Lil Moose

[HaMeR]

Very nice pics you got Todd. Sure is some beautiful country up there!! Congratulations on a freezer filler too!! I think ya done rather well on that trip!!   

[slagmaker]

Thank you for taking us along on yoru trip. Loved the scenery.

Tell us a little more about the moments right before ya put the squeeze on the trigger.

[iahntr]

Congratulations Todd !  You know how I feel, not just the size of the rack that makes it a trophy or not.   
Love all the pictures, Thanks for takin the time to put em up. "12 Griz", Dang !! That woulda been cool ! Love the track pics too, looks
like there's some pretty good sized ones there too. Look forward to any other details or pics ya share.

[Yotehntr]

  Very cool Todd!  Thanks for taking us along! ... Saw this post earlier (from work) had to wait till I got home so I could see the pics! 

[weedwalker]

Congrats on the moose Todd.
That's beautiful country and some great pictures.

[Todd Rahm]

   Let’s see if I’m any good at this, and over look all and any spelling and grammar errors.

   We set out on Sept 14th, on a trip that took us about 8-9 hours to make, to get to the hunting area. After getting camp all set up we cruised around in the boat for a while scouting and to see if we could get lucky at all.  We didn’t find much the first night, but found some areas worth looking at, so we headed back to camp for the night, with expectations to be up at 06:30 and out on the water. Where we were at the weather was crazy nice by day (70-75 and sunny hot), and cold at night (Low 30’s which ended up in the mid 20’s by the end of the week). Which meant sun burned and bugs by day, and frozen water and the reluctance to go out of the tent at night to relive yourself…..COLD. This first night we weren’t even asleep yet when the wolves cranked up, probably with in a ¼ mile from the tent.  They were chasing something and got what ever it was (just guessing from the God awful cry we heard). Then again they woke us up at 02:30 with the same routine.  The funny thing was for a night or two it would be the wolves, but when they moved out of the area the coyotes would start up with the vocals, and close too.
  First full day out we found the area with all the bear and wolf tracks, with ONE set of huge bull tracks running right through the middle. Following this bull was a HUGE griz, with a best/safe guess 9&1/2 foot bear (I’m thinking 10 foot +).  My hand span is 9&1/2 inches and his pad was about an inch or so wider. He wasn’t fooling around either, he was dead set on following that moose, and from the tracks it looks like he even ran after him for a lil’ bit. I thought he was hunting that bull, but an old timer told me the big griz follow the bulls to their breeding grounds because they know there will be a bunch of cows gathered up (easier pickings then the big fellas with the racks). It was over all a pretty quiet day, but saw a tone of bear and wolf tracks and about 6-7 eagles hung out around us. I managed to see the largest bear track and the largest wolf track I had ever seen at this spot (take the average wolf track and double the size of it, and it was way bigger then my spread out hand.) Also found a spot where the wolves beaded for the night. Couldn’t tell ya how many were there in the group, but there was more wolf scat in this area then ya could get from one of the wolves at the local zoo over a three month period. It was crazy. Well we headed back prior to dark. On the way back I seen a huge griz we put the stock on, but he vanished into the surrounding wooded area. I also spotted a huge wolverine, and tried to get to him, but this one was far more skittish then I thought they would be. I probably could have tried a 300+ yard shot on him, but figured the target zone for my .338 on him at that far was to small and risky to take. But Hey, I got to see him and that in itself was cool to watch. Back to camp for some Mountain House grub and a good nights sleep, so I thought. After eating and racking out, I was awoken to a bear fishing for the salmon about 20 yards from the tent.  No biggy I thought, he is concentrating on the salmon. So I went back to sleep to be awoken again, by the local neighbor hood wolves. A lot of these sounds I just learned to sleep through after a couple of days.
     Got up the next morning, and went out and confirmed the bear tracks. About a 6 footer that seemed to be more about avoiding us, as us him, cause he walked around camp and then back down to the river. We got ready and headed out for a new spot, and the spot we would end up hunting the rest of the trip. This spot we would hunted by morning, return to camp to fish middle day, and then head back to for evening hunting. The morning was uneventful but darn toe cold that’s for sure. Went back to camp and messed around a bit for the day (I think I napped) then about 4:30 pm we went back out. We worked our way to a few open spots (using the topo maps on my iphone. A very handy app Rich!) We found a good spot and Ken started calling. He wasn’t 10 minutes into calling, when you started to hear the wolves communicate. Two to three wolves about a mile away, on the other side of the river from us, and one answering them about a half a mile on the other side of us. I told my buddy they were probably telling the loner to come and check us out (Little did I know I was right). We were situated over an open area with the wind blow cross ways to our right, into a very thickly covered and wooded area. About 20 minutes into there came a warning bark so loud and so close that it sent a shiver up my spine. I came up off the ground with quickness, and was ready to fire at nano-second if I had too.  You guys that have been busted by coyotes that have winded ya close up, multiply the volume by about 50. Holy sheet it scared the crap out of me loud. Best guess was he was about 25-30 yards into the trees from us. Ken and I discussed it a little bit about 20 minutes before it would be dark, we weren’t worried about the one wolf and figured he busted us, but we sure didn’t know where the rest of his clan was and figured we didn’t want to find out at dark time (From the sounds of this pack or packs at night, I bet there was damn near 30 of them running the area) So we scurried along to the boat through the woods, right through the area the wolf barked at us from. We get back to the boat and are loading up when I see a nice 6-7 foot grizz about 250 yards down the bank from us and appears to be fishing for salmon. I didn’t mention this yet, but Ken and I kinda had an agreement, I had first shot at a moose and he had first shot at a bear. Kens comfort zone for his 30-06 is somewhere around 150 yards, so we decided to kick the boat out and just float down to him in total silence. As we were floating, Ken was taking his rifle out of the boot and hit a metal sling stud on the side of the boat, and the bear took his salmon and went up a cliff and into the woods lickety split like.  Back to camp for another nice night of cold and night time noises that go bump up against the tent when ya sleep.
 Woke up to a new day with a kinda slower start then expected, but Ken had spotted two moose and said he thought they were both forks. So we parked the boat, and put on waders at I think 32 degrees outside (Damn it was cold). He lead the way and I followed, but we made the stock through several channels of waste deep waters. As he was rounding a corner in the water (I couldn’t see because of the brush on the corner) he motioned for me to stop. He then looked at me and stated “Two forks, I’ll shoot the first one you shoot the second one.” At this point I’m good with that and I trust Ken’s judgment to tell me it’s a legal fork, but he throws in s stymie before I even see the moose yet. He says “make sure it’s a fork”. Now I’m thinking he don’t know for sure and have to verify it myself. I lean around the corner to see his crossing the water and feeding about 35 yards away, and there’s no doubt he is a fork. Just as I start to catch sight of the second one, he notices Ken out in the water and looks right at us. At this point and can’t tell if he’s a fork or not and Ken didn’t tell me he for sure was, so I tell Ken I can’t tell. During this time the first moose steps up on to a bank about ten feet way and walks behind some alders. Just as the second turns its head and offers a good view of his forked horns. With a few seconds left he offers a quartering away shot (My favorite type) and I aim through the vitals for the opposite front shoulder and squeeze the trigger on my .338. Not a flinch from the moose, not a puff of hair during impact…..nothing. I’m thinking to myself “Please don’t tell me I missed” Ken was thinking I missed too. The moose takes a couple of steps up on to the bank and gone behind the alders. So Ken takes off to chase what he thinks is both as I cut around to make sure they don’t cut across the water on the back side. I wait for about ten minutes and then I hear Ken whistle at me so I go around to the point where the moose exited the water and he gives me the thumbs up. Not only did I hit the moose while he stood in the water, he had only made it ten yards to where he fell over dead with out any fight or noise. The bullet entered the lower ribs on the left, blew out the lungs and heart, center punched his scapula (shoulder blade) on the far side and left the copper bullet in the hide, minus all the lead. 09:15 am moose down!!!! We had a chance at dropping to forks (Probably last year’s twins) side by side, but do to a few errors we didn’t, and these were the ONLY two moose we saw the whole trip.  We went back to the boat to get the gear, and start the skinning process. I think some where around 1:30 to 2:00 we had it done and the moose packed back to the pick up point. Not a big feller, so it only took both of us three trips to get him out of there. Got back to camp, erected a meat hanging pole, hung the meat and placed a tarp around the side that may get some sun. Thanks to the cold nights and the shade of the trees and tarp the meat stayed real cold through out the day. Now to get Ken a moose or bear, which ever came first, but first a good hot meal and another good night of sleep?
  We got up again and spotted a griz on the way in, but do to some for unseen sand bars we didn’t get a chance at him. Nothing at all spotted on the morning watch, but cold toes. So we headed back to camp for lunch and some fly fishing. The fishing was freaking great. It was 15-20’ dollies all day long with occasional fat grayling thrown in the mix for fun. If you wanted the limit was 5 dollies day which could have been acquired in about 15-20 minutes of fishing. The eagles were fun to watch and I even had one fly right at me while I was fighting a dolly. He came at me at about 3 feet off the water like a fighter jet and right before he got to the fish on the end of my line and about 3 feet away, he banked hard right a flew up to a tree to watch. Well fishing was fun, but time to go back and start the evening shift as things cooled down.  We were sitting on a ridge over looking the kill spot the moose was in and doing some calling, when I looked to my right and noticed two bears play on the bank about 300 yards away. I told Ken there was two but not sure how big they were, we watched for a few seconds and a bigger bear came walking out. It ended up being a sow griz and her triplets. We ended up watching them for several hours along the bank as mom was teaching them the ways of life. A real fun experience for sure. It was time to go so we loaded up in the boat and pushed it to float down and past them. We got with in 100 yards when mom looked up and saw us quietly floating towards them, and she let a out a “wolf” that sent her and her three fat rolly polly kids strait up an embankment that was solid dirt at about 40-50 high. I’m talking strait up. Its like they could climb a brick wall if they wanted too. Nice way to cap off the evening.  Well back to camp and time to check the meat as we did several times a day, both packing pistols, flash lights and making lots of noise. Well the good news is the meats untouched but there s a fresh pile of bear sheet 10 feet away. Go figure? Either its a young bear that’s doesn’t know what moose meet is, a vegetarian bear, or he is so used to having fresh stuff, he turned his nose up to the meals in a sack. Back at camp enjoying another Mountain House, we were watching the trees across the way as they were back lit by the moon and listening to what sound like a great horned owl and a screech owl go at it vocally. We located the screech owl in the top of one tree but couldn't see the other owl, just heard him and kinda new where his general location was. A few seconds later we watched the screech owl take off and fly into the top of another tree with some speed, we could her him hit that other owl, then you heard what sound like something (Owl) falling through the tree branches and hit the ground with a  thud. The screech owl then let another screech then flew off. I figured it was a territorial thing and the Great Horned owl lost the battle. This trip was like my own little Discovery Channel.  
  Got up and did it all over again. This time we stalked a griz into the kill site and if ya haven’t done this in thick brush, your definitely on high alert status, gun is loaded and safety is off.  Fortunate for the bear he must of snuck out the back door. Saw several coyotes this day we could have taken but chose not to shoot so we didn’t scare off any potential moose or bears in the area. Saw another bear we couldn’t get to, so we just watched him for a while, and watched a family of mergansers fish for hours (these things are comical in their pursuit of fish.)  The next few days were like the last with better fishing then hunting, but we saw a group of swans, about 30 or so, and some sheep to top it off. I managed to shout a handful of grouse before we decided to leave.
  Spent 12 hours of the first day back processing moose and the whole next day making burger, sausage and packaging. Over all it was probably one of the best trips I have been on weather wise, animal wise and fishing wise, but we should have came home with another fork and two bears. Guess that’s how we learn and man it was fun.

I'm sure I left some out and I'll add pics as I get them from Ken.

[FinsnFur]

   Holy crap...I can't believe it let you type all that.
When ever I try that it trips my own security flags on the server.

You better throw some water on your keyboard and cool that sucker off.
I better start reading now, If I'm going to make to work on time Monday.

[Todd Rahm]

 

I found a loop hole Jim. 

[KySongDog]

Absolutely GREAT write-up of an awesome hunting trip!  I felt like I was right there with you, Todd!   Thanks!      

[alscalls]

      Man that sounds like fun!!!!!!!

[pitw]

That told a story .   I had that little pistol of yours loaded the whole time and looked over my shoulder a time or two here .  Thanks for taking me along on this most wonderful of trips.

[Todd Rahm]

Barry, I couldn' tell ya how many times my hand was on that pistol during the trip, both in the tent at and on stands as we called moose in some thick pucker brush. (insert biting nail smilie)

[pitw]

Barry, I couldn' tell ya how many times my hand was on that pistol during the trip, both in the tent at and on stands as we called moose in some thick pucker brush. (insert biting nail smilie)

I believe

[iahntr]

Great story Todd ! Thank You very much for takin the time to write it up and share it with us. 
Sounds like an awesome hunt, with a lotta action ! A guys gotta be on his toes with that many
bear around. I can imagine the pucker power of trackin one through that thick stuff ! 
Congrats again on the moose.

                                 

[vvarmitr]

Some how I feel you aren't telling us the whole story. 


Man, w/ all those bear & wolf tracks I'm surprised you found any moose at all!
And the wolf track that was bigger than your hand? 


Wonderful write up Todd!!!! 
Between you & Scott I got a real hankering to go to Alaska now! 

[Dave]

What a great trip that must have been.  Alaska is such an incredible state - thanks for all the pics and the time spent writing up the story.
-Dave

[Todd Rahm]

Your welcome Dave, and I yet to get the pics from Ken. When he sends them over, I'll post them up. 

[JohnP]

Todd, thank you for all the wonderful picture and the story.  I have only hunted Alaska once and it was a hunting trip that I'll never forget.  By the way ain't no such thing as a "Lil Moose".