**2019 Moose Hunt** DIY Float Trip

[diamond10x]

curious, did you put the grizz fence up around ya'll while you were quartering the animal?

No it stays around the tipi. It’s a bit of a hassle to put up but it’s nice to have around there for another precaution.

[diamond10x]

THHHWAP! I'd have to imagine the impact on a big bull moose sounds like a big boar getting thumped.

A little bit. You could hear the impact and then a report of the bullet making its way through the cavity, pretty wild to hear.

[diamond10x]

Man this is so good. Congrats to your dad on the moose and y'all also very hard earned. Can't wait to read the rest of the story. What caliber rifle was your dad shooting?

7mm rem mag with 168 vld berger’s. They did a good number on him and impressed me. Honestly felt like they performed better than they do for me on elk out of my 7mag. But he’s got a 26” barrel as where mines a 24”.

[diamond10x]

This thread is nothing short of awesome.

I would love to hear the total cost of the trip once you have time.

If there’s enough people who want the price break down and whatever else I’ll post it. If not shoot me a PM and I can go over it all for you. I notice you’re in NB, I work and stay there during the week.

[diamond10x]

**2019 Moose Hunt** DIY Float Trip

The sun is peeking through the trees and we’re still tired from the night before with only about 2.5 hours of sleep. Today we’re blessed with almost a perfect day for packing out this meat. Not a cloud in the sky with no sign of rain. Only thing that could have been better is it being colder as it’s only in the mid 50’s or so. We get out of our bags and grab the saws to start to construct a meat cache down by the river along the bank. We chose to put it there so it would be a shorter carry to the rafts when we head down to find the next moose. Grab some big pieces of driftwood and line them up parallel to each other in a line about 20 feet long, cut some spruce trees and trim the branches off one side and lay them across perpendicular on the driftwood with the branches down towards the sand. This will allow the meat to be up off the ground with air circulating on all sides, then when we get the meat there we will put some tarps up over it in case it decides to rain.

The hike back to the meat and carcass we are making noise, rifles ready, in case of any predators by they scare off. We get to it and nothing has been disturbed the kill site. We shuck the bags off our frames and start to get loaded up. My brother and I decided we would pack all the meat and my dad just had to get the hide and antlers once we got done, plus he still needed to skin the head.

This is where the real work begins. Do not ever underestimate the work of taking care of a moose as it is a ton of work let alone, we have to get it half a mile through this muskeg to the cache on the sand bar. First up we strap my brother in so he can get going first and I’ll come behind him in case he needs help. Get him strapped in, help him stand up and get his trekking poles and send him on his way.

In the pic you can see I have chemistry goggles and a dust mask on under that head net. I had just finished helping pull the hide out from under the carcass and I’m allergic to deer dander and it’s a real hinderance at times.



Next I get my quarter strapped to my frame and sit down to strap in myself and have my dad help me get up and get my trekking poles. I start down the same trail as my brother and off I go. It takes us an hour and fifteen minutes to get it to the cache, our backs, butt, and legs are on fire! When we get there we both just fall backwards into the cache to make it easier to unload so we’re not having to pick up each ham and move them again.

Look closely and you can see my brothers chonies, a shirt of mine as well as my dads all hanging in trees




The next load are each of the shoulders, and once again takes over an hour just to get it to where we’re keeping it. Next we take one side of the neck, as well as a bag of trimmings each. Don’t be fooled, one side of the neck is about 50lbs, not a small load. After that’s done we go back for the straps and loins, the last bag of trimmings that also has the heart and tongue. This trip my dad follows with the hide strapped to his back. The hide is enough for a shoulder mount, which we had weighed after we got out, and is 91lbs. A little bit nuts. Finally we are almost done and it’s time to start this bulls final journey and victory lap. We go back and grab our bags, strap them to our frames, grab our rifles, strap the antlers to my dads pack. The job is almost done (or so we think).







Make the hike back to the cache and get everything situated and the tarps up to cover all the meat, as well as laying the hide out to start getting air on it. By now it’s 7:30pm and we just spent an entire day packing this bull a half mile.

Day 7

The night before we decide to sleep in and when we wake, head down river in search of our next bull. We wake to cloudy skies that look like they’re about to rain. I go down to the river to brush my teeth and what not getting ready for the day and it starts a light drizzle. By the time I get done and back to camp it’s starting to pour. We decide to stay put and wait it out til it’s clear before we get on down the river. As now our biggest priority besides staying alive is taking care of the meat over hunting for another one. Since we decide to stay we have time to really cool the meat off. We breakout the plastic bags so we can put the meat in the river so all quarters with bone can get cold, getting that heat in the bone out.





All while this is going on it’s still hasn’t slowed raining. We have nothing to do besides sit in the tent and wait it out. We decide to build a fire to dry some clothes out, and while we’re waiting we will try to catch some pike big enough for some fillets and have us some real food to recover from the day before. We end up catching several pike but only 1 big enough to eat. For dinner tonight we’re breaking out the grill and having some surf and turf with ramen noodles. The greatest meal I have ever had. Glad my dad threw a few packets of ramen in the bag, after I was dogging on him for it before we left.





Day 8

It finally quit raining sometime through the night and we wake up to clear skies. We get camp packed up and begin the task of packing the rafts with our gear and meat. The rafts are loaded down and we have the meat situated and covered but allowing it to get good air flow. Take a few pics and off we head. We go down a few miles and the terrain starts to turn to rolling hills with bigger creeks coming into the continually widening valley. Different from what we have hunted thus far. We stop at several sand bars checking for sign but don’t find any promising sign so we push on. Come upon some tracks on a sand bar that couldn’t be more than 15 minutes old. He had come down a steep bank to the small bar, walked to the water to get a drink and headed back up into the timber. We try to be as quiet as possible and begin raking. Wait for an hour but decide we have to move on as there is literally no where to camp. Also, if this bull comes in there is no way to get a shot unless he runs us over. Not a good place. Back in the rafts and down the river some more to continue the adventure...






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[El General]

If there’s enough people who want the price break down and whatever else I’ll post it. If not shoot me a PM and I can go over it all for you. I notice you’re in NB, I work and stay there during the week.

I'd love to hear about the budget and logistics of this trip by PM or on this post. Doing a DIY moose float trip is a ton of work.

[Gclyde28]

If there’s enough people who want the price break down and whatever else I’ll post it. If not shoot me a PM and I can go over it all for you. I notice you’re in NB, I work and stay there during the week.

Im interested in this.

[rut-ro]

If there’s enough people who want the price break down and whatever else I’ll post it. If not shoot me a PM and I can go over it all for you. I notice you’re in NB, I work and stay there during the week.

I’m interested as well

[James]

My favorite thread in a long time, congrats so far! I’m around NB also, I’ll have to buy you a beer one day

[lanceodom]

any issues adding all that weight to the rafts? That is something I would not have thought about I am sure!

[NotJose]

Great stuff!! Keeps getting better!!


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[slicktricker]

I know that was a ton of work to just haul that load to the rivers edge. All the respect in the world sir!

[GarGuy]

That moose in that raft is just nuts.

[Chance Love]

Big congrats to y'all! Such a cool thing to go do.

I don't usually read through all these types of threads, but this one has my FULL attention!

Honestly, I thought you HAD to use a guide to hunt moose up there. Don't know why I had that idea in my head. I will be contacting you via PM about this. Maybe I actually CAN check this off my bucket list. Yukon moose is my #1.

[Aojeda355]

If there’s enough people who want the price break down and whatever else I’ll post it. If not shoot me a PM and I can go over it all for you. I notice you’re in NB, I work and stay there during the week.

On here or a PM, I'm in a position to where in a year or so I hope to be planning my own trip.