While my son and grandson were tracking a bull elk yesterday, I was north of them in Canada and spent most of the same hours of the day tracking a moose, though with less success than they had.
No sight of any game during my dawn drive into my favorite spot, and no tracks in the half inch of snow other than rabbits, coyotes and one fresh lynx. I edged 100 yards into a patch of timber that almost always has a moose or a few bedded in it, and called for 45 minutes. No response though I was set up near three fresh moose beds. I tracked what appeared to be the freshest of those moose to another fresher bed 100 yards uphill in the timber, and saw where that moose had stood and listened to my calling. I don't know if if was a bull or a cow, and only spike or fork horn bulls are legal. It is nearly two months late in the year to be mating calling but in the past I have had an adolescent bull whose hormones were still hopefull come check out cow in heat calls this late in the year.
I followed the tracks of this moose. As soon as it knew I was following it led me through difficult patches of thick brush, etc. It wandered back and forth uphill almost to a clearcut on the far side of the timber, then doubled back to get downwind of me, an interesting trail at least to me. It would speed up with long floating strides, then turn and watch its back trail though I never saw it with careful glassing through holes in the brush. It would jump over mean limby head high deadfalls which were miserable for me to crawl under. There is so much deadfall poles and brush under the timber in that area that I made a lot of noise but I stayed with it for 2 1/2 hours out of curiosity and in hope the moose might make a mistake. It didn't.
It was a pleasant surprise that I could handle that much walking, crawling etc. without fatigue, plus the long walk around via road when I bailed out of the thick stuff to a road high on the mountainside on the other side of the timber area. The total track distance probably covered less than 3/4 mile.
Thats a better way to spend a day then how I spent mine :laf:
The very few times we have enough snow to track game where I live, it is always a fun adventure. Sounds like you had a great time.
Loved the write up. It's amazing that you can read and 'see' all that as you track along.
Moose are certainly a lot smarter than I had thought.
Moose 1, Clyde 0 :biggrin:
Bring on round 2
Quote from: Dave on November 13, 2014, 06:36:11 AM
Moose 1, Clyde 0 :biggrin:
That sums it up well, much more concise! :biggrin:
Moose season ends on Nov. 15 and I may get out for one more day tomorrow.
A great day in the outdoors. :highclap:
Pat
Sounds like a lot of fun to me too!! Good Luck on your next outing!! :yoyo: :highclap: