Alaska Wilderness Moose

The two of them were discussing living in Anchorage, and their lives there, so they knew a lot more about each other than I did when I wandered away within my thoughts.

I waited for a break in their visit to discuss the sleeping arrangements. We agreed to them using the two sleeping bags, and I would sleep wrapped in a ground cloth, and the heavy coats would be my ground cover.

After cleaning camp and rehanging the food box up a tree, I went to the tent and set it up for the night. I had them in a corner away from the doorway, and I made my bedroll in front of the doorway, zipped us inside, and attempted to sleep. My pistol was clean, chambered, and on the safety. The rifle, with a shell in the chamber, was on the safety at the doorway. Of course, we could hear the noises outside the tent more clearly in the dark, or at least it seemed that way.

I then remembered the sleeping bag could have the leeches, and when I inquired, Tina told me she had shaken it viciously, and they were using it as a cover to the other one and had zipped the two sleeping bags together as a double bed. I asked no more questions, pulled the watch cap down over my head, and zipped my jacket up. Immediately I collapsed in the sleep of the exhausted and adrenalin fatigued.

I woke with a start. The food box was swinging and banging against the tree limbs, so I knew there was a bear on it. As silently as possible, I uncovered the rifle, slipped out of the drop cloth bundle, placed the pistol at my knees, and leaned outward on the door fly. I saw a Dark bulk and realized the bear was looking my way. I made a huffing noise as I opened the zipper and brought the rifle up to fire and could not see the bear. I held the rifle at the ready and leaned out past the now open fly and could tell that the food box was still up, and the bear was not in sight.

Not assuming the bear was gone, I woke the two women and said, "Cover your ears. I fired a shot above the brush, rolled out of the tent with the pistol cocked and ready. Nothing happened, and there was no noise of the bear crunching on me, so I stood and turned on the headlamp I had inside the tent door. I wandered around the perimeter of the camp and decided the bear would not come back and walked through the brush toward the meat cooling at the lake edge. Again, no sign of a bear.

I called all clear to the camp from the meat and headed back up to camp. I looked around the lakeshore in the very early morning light and saw a monster moose about two hundred yards along the shoreline. He appeared to be leaving the shore as though he was going to feed there. I froze, watched silently, calculating how to get to him, and realized the wind was right to approach him by sneaking up along the lake edge.

Hoping he was content and busy feeding, I quietly returned to camp. I couldn't hear any noise, so I whispered, "Hello, get up Dane, I think I found your moose. She was up and out of the tent, rifle in hand in less than five seconds. Naked, bruises from the leeches glowing, and said, "Shit, I only have the white coveralls to wear. I asked Tina for something else to wear and caught a purple down sweater and a pair of down pants.

She dressed and slipped on her wet boots, and down to the lake we quietly slunk. When we got to the shore, the moose was not visible. All of a sudden, the moose's head came out of the water and chewed a mouthful of plants from underwater. The entire moose was underwater.

This kill was going to be an easy kill, but not in the water! Dane knew that we had to wait, so we moved down the shore about halfway to the moose, set up her shooting lanes, and when she said she was ready, waited for the next step, the light to come up enough to safely see for a clean killing shot.

It seemed like forever but was probably ten minutes before there was enough light. The moose had moved closer and appeared to be going to feed right past us, headed in the direction of the cooling meat. We could not kill it in the water, so we whispered when its head was underwater and were silent when it raised its head to chew, swallow, and breathe.

The lakeshore past the cooling racks had a finger of a gravel bar sticking out into the lake. I knew the moose would come out of the water if it fed that far along the lake edge. So, we moved along the shore when the head was underwater and eventually were where Dane could shoot it atop the gravel bar. Hopefully, now we were finally set up in the right place.

Patience. Hunting is as much about patience as hunting is about the actual killing. We watched this moose come within about twelve to thirteen feet of us, and we still couldn't shoot it. If she shot it in the water, the chances of losing it in the lake were big. Wounded, floundering around, spotting us, and fleeing into deep water to bleed out and sink. Lot's more reasons; however, any one of them was enough to require the wait for the moose to leave the water.

Dane would cuddle her rifle until the head started out of the water when she would get set to shoot if this was the last bite that it would chew before leaving the lake. About thirty-five minutes later, the moose moved into water only belly deep, and I thought Dane was going to collapse as she held her breath. Back to feeding, raising its head and chewing and repeat.

With its head still underwater, he turned toward us and raised his head, and finally saw us.

He froze for a minute, dipped his head, and then started walking as he raised his head. When his head cleared the water, he deliberately started for the shore. Dane clicked off the safety,

"Click!!"

His ears went back, his nose poked forward, and he was running. Dane waited, waited, and waited. I was beginning to think she wasn't going to shoot when she folded him up with a single shot.

I stood to keep my eye on him, only to see him not moving at all. He was dead.

Tina said, "I got it all on my movie camera. I saw him raising his head faster and turned the camera on him as he came out of the water, all the way until she fired. It should be fun to watch."

Tina was able to walk to him at the edge of camp just before the food box tree. She was clearing the weeds, the brush and making a place to take a picture of Dane and the moose.

Dane said, "I gotta pee."

She walked a little ways away in the brush and was back in minutes for pictures with the largest smile I had seen yet. She touched the massive antlers, removed a wet plant hanging from a brow time, and patted it on the shoulder. "Thank you, the spirit of moose. Thank you for the gift of this sustenance. Thank you for this animal's long life, and thank you for the joy I feel in this experience. I do not take it lightly and pledge not to waste any of this moose."

Tina and I looked on in quiet as she was paying her respects. We realized together that Dane was our kind of hunter. Always working for a safe, clean shot and having the practice necessary to shoot as Dane had. We, too, said a respectful word or two to the carcass of this magnificent animal.

We shared salutations, congratulations, pictures, hugs, and the satisfaction of a good kill.

I went to the supply box, dug out the sharpening stone, touched up the knives' edges, and began the task of breaking down the moose to keep the meat sweet and cooled. I cut, they bagged and wrestled the pieces to the lake edge where they would cool. Dane had planned to do a German head mount, but she changed her mind when she had her six-footer and decided to cape it for a full head mount.

I removed the flanks, ribs, liver, heart and then skinned the shoulder. We folded the cape over the head and removed the front shoulders. When I had the rolled cape off the neck, they helped me bag it and haul it to the lake edge. The cape weighed about one-hundred to one-hundred-twenty pounds as it was wet from the lake. The antlers weighed much more.

It was just eleven AM when we could call it quits, having rolled the gut pile into a large puddle of water right beside the carcass.

I didn't like the bloody site of the butchering so close to camp, but that is what we had to live with. Moving the gut pile could work. It might reduce the smell, but a smart bear will find that gut pile and claim it for a couple of days. Camp life would require constant vigilance.

We all went down to the lake and washed the blood away from our bodies. The necessity for Dane to change led her to be naked at the lake edge, so she took a bath. I could not believe that she could sit in that cold lake. I couldn't.

I cooked a little of the caribou back strap, bacon, eggs, hash browns, and poured Baileys for brunch while the two of them looked for Dane's clothes. They aired out the sleeping bags, straightened up the tent, and finished about when I was ready to dish up the meal.

We sat and decided that I would hunt the rest of the day beyond her campsite. I would meet them there at four o'clock if it would work for me, and we would move her camp over to our spot. She expected her pilot to drop in three days from then, so we planned to set up for her to be here at least that long.

They would go over after lunch, sort through the camp, and pack the stuff to carry to our camp. On my way back, if I missed them at four o'clock, I would pick up a load and then return to our camp.

I planned to glass the lakeshore that afternoon after returning to camp. I always thought it was a way to collect or at least locate a moose near the camp. But sunrise and sunset were the ideal time to see feeding moose in the shallows, so I didn't mind returning to camp in the early evening. Intuitively I thought I had seen that luck used up this morning when Dane killed her bull.

Not measuring the antlers before I left to hunt nagged at me. I couldn't understand how I didn't care about it enough to measure it. I was grousing at myself mentally when I heard something crashing through the brush off to the side of my path. I froze and saw a glint of blonde hair or fur between the brush about one-hundred-fifty feet away. I dropped the pack, braced the rifle for a quick shot, and searched the brush for more information.

Suddenly, the blond turned dark brown, coming straight at me, and fast. I threw the pack as far toward the fur as I could and raised the rifle to my shoulder. The fur broke through into a small clearing; I saw a huge bull charging, so I fired in self-defense.

The fur disappeared. I braced the gun again, chambering another round, and pushed on the safety—Nothing, silence. I waited. My heart was beating at breakneck speed, and I was soaking wet from the adrenalin and fear. Waiting was sheer agony. Not moving was easier. Nothing.

I had to recall the shot. My mind wouldn't settle enough yet, so I started controlling my breathing and settled my nerves by looking around where I was standing. I was at the edge of a small clearing of two-foot-high brush. I was standing on a rise, probably a heaved hummock. I could see down into the brush around me, and nothing moved. I began to range my eyes farther and farther away, looking for I didn't yet know what.

Then I saw it. The brush fell sharply away about ten feet in front of me. I was standing on the edge of a narrow, brush-filled, low drainage pointing downhill to the lake about a quarter-mile downhill. As I slowly moved to my right, I had a clear view of the clearing below. At the close edge of the clearing, I could see the blonde fur. It wasn't clear enough to identify, but it wasn't moving, and the area around it wasn't disturbed, so whatever it was that I shot collapsed about twelve feet from me, over the edge of the hill I was on. The wall of the hill was rock and was the last thing between me and the fur.

The fur was under the overgrowth along the ledge. The overgrowth was alder scrub, which was almost impenetrable. I had to circle the ledge, and when I approached the fur, I realized it was a very big moose. All I could see was its haunches and one hoof. It was completely folded up under the alder. It must have fallen forward at high speed to be that deep into the alder and almost invisible under cover of the scrub.

I was disgusted, I had ended my hunt, and I probably had killed an illegal moose. All of these years, hoping for the permit and then wasting the tag and committing a gun-related crime, I was disappointed with myself.

The regulations said, 'A bull moose with antlers over seventy-two inches at its widest point.'

I had killed a haunch and a hoof. Neither of which seemed to reflect a moose the size I needed. A moose is tough to judge in plain sight. I had been forced to fire or be impaled on antler tines. Without a chance to size my potential killer, I knew the odds were that it was less than seventy-two inches.

To determine what I had killed, I set down the rifle, my pack, my jacket and began to crawl into the alders to see more of this moose. I was thinking, if it had seventy-two-inch antlers, it would not have fallen so far and deep into the alders. If I shot it cleanly, how did it cross this little clearing after I shot? How big could a moose be in that confined space where this one was laying?

I had to give up my attempts to see what it was. I would need a saw to cut out the scrub and alder to be able to butcher. I draped the site with hunter orange flagging and flagged my way as far as Dane's camp, about a mile away. I grabbed a load that was headed to our camp and trucked on over to the campsite. When I got there, I saw in the tent where they were lying side by side asleep. I softly called them, and when they came out of the tent, I explained what I could.

Dane had her clothes on now and was putting on her boots, as I explained. Tina slipped on a pair of boots, grabbed her pack board, stuffed it with butchering supplies, and hoisting her rifle, started for Dane's camp, and didn't look back.

Dane was shortly behind her, and I followed with a clean water bottle and a snack of jerky and a beer.

Dane and Tina hoofed to Dane's camp much faster than I did and were already following the flagging away toward the kill when I passed through her camp. There were two piles of things, one tarped at the lake edge and the other lined up in the camp area. I also noticed a meat drying rack at the lake edge, and I knew I would fill it with this kill rather than pack it the extra half-mile to my camp.

When I got to the kill, they had started clearing the area. I could see that the moose had fallen in a hole and was actually almost hanging head downward. The little I could see of the front of the moose, the antlers looked gigantic.

We all worked to get the space clear enough to cut the moose out of the scrub. I weigh-in at 239, Tina scaled in at 129 at the flight service, and I would guess Dane at 120. This moose weighed upward of 1200 pounds and was in a hole. A hole covered with alders, weeds, willows and dead limbs, and wood all around. Not fun. But that is called harvesting what you shoot. I knew it would be dark soon, so I wanted to break the moose up enough to cool it overnight.

I had butchered while tied to the side of a scree slope when sheep hunting, but this looked more difficult because it was late, and we hadn't even reached for the butchering tools.

I could reach the haunches, so I carved them loose, and when I cut off the second one, the carcass seemed to settle down further into the hole. I placed the haunches on a drop cloth, quickly broke them down, bagged the pieces, and asked them to struggle back to Dane's camp and place the meat bags near if not on the meat racks at the lake edge. I would continue to work on the balance of the meat.

Not wanting to leave the carcass and head attached, as a bear would break the antlers off and start dragging and covering the guts and carcass with dirt, I worked my way down to the shoulder on top, cut it off, broke it down, bagged it and then pulled it up out of the hole about the time they returned with empty pack boards. They strapped the meat bags on and took off while I had crawled back in the hole to attempt to get the other shoulder apart. They were back before I finished, and I used their help to move the remaining carcass enough to reach the top of the second shoulder.

The shoulder was easy to sever and then break down, but I was down in the hole, and the meat was above me. Tina and Dane removed the meat, and again we inched the carcass for access. They took off one more time. I finished the cape to the atlas. When I had the atlas separated, I was able to drag the breastbone out of the hole, where I broke it down and bagged it. I crawled back in the hole and managed to clear enough alder to get everything except the head, cape, and antlers out of the hole.

I bagged the heart, liver, and the rest of the bits and pieces and decided to stack the cut alder and scrub over the hole for the night and hope nothing destroyed it. I had run out of light down in the hole.

I hefted a heavy pack and traipsed back to Dane's camp. The two of them were just finishing securing her stuff for the night, so we unloaded my pack, left the meat on the rack, and trooped back to our camp. I grabbed a change of clothes, bug dope, a flashlight, soap, scrub brush, a towel, a beer and went down to the lake to clean up.

The blood was everywhere. I finally gave up, and waded out into the lake, sat on the rocks, and scrubbed as much as I could see in the failing light. I rose out of the water and was immediately covered with insects, and sprayed everywhere I could, then I got dressed and returned to camp. Tina and Dane were setting the table, and I picked up one of three cups of alcohol, not caring what it was.

Tina said, "If only Carl could have seen this day with us. He dreams and talks about such days with pride and exaggeration. We will not have to exaggerate at all. When we tell this hunting story, no one will believe us.

We had a great dinner in the waning light. As we finished, three caribou walked past between us and the lake. We toasted to them, "Thank you, the spirit of the moose. What an adventure you gave us. We will remember you forever. You died valiantly and made us earn all of what we have gained."

After my third cocktail, I decided to check on the meat from yesterday. I took a lantern, went down to the meat racks where I saw nothing had been there, so I went back to camp for the fourth drink and told them the story of the 'moose in the hole' kill.

I clearly didn't have to exaggerate since they had seen the mess. I did appreciate their assistance, saying this was better than having to stand guard over a fresh kill all night, which without their strenuous efforts would have been required.

We had a couple of Peppermint Schnapps shots neat, and all went to bed making the same arrangement as the night before, except I had a sleeping bag.

I looked at my watch as I pulled a sleeping bag over me. It was eight-thirty.

When I woke, it was still dark. I laid still, listening. All I heard was the normal sounds of the wild. I looked at my watch; it was five-thirty, an hour before dawn. I snuggled down, stretching sore muscles and waking up. After a half-hour, I got up. I fixed coffee, made biscuits, sorted out some bulk sausage, made gravy, and mixed the pancake batter. I found the syrup, jellies, and butter crock. I set the four rock table, opened the flap on the tent, handed coffee and Baileys to them, and told them breakfast was ready now.

They came out of the tent in ten minutes and back from the lake in another ten minutes. We sat to eat and never said a word until someone said, "Fucking A. Breakfast at dawn in the fresh air of the wild of Alaska."

We ate on while I told them I would get the rest of the moose and return about two o'clock. I asked what they were going to do. Almost together, they said, 'Kill a Caribou. I reminded them that they should kill from camp and laughed because of where I shot the moose."