2022 ALASKA MOOSE 14-DAY DIY (and a preseason 10-day float)

[AKDoc]

Preface: The rainfall levels in August and much of September were historically high in many parts of Alaska this year. It was a good reminder year for me that there are so many moving parts completely outside my control when actually going on a remote dropped fly-in hunt or float that has been scheduled far in advance…especially true in extremely remote parts of Alaska.

I say that because I don’t want to appear at all like I’m complaining as I describe the overall context of my hunting (and floating) experiences this year in the following narratives. Regardless of what each adventure throws my way, I try to repeatedly remind myself that one thing is always within my total control, i.e., my mental attitude along the way. Nothing controls my emotions except me…that is much easier said than done on some trips, and I’m always learning to do better.

BTW, I had an amazing hunting moment this year to share! I am nothing but thankful for every adventure!

****************

As anticipated, the wx was indeed challenging this year for our moose hunt in our location…not mission impossible…but heavy winds, rain, and one storm after the other for many days…one was massive.

Wx had everything backed-up for everyone when we first arrived at our hub village. Spent a couple of delayed days in the hangar and over-nites in Bethel, which isn’t the easiest place to kill time for me, but I enjoyed meeting other hunters and sharing experiences. These wx delays have only happened to me a few times over the past nine years with my transporter, but it can and does happen with remote drop fly-in hunts in rural Alaska…everyone should get ready for that possibility as part of your planning process. My transporter tried to get me into the field on day #2, but the wind wasn’t quite right for a safe landing at our planned location, so we returned to Bethel. I appreciated his effort and prioritizing our safety…he burned some extra-expensive fuel trying…thank you sir, as always.

Here are a couple photos I took as we successfully approached our hunting area on the third day…the last photo is within a few miles of our hunting drop. We saw countless moose all around us on approach…not visible in these photos because I was too busy head-swiveling and looking at all those moose while simultaneously tightening my seat-harness for our tundra landing on those big bouncy tires…no time to take pictures at those moments!

 

[AKDoc]

We have fortunately always taken two bulls on these hunts, and then shared our meat across our grateful families and friends. The good wx windows this year were few and relatively short in duration, and we were repeatedly mindful that it would likely be tight for us two older guys to do responsible meat retrieval without the meat getting wet in the next rain, which seemed to always be just around the corner on many of our hunting days. My hunting friend just turned 70, and I turn 70 next week, so we do move slower.

We prioritize bringing home quality meat and doing responsible field-care once the animal is down, e.g., careful field butchering, keeping meat dry in the process, getting all meat loads back to camp that day, and having meat hanging dry and bagged under the tented meat-pole that we make every year, etc. I’m sure many/most/all fellow ‘sliders here share those values. A huge rack is a bonus for us.

On our hunt the longer/drier wx windows occurred in the first two-days of our hunt with one exception on hunting Day #8 discussed later, but the wind was really heavy and pretty consistently strong throughout those first few days, e.g., 30-35mph. Moose generally don’t like to move in strong wind, nor is calling very productive in heavy wind at least in my experience. Conversely, those particular first few nights were oddly super-calm with a full moon…so the moose were partying all night and then sacked-out all day sleeping it off while hunkered-down out of the strong wind.

Some good viewing moments between the rains those first couple days.

On evening #2 we saw a predominantly white wolf all by itself about 300yds out. Just a 20 second moment in time…it was on the move. Phone was in my pocket in the quick-draw, but my rifle wasn’t in my hands, so no shot. I took about a half-dozen quick pictures.

The highly detailed image below shows just how amazing and contrastingly white that wolf truly was in our tundra setting. I am, of course, being sarcastic because that photo of the wolf is…well…it sucks…all those photos did! I had to buy a new phone this summer, so I got an iPhone-13 Pro, which I do like. I’ve always used Lifeproof ™ cases with my previous phones when in the field, but that case for this phone model didn’t work consistently well for me in several ways…one of the ways is shared in that photo!

 

[AKDoc]

On morning #3 we had a brief window of calm-wind, and I called a paddle-head from nearly 500yds out that I had spotted (Point A in photo). Got him to come to 45yds before he winded us. He was a really healthy guy, and we chose to give him time to mature, so we let him walk (remember his location in the photo, and remember Point B).

BTW…the white plastic kitchen bags you see are in place to mark the beginning of the landing threshold of our “private runway”!

 

[AKDoc]

It turned out to be good that we didn’t take the paddle-head because soon after that moment and all that nite…and the following several days/nites…it was one storm right after the other with heavy winds and blowing rain, which grounded flights, prohibited meat pick-up, and backed-up everything once again.

My son is a helicopter pilot, who was working at a remote site just a few mountain ridges from our location. On day #5 he gave me a heads-up via inReach that the next storm was going to be massive, coming our way that nite and continuing the next couple of days. He suggested that we move our tents to the greatest cover possible for the next few days, which we thankfully did for more reasons than one (explained later). Our transporter also sent a similar warning and recommendation to everyone in the field later that day as well.

We relocated our camp to a willow thicket 50yds away, and pitched our tents in a slightly recessed grassy area down-wind of close cover. It was actually a moose bedding area, and I pitched my tent on a well-used bed. I also relocated our day-shelter tipi as well, and on the first day of increasingly crazy winds I removed the center pole (just in case) before bedding down that nite in my tent.

That particular storm turned-out to be the residual of typhoon Merbok, which set historic/damaging records as it pounded parts of the western Alaska coast…we were about a hundred miles inland from the coast and in the southern part of its path as it came ashore. My son told me that the recorded high winds from a remote field wx station very near our location were at least 60+mph during that storm.

 

[AKDoc]

On the second and final day/nite of the major storm, it became calm around sunset (previous photo of our dome tents), and it remained calm through the nite, which was unusually quiet for me after several nites of hearing the tent getting pounded and slammed by the wind and strong gusts all nite.

I woke-up to a very calm morning (day #8), and quietly exited my tent at early light around 7:45am. I slowly stood-up as I got out of my tent. As I was looking around I quickly saw a large bull at the very edge of a spruce/willow strip on the far side of a clearing about 300+ yards out (point B in previous photo)…he was looking directly at me.

I had not moose-called for two-days due to the storm. He started quietly coming my way immediately as I saw him because he had already seen me first…he had apparently seen my movement as I slowly stood-up from behind my tent. He was walking towards a willow trench/thicket that was directly between us…that thicket was about 100yds out from me (the exact location of the paddle-head in previous photo). I crouched down low, got my rifle, crawled forward about ten yards on the tundra, and assumed a solid sitting position…and waited.

The bull came out on our side of that willow trench about 90yds out, and that’s where he stopped walking my way. He was looking directly at me…head on, full frontal. That was as close as he was going to come. After looking at me for several minutes, he started to turn to go back. I immediately did a cow call, and he abruptly turned back around full frontal, looking directly at me again. I had a solid rest in my sitting position with the cross-hairs directly between his eyes. I handload my own ammo, and I have used my custom Lilja barreled rifle for over 25yrs in Alaska each fall, zeroed for 100. I felt very comfortable and confident with the shot…I squeezed the trigger.

I heard an immediate whack after the shot, and the bull dropped right in place and out of sight. I continued sitting in my shooting position, and after about a minute I saw his rear-end slowly rising as his hind-legs struggled to a standing position, followed by an even more strenuous effort to get his front-legs under him to fully stand, which he wobblily did, and then he started to stagger-step away. I immediately shot him again on the second step, and he dropped in place…and stayed dropped.

A 64”, 5 X 3 bull in his prime. The widest rack on a bull I have ever personally taken of the countless moose I have had the good fortune to take for over thirty-years hunting up here…my children were raised on moose meat.

 

[AKDoc]

About five-minutes after that last shot, five cows were suddenly standing right at the same location where the bull first appeared at the distant edge of the clearing…and they were all looking directly at me, apparently momentarily uncertain about my role in their future LOL! He was definitely the dominant bull already on a group of cows. This is the very first time in my moose hunting history that I have had a dominant bull on cows actually leave them to come to me…and I wasn’t even calling or scraping…just standing-up from behind my tent. I am convinced that our tents were attractants/decoys for his interest, and then immediately approached when he saw my movement from behind the tent…especially when pitched on a well-used bedding area!

My first shot hit directly at midline between his eyes, but low (about half-way between his eyes and nose). Turns out he he was in the process of lifting his nose after my cow call to smell my direction just as I was squeezing the trigger with cross-hairs between his eyes.

The area where he dropped on the first shot was saturated with sprayed blood all around, which explains the blood on his rack in those preceding photos…and then blood had poured out of his nose/mouth where he died on the second shot. (Not trying to be grotesquely graphic right now, just explanatory).

 

[AKDoc]

The first bullet traveled the length of his head, passing just under his brain and glancing the spine at the base of his head…then lodging just under the hide on the far side. It’s a 270gr TSX, shot from a 375H&H. I’m getting about 2800fps at the muzzle with my handloads. The second bullet hit broadside, just below the skull at the very top vertebrae, exiting the far side.

BTW…I’m not in any way recommending that a frontal head-shot between the eyes become anyone’s new normal. I was comfortable with the shot and took it. Broad-side lung/heart is a much larger and of course effectively fatal target area.

 

[AKDoc]

Everything happened so fast that morning that I was unaware my hunting friend wasn’t feeling well. He tried as best he could to help with the work, but he was unable to do as much as he wanted that day.

Thankfully, it was surprisingly and miraculously the longest and nicest wx window of the entire hunt…overcast, cool temps with a continuous lite-breeze, and no rain at all…just perfect wx for what turned out to be pretty much an all-day chore. Got the meat bagged and hanging dry under our meat-pole, where it aged, cool and dry, under the tented tarps.

One of our transporter pilots, who is a great guy that I’ve gotten to know personally over the years, tried to pick-up our meat after hanging for a couple of days, but the cross-winds were too strong at our location, so he wisely did a missed-approach and headed back to base. Our meat hung just fine for five days until our take-out, which we did a day early. Given the wx windows and other factors, it was a one bull year for us.

My genuine and sincere thanks to the powers that be for that one day-long perfect wx window to get it all done that day…and I took the biggest bull of my life!

 

[AKDoc]

I’m going to briefly include a few pics from a preseason hundred-mile remote float in western Alaska. We did that float the last 10-days in August this year. This was our fifth time on this particular river, and wx was a factor there as well.

 

[AKDoc]

Saw over a dozen grizzlies within the first 48-hrs of that float…a few examples below. My son joined us a few years ago on this float the first week of September, and he took his first grizzly (a nine-foot boar).

 

[AKDoc]

This year the lower two-thirds of the river had several flood zones where water-loaded run-off creeks from large drainages flooded the river during/after numerous heavy rains, requiring us to line our rafts where able to do so. One of those flooded areas was previously our favorite spot for fishing large rainbows, but we didn’t even recognize it this year. Fortunately, the bottom third of the river was loaded with Silver Salmon…we had some great pan-fried salmon-steak dinners those nites!

 

[AKDoc]

Thank you all for your patience with my lengthy narratives and pictures of rainbows and a blurry wolf…I can’t believe I even did that LOL…geez…I’m a former Marine!

A few last closing comments of sincere thanks. BTW, I do not profit in any way from any of my following thankful comments about specific services, people, or gear. It just seems like the right thing to do…

Over the last nine years, I have used Wade Renfro as my transporter between fifteen to twenty times for remote moose hunts, grizzly hunts, and five different 10-day lite-raft floats…all DIY. I am so thankful for each adventure, and very thankful for Wade and his hard-working staff. Wade is a very good man in my admittedly biased opinion, knowing him and his good family for twenty-years…period. Thank you Renfro family! Reiterating once again (sorry), each trip is what it is…so many things totally outside our control when doing a fly-in trip. I just try to be truly grateful inside and humbly go with the flow. It’s always a learning opportunity for me, and I wouldn’t trade any of my trips. My son and I are planning to go moose hunting together next year with Wade. My long-time hunting friend is reluctantly tapping-out on remote adventures due to increasing health challenges. Thankfully, I’m still going strong.

I want to thank another good man…Larry Bartlett …for bringing us some truly great outdoor products, and his generous discount for fellow veteran’s. I use the heck out of my PR-49HD and my Kork (pictured in the float images), and a few years ago my wife bought me LB’s roll-up sled (it has saved my old man back from humping meat loads across tundra!). Thank you LB!

I am once again also thankful this year for my Hilleberg Staika tent…I just had to say that (again) after this trip. I’ve used it for the past eight years on my remote drop hunts out in western Alaska and on Kodiak as base-camp on a mountain goat hunt. It has been repeatedly tested by me and truly bomb-proof, even in a residual typhoon this year…and, as noted in shared photos last year and once again this year, it’s a proven effective moose attractant LOL! Below is a supplemental photo of our Staika’s pitched on an open treeless plateau for a grizzly hunt a bit further south in western Alaska several years ago. That was the first trip with my Staika, and I became an immediate fan. That lake to the left was typically white-capping from some strong winds and occasional blowing rain over the course of that 7-day hunt.

My sincere best to you all for safe and memorable hunting adventures in each of your futures!

 

[JT113]

Awesome stuff and great bull. Many of us wait for your report as if it’s a new season of Yellowstone.

 

[mooster]

Thanks for the write up & pics. Awesome trip. Incredible animal. Congrats!

 

[Bubblehide]

Congratulations and thanks for sharing!

 

[Kroach]

Awesome write up. Thanks for the time you put into it.

 

[Scottf270]

Great job and great write up! Well done. Gives me hope you are still getting it done at 70 years old!

 

[Miflatlander91]

Awesome story. I have a long ways to go but hope I'm still able to do these things when I'm your age truly impressive!

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

 

[SliverShooter]

Doc,

Thanks for sharing.

Congratulations on a fine hunt and a great bull.

Like always, You Done Good…Really Good!

 

[AKDoc]

Doc,

Thanks for sharing.

Congratulations on a fine hunt and a great bull.

Like always, You Done Good…Really Good!

Thank you guy, sincerely...that said, I greatly respect what you and KD do up here...solo hunts moving that huge animal all by yourselves!