**2021 AK Moose Hunt** DIY Float Trip

[SHSU18]

Great write up so far!

[Uncle_Milty]

Would y’all stop bumping this thread

Truth.

Bump

[gglover]

Tease

[diamond10x]

**2021 AK Moose Hunt** DIY Float Trip

I get up, grab my rifle and camera, and slowly start to creep the 14-15 yards or so. It seems like I’m stepping on every dang aspen leaf that’s fallen off the trees in the last several days. I can’t help but wonder if this crunching of the leaves will spook this bull if he’s still around or possibly bring him back. I finally get to where the bull is at and sure enough there are his tracks. They’re leading straight down the back side of this ridge toward the meadow. As soon as my eyes reach the meadow, before I can even focus my eyesight, I can see this bull standing there next to a small lone spruce. He’s facing directly away making him look bigger than what he really is. He’s not moving but his ears keep twitching back and forth. He has his attention focused off in front of him sort of to his right. He’s probably 150-175 yards from me. At this point I’ve got my rifle up, free handing, trying to judge his width. It’s he looks really good from this view but it’s not obvious if he’s over 50. I need a frontal head on view for several seconds to legitimately figure out if he’s 50”. The bull starts to sway side to side as he’s walking in the direction he’s had his attention focused to. He’s also grunting a little bit. “What the heck? He can’t think that that cow he heard is down there,” I say to myself.







I peek over my scope to look with my eyes. Directly in the direction where this bull has his attention locked on to, there’s two big yellow paddles gleaning in the sun. Another bull! He looks better but it’s hard to tell as he slips through the spruce. He’s swaying back and forth raking trees headed straight for the bull I just called in. This could get wild! I focus all my attention on this new bull that I see. Zoom my scope in and try to figure out if he’s legal. It’s too hard to tell right away. I can see he has more than three brow tines on one side. He has to have four or more. The bulls do their thing, strutting towards each other swaying back and forth. They circle each other several times, sizing each other up. Smacking their antlers on spruce, dragging them through the grass and slinging mud and grass when they pick up their head. This goes on for about 15 minutes or so. These bulls dance around each other like little Banty (Bantam) roosters. Chests all puffed out with their necks all stiff, grunting at each other. I can’t believe what’s going on. It’s like something straight from a Jim Shockey video I would watch as a little kid. I catch myself standing there in awe at the situation. I’m not even trying to figure out if one of these bulls are legal I’m so caught up in the moment. Finally come to and start to get frantic trying to figure out which bull is better and if he’s legal. I can’t get the looks I need and if I do it’s not long enough to figure out. After watching these bulls for some time I start to grunt at them from atop the ridge ,”GLUUUCK… GLLUUUCK!” It has no effect as these bulls are so focused on each other. I start grabbing branches around me and breaking them off hoping that’ll do something. Nothing. These bulls might just end up locking up! I grab a log near me that’s about 1.5-2” in diameter and start smacking it against other branches like there’s another bull raking his antlers. This again has zero effect. I cannot get their attention off one another. Finally after about 20 minutes from the initial time this all started, the bull I called in starts to slowly make his way off to the left. It’s seeming as if he’s the loser of the stand-off and he slowly walks about 200 yards away and just stops at the edge of the spruce. Meanwhile this second bull with the multiple brow tines is staring him down the whole way, never taking another step. Next thing I know a cow pops out from the spruce into this meadow. The multi brow tine bull starts to push her back in where she came from. This causes the other bull to start making his way back over, but he’s cut off pretty quick by the victor (multi brow bull). The cow gets pushed into this little circle patch of spruce in the meadow and the multi brow bull follows her. As soon as they disappear in there the original bull I called in slowly makes his exit out of the meadow. I decide to let him walk because he’s just too close to be certain he’s legal and no way I can afford to make an over zealous mistake. Unless a bull is obvious right away it’s over 50 or there’s plenty of time with multiple eyes that he’s no less than about 54-55” I’m not pulling the trigger. This spruce patch is in this meadow where I can just about watch all the way around it so I know this bull is in there.




I decide this is the time I need to grab my hiking sticks to shoot off of and at least use to get a steadier view of this other bull that I need.I can tell he has 3 but I can’t tell if there’s more or not. Go grab my sticks and come and sit back down, posted up with my rifle ready to go. I watch for probably 20 min or so with nothing happening. I’m starting to get a little agitated because I’m alone and if I had either of my hunting partners there to help pick these bulls apart there might be one or both laying dead in that meadow. “What if that was my chance?” Start playing a dozen different scenarios out, kicking myself for not bringing that scapula, all while staying focused on this spruce patch. I say a little prayer out loud asking the lord for help, then ask “grandpa if you’re watching this, sure could use a little help as well.” Not 30 minutes goes by and I hear my dad and brother making their way along this ridge towards me. This can’t be real. It takes about 20 minutes to get over here from camp. It’s 4:00pm and they said they wouldn’t be here til 5:00 and that was if they even made it out here today. They make it to me and they’re all excited seeing me set up basically ready to shoot. I give them the run down and they watch the video I took and are really pumped up. They watch the meadow so I can go grab my pack and bring it over. I get back and we decide to talk over a plan to try and get this bull out to get a better look. We decide let’s rake a tree with a bit of authority, a few grunts and breaking of sticks thrown in, and hopefully that’ll get him to poke his head out.

My dad walks down the ridge about 80 yards and starts raking on a tree. Gives it the juice. Me and my brother look at each other like “ohhh that might have been a little too aggressive.” We wait. Don’t hear or see anything for an hour. By this time it’s about 5:30. We are stuck on either waiting it out til dark or we go get in this bulls face and challenge him. We talk it over and we all agree it would be a waste of time to sit here and watch this spot til dark and end up seeing nothing. We decide my dad will back off the raking a little bit and just start making his way raking once every few minutes closer and closer to this spruce patch. He’s also going to need to grunt some and drag the scapula across some bushes along the way. No sooner does he start and the cow I had seen earlier comes busting out of the spruce almost full sprint. She’s coming from the back corner area about 400 yards off, headed right for the small circular patch of spruce. She almost makes it there and the multi brow tune bull comes in hauling butt after her. He heard the raking my dad is doing and he stops and starts going to town on a big 20’ tall spruce. What a show! He disappears into the small circular patch of spruce with that cow. I whisper to my brother “you better be Johnny on the spot when he pops out. You’re just looking at his right brow that’s it, nothing else. If he’s got 4 or more just say 4, I’ll be on him and as soon as I hear 4, I’m gonna send it! But, you better be dang sure!” He has his spotter out and turned up to about 35 or 40x. I have one ear plug in and the other out so I can hear my brother and I’m ready to shoot if need be. I can’t hardly finish what I’m saying and the bull pokes his head out, he’s got half his body and full vitals, sticking out. He’s glued on my dad raking a tree. The cow then steps out and she seems real interested in what my dad is doing. The bull then starts to watch her. She starts acting silly and takes off into the spruce out of the meadow. The bull looks like he’s about to, to follow her. “Four” my brother whispers. Before he can even finish saying the word my rifle rings out. The bull backs up into the spruce and starts to run out the way he came. I’m chambering another round trying to find him in the scope to send another lead pull his way. “Shoot him again” my brothers saying. I send another one. The bull makes it about 6 or 7 more steps and takes a stumble and roll. He goes down. In all the excitement we’re sure we saw him go down but can’t figure out which spruce trees it was by. We’re all nervous and aren’t celebrating. I stay loaded and ready to shoot if we see him stand up again. My brother works his way down the ridge a ways to see from a different angle when I hear ,”WE GOT HIM!” We all dog pile and hug for a few minutes we’re so excited. I’m pretty sure there was probably a few tears that welled up in the corner of all our eyes.


We start to make our way down to the bull. I’m still nervous if this bull has 4 or more brow tines. I trust my brother with my life 100% but it’s still just a scary moment, about like a sheep hunted checking in a ram. We get up to him and he’s got 5 on his right side. I’m blown away by the moment and everything that’s transpired over this whole trip and finally here is my moose I’ve waited 4 years, technically a lifetime, for. I had forgot just how big an Alaskan bull moose is. I can’t hardly lift one side of his antlers to look at him. To put into perspective for people that don’t know, if you tried to wrap your arms around it’s neck, I guarantee you couldn’t touch your hands together. If you’ve been around moose up here and seen cows and calves in town, a bull is at minimum double their size. We take pictures and high five, hug, laugh, talk about what all just happened. Finally it’s time for the work to begin. My dad begins to skin this bull while my brother and I head back to camp to get our game bags, tarps, moth balls, parachord, extra knives and sharpener.

We’ve got a lot of work to do this evening and tonight and a big day of packing out meat tomorrow. It takes my brother and I about an hour and a half to get back to camp and get back. We get back and my dad has one whole side skinned and a backstrap ready to go. We get there just in time so we can start getting the quarters off. Luckily we still have some daylight to work in so things are going smooth and quickly. As the sun starts going down the temp is dropping quick. It’s already been about 45 degrees but it’s starting to get chilly. This bull is getting stiff quick. Everything is getting frost building up on it or icing up. With the bull getting so stiff we struggle to get the carcass rolled over to finish breaking him down. We finally do and have to take a break to regain our composure to finish cutting up the other side since it took so much energy. We finish up by about 11:00pm and my brother and I are going to get one load of meat each, out tonight. This way we aren’t making any wasted trips back and forth. When you’re carrying 100lb+ loads, each hike through here wastes energy. This meadow from the ridge looked nice and solid but after getting down and walking through it, it’s marshy. Floating islands of vegetation and grass. It could be much worse so we’re thankful for that. We load the packs and get to hiking. It’s almost a mile and half back to camp. It takes about a little over an hour to get back. We get back and get the meat hung. It’s the straps & loins, and one whole side of the neck. It’s funny, there’s more meat in the straps or side of neck than an entire whitetail. One inner loin alone is the equivalent or more than both straps on a whitetail. We get a fire going in the stove and warm up and enjoy a hot meal and the relief of stress from getting a moose down.



Left palm sort of grew 3 different ways

Brow making him legal and also the kicker on one of his tines

Day 17

To be continued…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SmTx]

edit: removed

[txoutdoorsman24]

Heck yea man. Can’t wait for the next post!!!

See the LDPs now. What a beast. Congrats!!!

[GarGuy]

Now we are cookin!!!

[Jet Black]

Boom! Congrats!

[HouCav]

Great storytelling. Thanks, & congratulations

[SmTx]

With LDPs added I'll post my original comment I removed so folks could read without spoilers.

"“Four” my brother whispers. Before he can even finish saying the word my rifle rings out." I've been following this all week and dangit did that give me goosebumps! Awesome job y'all!

[GarGuy]

I know I'm from east tx but that other moose looks big too!

[slayr]

I know I'm from east tx but that other moose looks big too!

I’m hoping Day 17 has something to do with the other moose as they make their way in to pack out the meat.

[lanceodom]

Babam!!! I feel like I’m right there on the ridge with y’all!! Congrats!!

[rjtkdplus]

Wow! Trip of a lifetime! Congrats!

[Olympic Recurve]

This is so awesome, congrats to all and thanks for taking us along!