we dropped off some stuff back at camp, we discussed not taking the blocks and gear since they had assured us they had everything they needed to pull out the moose.  We decided to bring the gear anyways. 

We arrived expecting the moose to be field dressed and just ready for some extra muscle to get into the back of a pickup.  We were wrong.  The moose was there, 30m up into the treeline, uphill thank goodness, and my buddy was getting ready to start gutting it.  Right away there were too many chefs in the kitchen so my father in law decided to supervise and make sure no one got hurt.  My biggest fear was that one of us would get hurt, ending our hunt, from helping someone who really had no business being out in the bush anymore.  It became clear within moments that the old man and his wife could never have hauled this moose out without our help.  They had no gear, but what’s more, they were so physically unable that they could not have done it themselves even if they had the proper equipment.

Once the beast was gutted we rigged up a block to haul it out of the trees down into the bed of my buddy’s truck.  In the haste, people were more eager to hurry than do it right, resulting in the rope breaking a few times.  At that point the wife of the old couple remarked to my father in law that the rope must not be that strong.  It was in fact rated to over 2000 lbs and it was the fact that the block was not free to sit correctly that the rope was being pulled against the edge of the block, which in turn, cut the rope like a knife.  I could see the frustration in my father in law’s eyes or it might have just been the reflection of my own frustration. 

After re-rigging we slowly dragged the moose down and into my buddy’s truck bed.  As he started pulling out it was clear his bumper was caught on a rock and the mud was not affording him much traction.  The last thing we needed now was a ruined truck because of doing a good deed.  We managed to free the bumper and we all headed back to camp. 

When we got back my friend’s dad made it clear that we wouldn’t be skinning it tonight, we had hunting to do the next morning and would give the elderly man an hand skinning and hanging it the next day around noon.

After the elderly couple retired to bed, we made more than a few jokes about packing up in the night, clipping my buddy’s tag, and heading home.  … only half jokingly.  Anyways, we got back to hunting the next day, no one was injured and no gear was damaged by the good deed, and the old couple even ended up giving my buddy a hind quarter for all his work.  It was well deserved, but still a ridiculous situation none the less.

Later in the week a few of familiar faces showed up, the same two gents who we met for the first time there in 2015, Jim and Doug.  Two good old boys with the right attitude and some good stories.  They are the two who had the Suzuki samurai which we think bumped the grizzly in 2015 and set it on the path towards my father in law.

The next morning my father in law decided we would head back down the road to the area where he had been charged by the grizzly bear.  We had seen a few does and fawns down there earlier in the week and we had tags to punch.  We left camp around 7:00am. We got to the end of the road out of the rec site and turned right.  As we started to speed up my father in law joked that maybe we should try road hunting as fast as my buddy drives his tracker, and wouldn’t you know it, a moment later, less than 100 meters from the turnoff to camp, my father in law looked at me and said he just saw a buck in the clearing that we had just flew past.  He gradually slowed down the truck and we both got out, loaded our rifles, and I started walking back down the road.  On hindsight I feel badly to this day that I didn’t think to insist that my father in law go after this buck.  As I started to walk up a little side road around the clearing I looked at my father in law and he signaled, pointed and whispered to me to stay on the main road. I followed his instructions and continued down the main road as my father in law stood by the side road. 

As I approached the clearing I started to be able to make out the shape of a deer through the brush.  I continued to creep forward, one step after another, trying not to spook the deer.  He was looking right at me and I could see his rack.  I found a little opening and tried to steady myself.  This would have to be an offhand shot.  I hate those, I never practice them, I really should.  The buck was at no more than 20 metres from me, looking straight at me.  I chose my spot, found the pause in my breath, and slowly increased pressure until the trigger broke.  BOOM!

I expected to see something as I lowered my rifle, but I could not.  There was no movement and no deer visible from the road. Doubt began to creep into my mind and I thought that I must have missed. How could I have missed at 20 metres?  I began to walk around the brush to the entrance of the clearing and there he was, a nice little whitetail buck.



After the obligatory photos, we set to work field dressing.  We set him on the back of the tail gate of the truck and headed back to camp.  As we pulled in we were greeted by curiosity.  No one had heard the shot in spite of the proximity to camp.  We hung the buck and by 8:30am we were all finished up with him and having another cup of coffee around the fire.




For the rest of the trip we continued to try to find a moose for my buddy.  I spent a few long evenings up on a ridge which looks out over the valley, trying to glass up some activity so we could make a plan.  It seemed as though everyone else had been lucky and gotten their moose, basically on a road, but all we had seen the whole trip was the cow on the first day.

Not my photo.  Thank you Encyclopedia Britannica
On one of the last days we decided once again to head down the road to what has since become known as grizzly flats. On the way there, just before the first of the two turnoffs that leads to grizzly flats, we rounded a corning and saw what looked like a black bear cub.  My father in law and I both lifted out binos at the same time, and almost in unison exclaimed “A wolverine!”. We felt truly lucky to have seen such an elusive animal.  We watched him for a while until he trundled over the bank.

On one of the evenings towards the end of the trip, after having hiked up the ridge and glassed for the whole afternoon unsuccessfully, I was walking back down the road towards where I had parked the ATV when one of the guys from a neighbouring camp rolled up.   We chatted for a bit, but neither of us had seen anything.  I couldn’t help but notice his bubba mug from which he was continuously sipping and a truck bed full of dozens of empty 2 litre bottles of Captain Morgan’s.  Was he drinking?  I couldn’t be sure.  Was he sober?  He sure seemed to be.  Not a hint of inebriation.   Impressively high functioning or just keeping his recycling close at hand.  I’ll never know, but I do have my suspicions. Haha.  Just one of the many random and funny encounters in the bush.  We said our goodbyes and I headed back to camp.

At the end of the trip, as the elderly couple were packing up, they thanked us again for our help and mentioned that they would preach to us next time if they ran into us again.  No, thank you.  We spent the last couple days hunting and fishing to catch our limit.  We didn’t end up getting my buddy his moose, but he went home with a hind quarter and we got a white tail and tons of troubt.  It had been another great trip.

Wednesday 16 May 2018

Kickass Burgers


This is my favourite way to make burgers.  It works well with venison and moose.  I would love to try it with other game one day.

Ingredients:
-2 lbs venison or moose
-2 eggs
-1 onion (If you don't like onion, you may want to use less, but the onion gives it a lot of the moisture)
-2 tablespoons of minced garlic
-2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce

Seasoning:
-salt
-pepper
-herb de provence
-seasoned breadcrumbs


I like to use a burger press and parchment paper to so that it doesn't stick


Add all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Season as you would a steak with salt, pepper, herb de provence.
Mix by hand and thoroughly combine ingredients.
If the mixture seems wet, add small amounts of breadcrumbs to absorb moisture until the mixture is dry enough to press into patties.


Using a burger press or by hand form patties.
The nice thing about using parchment paper is that it helps reduce mess and also allows for the patties to be frozen in stacks and easily separated even while frozen. 


This time, I decided to cook half the batch and freeze the other half.  It's great for when friends drop by unexpectedly or you need to toss something together for a quick meal.  These patties cook well even from frozen.


 Cook and serve with your favourite burger toppings. Enjoy!


Saturday 21 April 2018

Moose 2015

(This story was written in 2015)

I am very new to hunting. Two years ago I had never fired a gun. I went on my first hunting trip last fall and managed to punch my first tag with a nice 5x5 whitetail. Last spring I put in for my first LEH with my father in law and a family friend. We ended up getting our moose draw, so in late September we headed North to Vanderhoof. 

My father in law and I decided to prepare all our meals in advance so that we would have gourmet meals without having spend the energy cooking after a long day of hunting. My 2014 buck factored heavily into the menu with venison bourguignon and meatballs.

Once we got to Vanderhoof we filled our jerry cans, did groceries, and headed into the bush for as long as it would take to get our two moose (or until our LEH window ran out).  

