30.   With the first month of moose hunting in the books and three animals in the freezer, November quickly arrived. This month we will head to Trepassey on Remembrance Day weekend four a moose hunting trip at the Bassan Family Camp.  It's hard to get a weekend where everyone is available, Troy was scheduled to work, Pietro couldn't arrive until Saturday evening, and Dad would have to go back to town Saturday afternoon.

29.   During this time Sooley and his father completed their trip to Millertown successfully filling their tags with a beautiful four point Bull.

28.   Thursday evening under heavy rains, Bassan and I loaded up his 1997 Foreman 400 & Project Foreman, a load of grub, necessary hunting gear and hit the highway to Trepassey via Salmonier Line. Randy left from Bay Roberts with his Can Am Outlander in tow and met us at Salmonier Line for the drive down the Southern Shore. This way we could be up and at 'em early Friday morning.

27.   Friday morning under clear sunny skies we headed in the country towards Doctor's Pond. We parked the bikes, Andrea and I went left across the bog and Dad went right. We heard a shot just a few minutes later, Dad spied a beautiful young bull but failed to connect a successful shot.

26.   We tracked the animal without success, the shot was a complete miss with zero sign of blood or fur on the ground.

25.  

24.

23.   We spent the rest of the day hunting all the country as far as Black Rock with no further sighting of animals and not a lot of fresh sign.

22.   We came out of the woods around supper time, Dad started preparing an awesome Turkey Dinner while Bassan and I headed over to Eddy's to get a pickup load of firewood for the camp.

21.  Saturday morning we hopped on the bikes and headed to a different area known as the herding grounds. Today the weather was overcast and extremely windy. Without frost we suspected animals would probably be deep in the woods and hard pressed to move.

20.   Bassan was in the lead when we arrived to the first bog and a beautiful cow was stood up on the far side. Unfortunately by the time he had his rifle ready the animal disappeared up over the hill. We were in pursuit for awhile but she went deeper into the deep woods in a direction where we couldn't cut her off.

19.   This beautiful grassy meadow is a moose haven with piles of fresh moose sign covering the ground and nearby cutover.

18.   We drove further in the trail on bikes then walked for a few hours looking for animals and/or sign. Late in the afternoon Bassan found a pair of cows deep in the woods near the meadow, made a shot to get them to move but they were having no part of it!

17.   That evening Peitro arrived just as we got back to camp where we had another awesome home cooked meal, then Dad loaded up for the drive back to Bay Roberts.

16.   Sunday morning the weather was clear and sunny but still very windy. Again, without frost we knew animals wouldn't be on the move.

15.   Bassan, Pietro and I headed back to Doctor's Pond and set up in a few different places with Bassan driving the woods.

14.  

13.   Late in the afternoon the gusting winds plaguing our hunt finally dropped out. Bassan and Peitro checked some cutovers on the way back to camp while I made a mad dash across country on Project Foreman towards the herding grounds. I parked the bike part way in and started walking. I could hear another bike further over in the country on the other trail which turned out to be someone heading to the same place from a different direction. When I was 3/4 of the way in the trail the other bike stopped and I heard the all to familiar crack of a rifle as the boys made a successful harvest. Once again, lucky timing is a large part of successful moose hunting!

12.   Monday morning after too many very early rises, I enjoyed the holiday sleeping in while Bassan, Pietro and finally Eddy (who was feeling better after missing out the first three days of hunting) jumped in the Jeep and headed towards the old dump site just outside of town. The weather was perfect with sunny skies, no wind, and beautiful frost covering the countryside.

11.   The boys hunted all morning and were just turning back towards the Jeep when Bassan spotted a pair of Moose far off to the East. He and Eddy took off around the back of the hill to cut the animals off. After a few minutes of sprinting across the open country Bassan was in position and connected a successful shot with my Browning BAR 30.06 successfully filling the Gun Club tags.

10.   The boys called me back at camp so I loaded up the two Honda Foremans and met them at the gravel road to ride in to field dress and retrieve our game.

9.

8.   The Moose boxes are very handy and definitely a great way to haul out an animal using a bike. We can fit one half in at a time securing the load firmly with a single strap.

7.   

6.   Monday was the last day of hunting for Bassan and I as we were both scheduled back to work Tuesday morning. We got back to camp with the bikes still in tow, loaded up the rest of our gear and headed back to town just after lunch. Peter would be staying in Trepassey to try and fill his tags later in the week with Eddy. We stopped to Troy's place in St. Phillip's to hang the moose in his garage where it would be processed, bagged and distributed to groups within the Gun Club later in the week. The club uses meat from our Not For Profit license to make meals such as soups, stews and sausages which are served at various events throughout the year at the club.

5.

4.   Peter and Eddy and punched some hours in the woods and successfully filled his tags on Wednesday harvesting a young bull near the herding grounds.

3.  

2.   With our hunting pool's 2nd moose harvested we set about cutting up the quarters at Troy's place. This time we took our trimmings to a local butcher to have have sausage rounds and regular ground meat prepared and packaged.

1.  The sausage rounds and ground were great, and were a nice change from regular sausages. With all but Dad's license filled we had a very successful hunting season so far. If the weather cooperates we may get back in the woods in December or January for one last crack at filling Dad's tags, if not he will still receive plenty of meat for his freezer.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith