2021 Nonstop Moose hunt

[JPD350]

A little preface and a long story short, 3.5 years ago live2huntelk/Rick and I started talking about elk and moose hunting, he wanted to go a few years down the road and I was kind of wanting to go sooner. I had two Alaskan moose adventures already under my belt and thought I was set up to go again with another friend. Meanwhile, Rick continued planning for a 2021 moose hunt. My hunt fell thru and not 2 weeks later Rick asked me if I was interested to go with Renfro’s in 2021. Rick had booked a hunt and was looking for a partner, after some thought I jumped on the opportunity.

We arrived at Renfro’s on the 17th of September and was scheduled to fly into the field the 19th of September. Alaska Airlines had misplaced Rick’s big duffle which had most of our DIY camping gear good amount of gear in it. Rick went to work on locating his bag with Alaska Airlines. Renfro’s was ready to fly us in a day early, however we didn’t have the luggage with the tipi and Rick’s sleeping gear. With more calls to AA customer service mid-morning on the 18th, it was determined that the bag was not in Seattle and was possibly in Anchorage or on the noon plane to Bethel. Talking with the guys at Renfro’s, we decided to go to the airport and wait for the baggage to come out for the noon flight. Sure enough it came out on the belt, we grabbed it and in a few hours we were waiting for the plane to take us to our location.

 

[JPD350]

The flight into the bush

 

[JPD350]

As we were setting up camp we noticed that we had a cow feeding across the water, later on a young bull came to court her but she didn’t want anything to do with him and he just chased her off. Later that evening we clear a path through the alders and went behind camp to check out a clearing. Right away Rick had a plan for what he wanted to do for the next morning. We heard bulls and cows that evening and through the night near camp.

 

[JPD350]

Opening day had us up early and ready to go. We headed to the clearing near camp and after some discussion decided that Rick was going to get out in the clearing and I would stay back a bit and call. Action started right away, we had bulls and cows going off in at least 3 locations around us, but none would come in. After a couple hours, we figured the bulls were just chasing cows like we had seen the evening before and weren’t interested in us. We were stoked hearing all the nearby bull grunts and cow moans and knew they were not far.

 

[JPD350]

After the morning hunt, we ate lunch on the bank overlooking the marsh across the water. I was looking at OnX satellite pics of the area on my phone and an area stood out to me. I mentioned to Rick that I wanted to check that area out. We pumped up the raft and in an hour we were paddling towards the area. This area was only a thousand yards as a crow flies, but dang if it didn’t seem further. As we approached the area we looked for a spot on the shoreline to pull into. We found a spot where the grass had perfect docking slots built by beavers, otters and moose. We unloaded and walked up to the alders, which were only 20 yds from the water. I started cow calling and Rick raked the bushes like a frustrated bull. To our surprise, immediately we heard a grunt. We called again to confirm he was coming; he was, and fast. After checking the wind, we knew right away that we were not in a good spot. We quickly moved 50 yds down wind along the shoreline to a better spot. Rick was going to stay at the tree and be the caller while I moved up 5 yds to a higher clump of grass and was the shooter. I was almost there when a cow popped out of the alders and was looking in my direction. I stopped and stayed still for a minute or two until she moved across the clearing. As the cow moved across the clearing, we could see the bull coming out of the alders in the back of the little clearing. That was a heck of a sight! First the trees start moving, then a huge antlered moose materializes, busting thru the alders like they were twigs. He was on a mission to keep up with his sweetheart that didn’t want anything to do with him! The bull skirted across the back of the clearing so fast that I didn’t have time to get fully set up, but as he went behind the trees Rick quickly raked the tree with the elk scapula that I brought. The bull immediately turned to come back and see who was raking the tree in his territory. Without hesitation, the bull came to the raking with intentions of intimidating the other bull and ready to fight. By then, I was already looking thru my rifle scope and in about a second I had a spot and fired. I looked back at Rick and said I am moving up to see if I can get another shot off. I moved about 10 yds and could see him quartering away at about 30 yds. I put another 300 WM bullet in him. The bull went down and quickly expired. I thought holy crap, I just killed a moose! It all happened so fast.

 

[JPD350]

More pics

 

[JPD350]

I have to say that when I kill things early on a hunt it kind of feels like I missed out on a part of the hunt that I crave. I love the long grueling chess match of hunting. I had been to Alaska twice before, both were long incredible moose hunts loaded with ups and downs, but I did not kill. Even though this kill happened on the first day and without many days of ups and downs and hardships, it didn’t matter because it has been an 8 year journey for me which was filled with immense wilderness and amazing wildlife that only Alaska can give.

This is a pic Rick "put together" it shows what a bad ass bull he looked like coming out of the alders.

 

[JPD350]

Back to the hunt, we got the bull quartered and hung the meat bags to cool overnight. We started rowing back to camp around midnight. The night was calm and the full moon was out. We were slowly cruising up the calm slough, when out of nowhere a beaver came up within 2 feet from the raft and smacked his tail on the surface of the water in an effort to scare us away from his nearby beaver dam. It provided a quick scare and adrenaline rush. How cool is that!

We spent the second day getting the meat back to camp which took a good part of the day. It seemed as if the wind would blow against us no matter if we were coming or going, and send us into spin no matter how hard we tried to paddle and steer the raft. What fun!

 

[JPD350]

Later the second day, we got back to camp and started cooking some tenderloin for dinner. While cooking dinner, we heard some raking in the clearing behind camp. Rick said he was going to go check it out. Rick was gone for about 2 minutes, I heard him calling then boom!! I turned the burner off and heard another shot, I couldn’t get there fast enough! I ran through the 20yards of alders and saw Rick walking towards his bull. He looked back at me and the expression of disbelief on his face was like oh shit I just killed a moose!

 

[JPD350]

Wow, we just get done with one and put another one on the ground. We took pics, deciding if we were going to just gut and quarter it up in the morning since it was in the 20’s at night. We went back to camp and finished cooking the tenderloin with potatoes and onions. The meat was so tender you could cut it with a plastic spoon and the flavor was mild and delicious, what a day and it wasn’t even over!

After dinner we got to work on Ricks bull. We started skinning the top half of the bull to let the meat cool down and was the going to gut it and come back in the morning to finish quartering it up. However, Rick got his second wind and we worked on his bull till 3 am getting the whole moose skinned and most the meat hung. We were up early and dragged the meat quarters back to camp on a piece of Tyvek type roofing. Then bad weather came in and pushed us into the tipi for the rest of the day and night.

 

[JPD350]

The next day we made 2 nice tarp covered meat poles and got all of the meat neatly hung. The meat was doing good and temps were perfect to stay in the bush as long as we wanted. We figured we had plenty of time to explore the area and maybe get some good videos and pics………….wrong! About 4 am I was awakened by a beaver splashing his tail. Then a few minutes later I heard a couple of thuds on land. I laid there for about 10 seconds contemplating what I just heard. Then it dawned on me and I yelled I think there’s a bear. I flew out of the tipi towards my meat pole that was 10 yds behind the tipi and sure enough the bear had eaten a whole tenderloin, ripped open the hind quarter bag and ate the testicle I had attached to it. He ripped open the back strap bag, I assume they fell on top of him and the straps hitting the ground is the noise I heard. He must have taken off when he heard me coming out of the tipi. I picked up the meat and re bagged the hind quarter so we stayed up the rest of the night making sure he didn’t come back. The next day we brushed in the meat poles thinking that we would be able to hear the bear breaking branches trying to get to the meat. We also let Renfro’s know about the bear and they let us know that they were 2 days behind because of weather and they would not be able to do a meat pick up.


So night time came and we were thinking our brushed in meat poles were of good quality and it would take a few minutes for the bear to gain access and we should be able to hear the branches breaking…………Wrong!

 

[JPD350]

In the prior post you can see the bait bag

Sometime in the night I heard the bear trying to get Ricks meat right next to the tipi, we flew out of the tipi yelling at the bear and chased him off, after a bit we were sitting around dosing off, all of a sudden we hear the moose calls that were tied to the string making noise then whoosh the calls took off, Fish On!!! We ran out of the tipi and the bear dropped the bag cause the calls got hung up on a log, I had just missed seeing the bear, but as I was looking into the alders I could hear him huffing and chomping his teeth at me. I yelled a few choice comments at him and he went away. Meanwhile, at 2 am in the morning, Rick was busy leaving another in reach text message for Renfro’s that the bear was in camp and got more meat and would not leave. Renfro’s replied back to our reach message the next morning and said they got the message and would be back in touch.





Not knowing if Renfro’s was going to pick up meat left us breaking down my meat pole and making a new cache in front of the tipi next to Ricks meat. At least with it within 5 yards from the tipi door, we could easily hear the bear trying to snag a snack. As we were almost finished with the base layer of the cache we got a text from Renfro’s. They said 2 planes were on the way and we should breakdown camp and get all the camp and meat to the shoreline ready to be picked up. After the message was delivered, we were both like oh shoot we got a lot of work to do!!! We were only hoping for a meat pick up and not a complete extraction. We went into a full Chinese fire drill to get it all the meat down to the shoreline and tear down camp. Just as we sat down on the river bank from 2 hours of nonstop fun, we hear a plane coming in our direction. Shortly after that a second float plane approached. We had finished the breakdown just in the nick of time.

 

[Mt Al]

Awesome story!! Keep it coming. Pic of the Pristine Venture raft with two racks is KILLER!! more. More. MORE. MOAR!!

 

[z987k]

I cannot recommend a bear fence enough.

 

[Panhandler80]

Wow!

I’ll need to reread that one in the morning.

Question…. On bull 1…. You left me meat hung up near the kill site after the boat paddle, right?

I wonder if the second kill right at camp was the root cause of the problem bear. Those two nights sound terrible! The prospect of taking off into the darkness to hopefully push off an unidentified and bear(s) and having not seen it’s demeanor is a pretty tall order! As is breaking down all if camp, moving meat and taking care of boat in two hours.

Maybe I’m not man enough for this trip!

 

[JPD350]

That's all I wrote but the 2 days getting back to the hanger deboning meat and getting it ready to ship was hectic to say the least. Everyone seemed to be coming out at the same time.
Once I flew home I had to drive to Denver and pick up the meat because AAC didn't fly to Abq, it was non stop until I got the meat in the freezer.

Hopefully Rick will chime in and also post more pics, I'll get more later as well.
Some of these pics are Ricks, he took some great plane pics

 

[JPD350]

Wow!

I’ll need to reread that one in the morning.

Question…. On bull 1…. You left me meat hung up near the kill site after the boat paddle, right?

I wonder if the second kill right at camp was the root cause of the problem bear. Those two nights sound terrible! The prospect of taking off into the darkness to hopefully push off an unidentified and bear(s) and having not seen it’s demeanor is a pretty tall order! As is breaking down all if camp, moving meat and taking care of boat in two hours.

Maybe I’m not man enough for this trip!

Right, we hung the meat at the kill site mostly because we didn't want to do the night time boat ride full of meat.

I was ready to wrestle him, I know that was not real smart but I was feeling possessive of the meat cache and I couldn't help myself. I was pretty sure it was a smallish black bear, Rick actually saw him but I don't recall him saying how big he was.

 

[AZGUY]

Wow, Great hunt! Thanks for sharing. How was it getting the meat home and how much were you able to get back?

 

[JPD350]

You bet!
I brought home 425lbs of meat and a 64lb of antlers for around 600.00
I had to donate/share one front quarter because I didn't have enough time to debone it, I am good since it went to the local folks. It was also a very clean quarter, some of the jack offs donated meat that looked horrible. I would like those guys to have to cut a chunk off and eat it before donating or else they can take the meat home or get a ticket for wasting it.

 

[AKDoc]

Thank you for sharing with us! It's a great write-up and wonderful pictures of a genuine Alaska adventure!

I especially appreciate your dedication to meat care as part of your experience...extremely well done guys! I would have enjoyed meeting you and shaking your hands, but I was already in the field. Enjoy that wonderful meat...you earned it!

The very best to you guys!