Setting up camp was a quick, but the warm weather meant the flies were pretty terrible that first evening. 

The next morning we set out on our first day of hunting. Mostly just scouting the area and looking at the marshes and slashes where my father in law and his friends had pulled moose out of in the past. We saw lots of grouse, but decided we leave them until later. We were there to hunt moose.

After the first day I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go, but all we had seen was some very old moose sign and lots of bear sign. One of the guys in our group was out fishing and saw wolves along the shore that day. 

On day two we went to an area near one of the marshes and tried to set up on a game trail with some old moose sign and started calling. We spent the whole day at that spot and used some of that cow moose in heat scent attractant hanging it from wicks in that area. 

Unfortunately no luck at all that day and we decided to come back the following morning to see if the calling and scent had brought any bulls into the area. When we got back to camp our friends had managed to get a nice little 4x4 whitetail so at least we weren’t going to be going home completely skunked. 

I also managed to get my first grouse with my Ruger 10/22. My father in law pan fried the breasts in butter and onions. They were excellent.


On day three we went back to the same area near the swamp and set up for another day of cow calling every 20 minutes. My father in law dropped me off and drove about a kilometer further down the road and over the hill and set up there.  

A few hours in, one of the other hunters who was staying in the same rec. site as us, drove in their Suzuki Samurai along the logging road just up the hill from where we were, he stopped at the top and called a few times, and drove off. Then, suddenly I heard two shots in very quick succession from just over the hill where my father in law was. I was surprised that he shot twice so quickly. I turned on the radio just in case he needed a hand and I started packing my gear up. I thought to myself, if he got a moose or deer he’ll need my help dragging it out and if it was a bear he may be hurt and need my help. After reading about all the bear attacks I was pretty paranoid.

Just as I started walking along the road I see my father in law’s Toyota Tacoma scream around the corner and drive straight at me at a high rate of speed. I see it’s my father in law behind the wheel and quickly see there is no smile on his face. He screeches to a stop right next to me and half shouts “I was just charged by a f*&%ing grizzly!”. My father in law was okay, but pretty shaken. He’s been hunting deer, moose, and elk all his life, but he’s never been charged before. He recounted to me how just after the little Suzuki Samurai pulled past him a lone grizzly started walking down the trail right towards him. The path had the grizzly just about on a collision course with him so he decided to stand up and start backing away from the grizzly slowly. As soon as he stood up the grizzly began to trot towards him so he took a shot above its head and that just caused it to full on charge. So he fired one more shot into the ground ahead of it before he was going to fire the next two into the bear. Luckily that caused the grizzly to stop his charge at about 30 feet, shake his head, and turn around and run away. What a close call.

Photo taken from where my father in law took his two shots. He was sitting half way between this spot and where the Tacoma is. The grizzly came up the road from the tree line after the Suzuki Samurai drove along the road which is just inside the tree line.
After hearing this story I hopped into the truck and we went to go see where it all happened. We drove over to where my father in law was sitting and found where he was and the grizzly’s prints. Based on the size of the prints he wasn’t a very big bear, but plenty big enough to do damage. I found the two casings and from my father in law’s .30-06 and said that’s probably the best $4 you have ever spent and that you had better hang on to those for good luck. We decided to road hunt the rest of the day. We drove along and found lots more bear sign and also ended up seeing a brown phase of a black bear in the distance. 


On our way home for the afternoon I saw some movement on the side of the road and thought it might be a deer so I hopped out and loaded my .30-06. It turned out that it was a lynx. We got to watch him for a few seconds before he took off. What a beautiful animal.

When we got back to camp the all ears were on my father in law as he told the story of the bear charge. Everyone was pretty unsettled by it. None of the old timers there had ever seen as much bear sign in all their years of hunting as they had seen this year on those roads and trails.




On day four we decided to try a different area, one that had been productive in the past. We parked the truck and I walked in about 100m and my father in law walked up the back trail to circle around up the adjacent hill. Once I got in about 100m the morning’s coffee kicked in… I was so glad to have full tube of wet ones with me, so I did my business behind a sapling at the edge of a little clearing and continue my walk in for another 100m. I decided to start calling so I sat there for about an hour and a half cow calling every 20 minutes. I eventually convinced myself that I didn’t have a big enough field of view where was at the bottom of the little valley so I followed the old road up the hill to get a better look. I walked at my super slow hunting pace, still calling every 20 minutes. After about 30 minutes I had a pretty good view of the valley and where I had done my business. I was pretty convinced I had scent-ruined the area with my business so when I heard some bull grunts I thought it was just another hunter in the area, but then I heard another six bull grunts. I thought to myself, I don’t know that any of the hunters I am with would do six grunts in a row. So I waited a bit and did another cow call.
 
To my surprise I heard six more grunts back. So I decided to try three grunts myself and then I saw him for a second. On the adjacent hill, I caught sight of this great black beast move between two trees. Then nothing. The heart starts going up tempo. Was that a moose? I think so. I hear the grunts again and for a split second there he is again, but then vanishes. It is a moose! It must be a bull. All of a sudden I hear swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. He is raking the willows! Damn these little Christmas trees. I can’t see anything. I set up on my telescoping shooting sticks, but I am in the middle of the trail, no cover. Don’t blow this Alex, this is your chance. The heart is racing. There he is again!! He is coming towards me, but all I see is the briefest of glimpses as he is walking down the adjacent hill, down to the valley bottom directly towards me. I spot an antler and look through my scope, ready to hammer him, just waiting for the right shot. I only see one antler and it isn’t very big, but it’s bone and it’ll do just fine for me. Grunt, grunt, grunt. Run, crash, twigs snapping. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. My heart is beating in my ears and I see where he is going to pop out and start coming up the bank on a game trail right towards me. Calm down Alex. You’re shaking so hard now you won’t be able to make the shot. Just as he starts up the bank towards me he must have seen me or smelt me because as fast as it had happened he turned 90 degrees and silently started walking away, down the valley bottom to my right, out of sight. I blew it.
 
I settled myself down; I sat down on the edge of the road and got into a good stable shooting position. I only saw him once more as he silently walked through the Christmas trees at the bottom of the valley away from me.
 
Just as I was started to lose hope I see some movement in the distance. It is a nice whitetail doe and her fawn and they are standing in the little clearing right where I did my business. That right there blew my mind. I watched them for while just hanging out right next what I would have thought would scare game out of the area.


Just then I see the moose again, far away on the adjacent hill, heading right toward where my father in law is. He’s too far away for my shooting ability and I don’t seem him for more than a split second anyways.


So I watch doe and her fawn hanging around my business for another five minutes when I hear a shot. This time just one and it is right from where my father in law is. He must have got the moose I had missed my chance with. Strangely, neither the doe nor her fawn seemed to care that much about the shot. They tensed for a second, but then went right back to eat and sniffing around. I get on the radio and he tells me that the moose ran right across the road in front of him and he took a shot at it through the Christmas trees, but that it was a clean miss. So I packed up and headed to him to help him look just in case he tagged it. 



As I walked back towards the doe and her fawn neither of them seemed to care that I was coming. I watched them the whole way until I was about 50 feet from them and then they both went tails up into the tree line. This doe and her fawn changed so many of the ideas I had about hunting. They didn’t care about my smell, the shot, or me walking right towards them. We talked a lot about this doe and her fawn later.

When I got up to my father in law he had been doing circles around where the moose was when he took his shot, but there was no sign of blood at all. We decided that I would follow his tracks into the bush while my father in law would try to circle around in case I would flush him out. I followed his tracks for a while and we came to a clearing and I saw my father in law in the distance. He signalled for me to keep going, so I got back on the tracks and followed them through until we met up on the road.


I said to my father in law that I think perhaps we have spooked him and should go back to camp for lunch to let the area calm down and try again in the afternoon. We chatted a bit in a quiet voice and then my father in law said he through we should give it another 20 minutes. He gave a nice long cow call and we just stood there in the open scanning the tree line.


Just as I swing around, I see something big and black standing on the ridgeline about 150m away. “Is that a moose?” I said out loud. “Where?” “On the ridgeline over there… It is a moose. He’s got antlers.” As I say it I lift up my rifle and look through the scope, it’s a front on shot and I decide instinctively that I would be better off kneeling. I take a knee, safety off, breath out, line up, BOOM! He drops on the spot like a sack of hammers as I rack another, and after a second or two put the safety back on. Now the adrenaline hits and my heart is beating in my ears. Did that just happen? My father in law tells me that he didn’t even see the moose until I took a knee and as soon as he realized I was about to shoot all he could do was put his fingers in his ears.


With my heart pounding I started second guessing myself. Were those antlers or just really big ears? Oh no, did I just shoot a cow? Did I rush that too much? I see him thrash about for a second. I look through my scope and I see his head and antlers. Thank goodness. Probably unnecessarily, I flip the safety off and put a round right between his eyes just to make sure it’s over and he isn’t suffering. I’ll reassemble the skull bits later to mount the antlers.


 
Notice the flies around my head.  It was the warmest day of the trip.  Also note the broken tines on his right side.
As I walk up to him I check my GPS and see that it was 155m from where I shot to where he was. I found that my first shot was right into his collar, hit his spine and blew out his lungs, the second shot really wasn’t necessary, but everything I have read is to hammer it again if it is still moving just in case and the last thing I wanted was for him to suffer at all. I could tell once I got up to him that it was the same moose I had been called in before because he had broken off the paddle on his right side, probably in a fight of some kind. He was nicely on a slope so we were able to field dress him easily before heading back to camp to grab some guys to help us load him into the truck. My father in law stood guard with the rifle and I had a can of bear spray at the ready in case the shots were interpreted as a dinner bell by one of the bears in the area. It was an easy pull down hill and we used a deactivation ditch in the road to slide him right into the bed of the truck. That could have been so much harder. The only difficult part was the flies were out and they were right in your nose and eyes the whole time.
My moose in a friend's truck

Just as we were finishing up, our friends hunting the neighbouring management unit got a nice big moose, and as it turned out just two hours after I got mine.

 We celebrated that night and I felt really fortunate to have been able to get my first moose with my father in law and that we had worked so well as a team to get him. It’s not the prettiest, or the biggest rack by any stretch, but the memories from getting my first moose are priceless to me. 

The next day we walked into another area and heard wolves all around us. We waited a while but none of them came out. We decided to go back to the area where the guys had gotten the whitetail and as we drove in with the truck we saw another grizzly in the middle of the slash where the gut pile was. We decided to fish the rest of the afternoon and caught our limit.



The next day while I was doing my business, this time in the outhouse, I heard two shots ring out. It was our family friend and he had gotten his moose! It turns out it was in the slash where the whitetail gut pile was and the grizzly was the day before. I loaded the defender with slugs and was on bear patrol while they field dressed it and pulled it out. 



The trip was a raging success. We filled our two LEH tags for the three of us in our group and our friends got one of their two moose, and apart from the close encounter with the grizzlies I wouldn’t have changed a thing. As a bonus we also caught lots of trout. I can’t wait for whitetail in November. 



Two moose hanging in quarters
Once we got home I set to work cooking moose and trout and mounting the antlers to commemorate my first moose.

I did the mount myself and it now adorns my workshop

Moose sirloin steak
Moose sirloin steak
Lemon Rainbow Trout

Moose - Korean Short Ribs
Moose - Korean Short Ribs


Moose - Korean Short Ribs

Moose - Korean Short Ribs

Moose - Dutch Meatballs
  To note, it is 2018 now and I have still been enjoying this moose.  Yes, it has kept well in my freezer with no noticeable deterioration.  It was a lot of meat to share with my father in law! It was a trip of a lifetime and I remember it fondly with every meal.